AMD working on GDDR6 memory controller

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 1 Dec 2017 at 18:20

I saw this article mentioned on Reddit:

https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...beitet-parallel-auch-gddr6-speicherinterfaces

Apparently it has been happening for the last two years.

Martini1991 · 1 Dec 2017 at 18:37

I guess HBM didn't pan out then

d_brennen · 1 Dec 2017 at 18:57

Martini1991 said:
I guess HBM didn't pan out then

Companies like AMD, Intel and nVidia never stop R&D. HBM is great but expensive. Maybe some lessons learnt developing the standard will filter down to GDDR6...

Narrack · 1 Dec 2017 at 19:36

d_brennen said:
Companies like AMD, Intel and nVidia never stop R&D. HBM is great but expensive. Maybe some lessons learnt developing the standard will filter down to GDDR6...

I guess there is also the fact HBM would be far too expensive for midrange cards (and by that I mean actual midrange cards i.e 1060 / 580 not a 1080 that some forum users seem to think is midrange!)

Martini1991 · 1 Dec 2017 at 19:46

d_brennen said:
Companies like AMD, Intel and nVidia never stop R&D. HBM is great but expensive. Maybe some lessons learnt developing the standard will filter down to GDDR6...

I'm not sure how it can qualify as great, when the only benefits it gives is allowing AMD to actually release a GPU (Since HBM is more power efficient, and their GPU's are hilariously behind Nvidia in that area)

nashathedog · 1 Dec 2017 at 20:14

d_brennen said:
Companies like AMD, Intel and nVidia never stop R&D. HBM is great but expensive. Maybe some lessons learnt developing the standard will filter down to GDDR6...

It's not been great from the gaming side of things, Fiji's HBM was okay but it only had 4 GB's and while Vega has 8 GB's it's slower and GDDR5x matches it in performance while not being a bugger to fabricate, So far HBM's been a big failure for gaming.

d_brennen said:
Maybe some lessons learnt developing the standard will filter down to GDDR6...

I hope the lesson they've learned is to develop high end gaming cards with GDDR6 next time, not HBM.

Martini1991 said:
I'm not sure how it can qualify as great, when the only benefits it gives is allowing AMD to actually release a GPU (Since HBM is more power efficient, and their GPU's are hilariously behind Nvidia in that area)

If they'd used the same GDDR5 512bit bus memory as was on the Hawaii/Grenada platform they could have spent all the money and man hours they wasted on HBM on the chip itself, Then it would've been likely that they'd of had a better end product. It's a crying shame as they've been doing good things on the software side and it's been wasted on below average high end products.
That said they can still save the day if they drop prices and give consistently good driver support like they did with Fiji.

calken · 1 Dec 2017 at 22:09

There will also be someone working on HBM3.

JediFragger · 1 Dec 2017 at 22:26

calken said:
There will also be someone working on HBM3.

Yup, nVidia

calken · 2 Dec 2017 at 00:03

JediFragger said:
Yup, nVidia

Nah! They have already finished and it's just sat on a shelf waiting.

Marine-RX179 · 2 Dec 2017 at 07:53

calken said:
Nah! They have already finished and it's just sat on a shelf waiting.

Most probably their much faster GPU as well, like how Intel would rather dip-feed the consumer with the quad-core CPUs for years and not brought 6 cores to the mainstream lol

But parts that are expensive as HBM, you can expect not see them except in the premium level products like the Titan (while the 80Ti would probably be using the cheaper memory alternative, like how the 1070Ti vs 1080 is I guess).

Dave2150 · 2 Dec 2017 at 09:19

calken said:
Nah! They have already finished and it's just sat on a shelf waiting.

+1 - all the people laughing at AMD, understand that NVIDIA will have a complete monopoly on the GPU market once AMD withdraws from the mid-high end scene, which I expect them to do soon.

d_brennen · 2 Dec 2017 at 09:33

HBM has several wins over traditional DRAM, notably board space and power consumption, increasingly important metrics today. People harping on about AMDs failures... I'm glad there's one tech company out there pushing the envelope. We'd all be using single core 32bit CPUs and $1k video cards to get reasonable performance without them

Geck0 · 2 Dec 2017 at 10:13

If you build it they will come. Pity the devs don't come a little quicker, no pun intended.

FoxEye · 2 Dec 2017 at 10:31

Martini1991 said:
I'm not sure how it can qualify as great, when the only benefits it gives is allowing AMD to actually release a GPU (Since HBM is more power efficient, and their GPU's are hilariously behind Nvidia in that area)

The only desktop GPUs in the pipeline for 2018 are "12nm" refreshes of existing Vega 56/64.

Like you I don't care to know what their R&D dept are working on. R&D leads to dead-ends all the damn time. So many products got hyped in the R&D stage and then dropped off the face of the Earth.

Geck0 · 2 Dec 2017 at 10:52

FoxEye said:
The only desktop GPUs in the pipeline for 2018 are "12nm" refreshes of existing Vega 56/64.

Like you I don't care to know what their R&D dept are working on. R&D leads to dead-ends all the damn time. So many products got hyped in the R&D stage and then dropped off the face of the Earth.

Wasn't spamming one thread with the same comment enough?

akarypid · 2 Dec 2017 at 11:53

HBM is not going anywhere. People forget that HBM is both faster and consumes less than GDDR: that's a fact. Sure, it's expensive and yields are not as good as everyone would like, but there IS a market where that's not a problem. That market is NOT gaming. Both Nvidia and AMD will keep using it where its maximum bandwidth with minimum power consumption is needed, and price/supply is not an issue: professional (data centre) GPUs.

AMD is just going to do the same thing Nvidia did: go with GDDR6 for gaming cards and HBM3 for professional cards. They can afford this now (thanks to Ryzen). My guess is that previously they just didn't have the budget to do it so they had to choose. Naturally they chose HBM because they make a lot more money selling professional Vega (MI25) to data centres.

Let's just be thankful if they keep giving us some decent high-end gaming GPUs because I'm worried that what happened with Vega will now be a regular occurrence. Navi will come out at 7nm for professional market only and we'll have to wait a year for its 5nm refresh to get an alternative to Nvidia's high-end Ampere. Meanwhile people here will have to spend £2000 pounds for the new Titan and be complaining that:

FoxEye said:
The only desktop GPUs in the pipeline for 2018 are "12nm" refreshes of existing Vega 56/64.

Like you I don't care to know what their R&D dept are working on. R&D leads to dead-ends all the damn time. So many products got hyped in the R&D stage and then dropped off the face of the Earth.

subbytna · 2 Dec 2017 at 11:58

Geck0 said:
Wasn't spamming one thread with the same comment enough?

Some people would only be content with Nvidia as the sole GPU company and us being shafted for £££s for mid range cards. We need AMD or Nvidia would take the **** over and over again until it becomes the norm.

JediFragger · 2 Dec 2017 at 12:01

subbytna said:
We need AMD or Nvidia would take the **** over and over again until it becomes the norm.

And what happens when AMD join in with taking the **** like they have been doing?

Dicehunter · 2 Dec 2017 at 12:02

Dave2150 said:
+1 - all the people laughing at AMD, understand that NVIDIA will have a complete monopoly on the GPU market once AMD withdraws from the mid-high end scene, which I expect them to do soon.

If Nvidia get a monopoly then 970 type cards will be the same price as todays 1080 Ti type cards.

subbytna · 2 Dec 2017 at 12:03

JediFragger said:
And what happens when AMD join in with taking the **** like they have been doing?

Their cards are expensive now yes but can you imagine a Nvidia only world. God help us!