Micron to start mass producing GDDR5X memory chips

[drunkenmaster]

HBM2 started mass production 6 months earlier than GDDR5x, which should be an indication on when cards will come that use it. Companies don't arbitrarily start production in the middle of nowhere THEN customers decide they might buy it and stick it on a card. Memory makers know who their customers are and start production 4-6 months ahead of the first product that wants to use that memory is expected to be ready, maybe ready to start being packaged but with a 1-2 month wait till shipping/release of those products, maybe shipping straight away.

I both wouldn't be surprised if HBM2 was on a card sometime around June and wouldn't be surprised if that was an AMD card. For the same reasoning I wouldn't expect a GDDR5x card till probably Oct/Nov time frame. An HBM2 enabled FuryX2, that would be a very good reason to delay release from December till mid this year and it would also fit in very well as a high end part of the new series and give both excellent bandwidth and memory capacity for firepro and enthusiast versions.


Price has a lot to do with capacity and production of memory has a lot to do with demand. If one card is being made to use HBM1 and it's a £400-600 card then capacity will be in the very small scale which pushes price up. Proof of concept and proof of the production chain is a big step, then you have a second memory maker start production, capacity expand for both and more products wanting to use it this year. Effectively last year HBM has capacity/pricing that meant high end only, with production increased significantly I wouldn't be surprised if that meant the medium Polaris was in play for HBM2 this year.

 

[bru]

I suppose it all depends on what memory AMD and NVidia planned to use with what card as those decisions would have been made long ago when the cards were designed and not necessarily knowing exactly when different types of memory would actually be available.