Micron begins deliveries of GDDR5X for next-generation graphics cards

The next generation graphics card offers more news than usual. In addition to the transition to more advanced manufacturing techniques, new memory techniques are on the menu. While HBM2 will offer speeds of 1 TB / s, GDDR5 will also have a successor to the throne in the form of GDDR5X, which will be a more affordable alternative.

Behind GDDR5X is Micron, which announces that deliveries to customers have begun. First out are 8 Gb (1 GB) and 16 Gb (2 GB) memory capsules, which are connected via a 32-bit memory channel. This means that a graphics card with a 256-bit bus width can be equipped with either 8 or 16 GB GDDR5X.

The big news with GDDR5X is doubling prefetch from 32 to 64 bytes at each memory access. In theory, this doubles the bandwidth at a given clock frequency. Initially, the technology will be available at speeds of 10 and 12 Gbps, and in the long run it will be a full 14 and 16 Gbps. This compares to the maximum 8 Gbps offered by GDDR5 or the more common 7 Gbps actually used in end products.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 which has a memory bus of 256 bits has a bandwidth of 224 GB / s with GDDR5 of 7 Gbps. With the first generation GDDR5X at 10 and 12 Gbps, this would go up to 320 and 384 GB / s respectively, while 14 and 16 Gbps raise it further to 448 and 512 GB / s respectively.

First out with the GDDR5X memory technology will be AMD’s and Nvidia’s architectures Polaris and Pascal, respectively, which are expected to be found out during the summer.