Tuesday, August 23rd 2016
Third-Generation HBM Could Enable Graphics Cards with 64GB Memory
One of the first drafts of the HBM3 specification reveals that the standard could enable graphics cards with up to 64 GB of video memory. The HBM2 memory, which is yet to make its consumer graphics debut, caps out at 32 GB, and the first-generation HBM, which released with the AMD Radeon Fury series, at just 4 GB.
What's more, HBM3 doubles bandwidth over HBM2, pushing up to 512 GB/s per stack. A 4096-bit HBM3 equipped GPU could have up to 2 TB/s (yes, terabytes per second) of memory bandwidth at its disposal. SK Hynix, one of the key proponents of the HBM standard, even claims that HBM3 will be both more energy-efficient and cost-effective than existing memory standards, for the performance on offer. Some of the first HBM3 implementations could come from the HPC industry, with consumer implementations including game consoles, graphics cards, TVs, etc., following later.
Source:
TweakTown
What's more, HBM3 doubles bandwidth over HBM2, pushing up to 512 GB/s per stack. A 4096-bit HBM3 equipped GPU could have up to 2 TB/s (yes, terabytes per second) of memory bandwidth at its disposal. SK Hynix, one of the key proponents of the HBM standard, even claims that HBM3 will be both more energy-efficient and cost-effective than existing memory standards, for the performance on offer. Some of the first HBM3 implementations could come from the HPC industry, with consumer implementations including game consoles, graphics cards, TVs, etc., following later.
22 Comments on Third-Generation HBM Could Enable Graphics Cards with 64GB Memory
unless for CAD app and workstation, unless some very very niche GPU
that used for both world (gaming and workstation)
Just before 6 years, the high-end cards came with 1.5~3GB... now you have 8GB, that's 2.67x to 5.33x times in 6 years..
If the progress was the same, then after 6 years, you might find 24GB~32/40GB.. thought I guess it will be closer to 24GB by then...
Edit: Based on the Steam Hardware Survey the last time I checked.
Quad crossfire and 16C/32T, or relegate an entire socket to GPU's and have a 16/32 CPU with HBM onboard and second socket be 4 GPU's with an HBM stack as well.
To be fair I cannot imagine the effort that would be required to do quad crossfire between two CPU sockets.
HBM can be used as system Memory, but with some complexities, it's fixed, you can't upgrade, and if you want it to be upgraded then it won't be a real system memory, instead it will act like L4 cache for the CPU which will increase the complexity of the CPU design...
some might guess why not just add 8GB - 16GB of HBM into an APU and this will be more than enough !!... the fact is... APU is designed to give maximum performance on smaller package and cost.. and HBM costs much more than regular DDR4 memory, not to mention the complexity of it...
Regardless of this... a 16C/32T Zen processor with 16~32GB of HBM seems like a killer, but it will surly require a huge socket and maybe 130W TDP