Wednesday, January 2nd 2019
GDDR6 Memory Costs 70 Percent More than GDDR5
The latest GDDR6 memory standard, currently implemented by NVIDIA in its GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards, pulls great premium. According to a 3DCenter.org report citing list-prices sourced from electronics components wholeseller DigiKey, 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips from Micron Technology cost over 70 percent more than common 8 Gbps GDDR5 chips of the same density, from the same manufacturer. Besides obsolescence, oversupply could be impacting GDDR5 chip prices.
Although GDDR6 is available in marginally cheaper 13 Gbps and 12 Gbps trims, NVIDIA has only been sourcing 14 Gbps chips. Even the company's upcoming RTX 2060 performance-segment graphics card is rumored to implement 14 Gbps chips in variants that feature GDDR6. The sheer disparity in pricing between GDDR6 and GDDR5 could explain why NVIDIA is developing cheaper GDDR5 variants of the RTX 2060. Graphics card manufacturers can save around $22 per card by using six GDDR5 chips instead of GDDR6.
Source:
3DCenter.org
Although GDDR6 is available in marginally cheaper 13 Gbps and 12 Gbps trims, NVIDIA has only been sourcing 14 Gbps chips. Even the company's upcoming RTX 2060 performance-segment graphics card is rumored to implement 14 Gbps chips in variants that feature GDDR6. The sheer disparity in pricing between GDDR6 and GDDR5 could explain why NVIDIA is developing cheaper GDDR5 variants of the RTX 2060. Graphics card manufacturers can save around $22 per card by using six GDDR5 chips instead of GDDR6.
33 Comments on GDDR6 Memory Costs 70 Percent More than GDDR5
$ 22 for RAM and $ 150 for color diodes! Buy iNgridia! :laugh::laugh::laugh:
GDDR5 does seem to be on its way out though, so that may have effect on that price difference. With other reports Nvidia/AIBs were reported to have large amounts of GDDR5 in stock.
Prices drop once development cost has been clawed back from charging early adopter prices.
It helps a lot for a smoother and more fluid experience. There are some very Bandwidth-heavy scenes in most games that tank the performance harder if the memory bandwidth is not good enough. (especially at 4K which is significantly heavier on the memory bandwidth)
And not only that, even the average FPS increases by 5 percent on the RTX 2070 by overclocking the memory alone; it's not much but proves the point that GDDR6 memory is not useless on the card.
70% is ridiculous. Just by going to Digikey and verifying prices can shed some light:
1) Micron 8Gbit GDDR5 1.5GHz : $18.50
2) Micron 8Gbit GDDR6 1.5GHz : $22.25 (+20%)
3) Micron 8Gbit GDDR6 1.75GHz : $23.58 (+27%)
GDDR5 also became more expensive this year. To be more specific - 40+% more expensive than it was last year.
Not sure out of who's ass did they pull that 70%.
Regarding listed price sources: component-mart.com (or component-mart/shop/center. *[insert your local zone here]) is a scam. So far the only reviews I've managed to find(since I've never heard of them) are either bad or non-existent. Website(s) are ranked in either "scam" or "suspicious" or "non-trustworthy" categories, so this invalidates pretty much the whole article by 3Dcenter.
Shit, if that GDDR5 was really that cheap, they'd be out by now. Just to put this in perspective - $6 for 1.5GHz GDDR5 is comparable to the current retail of old 4Gb GDDR5(overstock most likely), or refurbished 8Gbit chips on Ali (read "used and reballed from dead mining cards").
EDIT: Some reviews
www.trustpilot.com/review/www.components-center.com
www.supplierblacklist.com/2018/11/26/components-mart/
www.supplierblacklist.com/2017/09/09/components-center-review/
Jesus fucking christ, when are you, guys, gonna start doing homework before putting shit on the frontpage?
I'm aware that OEMs buy chips directly from manufacturers and that the price is definitely lower, but I'm also sure that Digikey is not selling 2000ct bulk with 300% markup.
GDDR6 should be materially cheaper to produce than GDDR5 all things being equal simply because it's a smaller node. Market forces (largely the fact that GDDR5 has been around forever where GDDR6 is new) and affecting price more than anything else right now.
this article looks like damage control for NVIDIA :rolleyes:
I miss when sites like this used to dig into the info, less articles (*press releases *) per day and more journalism.
Lower your pace and beef up your stroke ;)