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
Meanwhile PS4 reaches 90 million sold units. Let´s guess what will happen when PS 5 launches for 500€, considering this PC hardware price madness. And yes we all can buy 2nd hand hardware; Ryzen prices are very good, RX570 awesome price, gtx 1060 3gb doable, but nvidia and intel are really making PC high-end market a niche and a premium thing, kind of apple. And people are getting tired of that.
The rest of the article is irrelevant because their analysis is based on bad numbers.
Then we have @btarunr misquoting the source and adding a catchy title to the article, which makes matters even worse.
I think my concerns are totally justified in this case, especially since this is not the first time unverified bullshit makes its way to the front page. One mistake can slide through, all of the above - can't (at least not by accident). So in this case it's either laziness or ignorance.
The reason this caught my eye is not because I'm just a random asshole on the internet, it's because I fix electronics (incl. laptops and videocards), and while I don't buy large bulk of chips and I don't order them often, I am at least somewhat familiar with memory prices and the difference between DDR3, DDR4, GDDR5, and GDDR6. If I could get my hands on some brand-new 8Gbit GDDR5 at $5-6 apiece, I'd make a killer buck just on replacing VRAM on defective or former mining cards. In the real world I can only do some GTX 9 and 10-series cards on a case-by-case basis, cause not everyone in Ukraine wants to pay upwards of $100 to get their GPU fixed properly.
Vega GPUs were expensive because... HBM2... their suppliers quadrupled the prices on them making their cost more than their planned launch price. The original target was 300-350.
Everything else that uses HBM2 is a $6k FPGA or server gpu... memory suppliers price fixed... again.
GDDR6 only costing 20% more at best than current (not original) gddr5 prices means Navi should be budget friendly.
PS4 uses GDDR5 and can be sold at a lost and gains made on game sales. GFX cards cant be sold like that.
The difference between GDDR6 and GDDR5
Video memory is a factor that affects the performance of graphics cards. As the next generation version of GDDR5, GDDR6 has been upgraded in the following aspects
level:
1. The memory speed of GDDR6 has been increased from 12Gbps of GDDR5 to 16Gbps, and 18Gbps products are also being planned
Medium, the memory speed has been greatly improved;
2. GDDR6 adopts dual-channel read-write design, while GDDR5X / 5/4/3/2/1 and other versions are all single-channel;
3. The maximum cache capacity of the GDDR6 standard in the future can reach 32Gb, while the most common GDDR5 is 8Gb single
grain;
4. GDDR6 memory bandwidth can reach 16Gbpsx384bit-8 = 768GB / s. Taking GTX 1080 as an example, its display
The memory bandwidth is 11 * 256/8 = 352GB /, the former bandwidth has almost doubled;
5. The operating voltage of GDDR6 is lower than that of GDDR5, which means that the former not only has stronger performance, but also consumes more power.
low.
Simply put, GDDR6 is faster, larger, and more power efficient than GDDR5.
Last but not least, for it's price, we can see the folling picture, I found it on the internet.
From the prices quoted, it can be calculated that total storage costs only about $ 35-45 (GDDR5) or $ 55-75 (GDDR6) for say 8GB GiB. Doubling the amount of storage to 16 GiB would also double the purchase cost, so the storage would cost around $ 70- $ 90 or $ 110-150. Cost factors such as assembly and even the more complex boards are not taken into account.