The Nvidia GPU Technology Conference might have come and gone without any mention of next generation graphics cards, but one memory supplier has confirmed it will utilize GDDR6 video memory.
SK Hynix confirmed with Gamers Nexus that its GDDR6 memory will be ready for mass production in three months for use in several upcoming Nvidia products. If true, this would put the rumored GeForce 11 series launch right around July – but more likely later in 2018.
We’re taking the purported launch window with great skepticism as the original report is going by a speculation. SK Hynix being ready to supply ample VRAM chips doesn’t necessarily dictate when Nvidia’s next graphics cards will launch. If anything, we might be able to say they won’t launch anytime sooner than July with this information.
The costs and benefits of GDDR6
This knowledge does potentially give us a clearer idea of the capabilities of the upcoming Nvidia GTX 1180 and 1170. Based on early specs GDDR6 memory should deliver double the speed of GDDR5 used in current-gen graphics cards like the Nvidia GTX 1080, however, at the cost of requiring 1.35v to operate and being 20% more expensive to produce – which could in turn lead to higher prices at launch.
According to Wccftech, GDDR6 chips could come in denser 2GB capacities, so we could well see graphics cards with up to 16GB of video RAM this year. Previously, the greatest amount of video memory we saw on a single card was 12GB with the Nvidia Titan Xp.
The somewhat official news from the memory maker also could end the debate of whether the forthcoming Nvidia Turing GPUs will come equipped with H2MB memory as we’ve seen on multiple Nvidia Volta cards.
- We could really use some new best graphics cards, honestly
Via Guru 3D
