Just Because It’s Mostly For AI Doesn’t Mean Gaming Won’t Benefit
Micron announced yesterday that they are sampling their first GDDR7 to select customers, heralding the next improvement to hit GPUs and HPC systems. It is fabbed using Micron’s 1β (1-beta) DRAM technology which they state will increase both power efficiency and performance. Micron expects GDDR7 to be 3.1x faster than GDDR6 and 1.5x GDDR6X, offering 32 Gb/s of bandwidth, and on a 384-bit memory bus you could expect to see up to 1.5 TB/s of system bandwidth.
GDDR7 will draw 1.2V and Micron claims it will have a 50% power-efficiency advantage over GDDR6, as well as an improved sleep state that will extend battery life. Those specifications as well as the use of four discrete channels could help them compete against HBM solutions; assuming the price is right and volume is high.
Those last two points are also the key for us gamers. It is unfortunate, but the profit margins on AI products is far more attractive than traditional gaming GPUs which means we have become a secondary market. If supplies are unable to meet demands, it will be gamers that feel the pinch, and if the price can be set significantly above that charged for GDDR6/6X the next generation of GPUs could be even more expensive.
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