Samsung unveiled the latest in its next-generation memory products, including GDDR7 memory, at its annual Memory Tech Day in San Jose.Along with GDDR7, Samsung is developing Shinebolt HBM3E memory for upcoming AI and compute GPUs. announced.

GDDR7 memory has been in development for some time. It will be used in the next generation Blackwell RTX 50 series and RDNA 4 RX 8000 series graphics cards. Samsung did not reveal too many details, but one of the most interesting little nuggets was the revealed goal of reducing standby power by 50%. This will help reduce overall power consumption when idle, and is also expected to reduce power consumption in multi-monitor settings and during video playback.

GDDR7 memory is set to operate at 1.2V compared to the 1.35V operating voltage of GDDR6 and GDDR6X. Assuming that we see up to 32 Gbps as predicted, a total bandwidth of 1TB/s is possible with a 256-bit bus; with a 384-bit bus, the bandwidth increases by another 50%; with a 384-bit bus, the bandwidth increases by another 50%.

Samsung previously revealed that GDDR7 memory utilizes PAM3 (pulse amplitude modulation) signaling, as opposed to PAM4 in GDDR6X. while PAM4 is suitable for higher frequencies, PAM3 is easier to implement and therefore a more suitable choice for affordable consumer graphics cards is a more suitable choice for affordable consumer graphics cards. This is also why we have not seen affordable GDDR6X cards, even though faster memory would be beneficial given the relatively thin memory buses of the current generation of mid-range GPUs.

PAM3 offers a lower average bit error rate, but given the higher intrinsic performance offered by GDDR7, PAM4 is currently considered the preferred choice. Of course, the door is open to a future GDDR7X standard. Is there any possibility that Micron has something up its sleeve? If the RTX 5090 Ti were to feature a 512-bit bus and GDDR7X, the bandwidth would be over 2 TB/sec. The price for such a card would be too high to say the least, but it looks really tasty. [Given the current release cycle, a GDDR7-equipped card is probably a year away at best. It is expected to be limited to high-end cards. Next-generation entry-level cards are very likely to remain GDDR6, at least until manufacturing is in full swing and it becomes cost-effective enough to consider GDDR6.

Samsung also spoke about next generation HBM3E memory. We would love to see HBM3E memory on gaming graphics cards, but its cost and complexity have ruled it out. According to Samsung, its Shinebolt memory can deliver up to 9.8 Gb/s of bandwidth per pin, which means that a single HBM3E stack has a bandwidth of 1.225 GB/s. This is much higher than the 819 Gb/sec offered by HBM3.

Add multiple stacks and these numbers skyrocket. According to figures obtained from our sister site Anandtech, a flagship GPU could theoretically have 216GB of memory with a staggering 7.35TB/s of bandwidth. In comparison, the reference RTX 4090 has a bandwidth of 1,008 GB/sec, hardly a stretch.

Samsung has not yet stated whether it is mass producing GDDR7, which is not surprising given that it will be at least a year before GDDR7 cards are available. However, it is good that they are talking freely about GDDR7 at this stage, suggesting that it is a mature standard that can be brought to market in large quantities quickly when next-generation cards are introduced.