A tech website in China is reporting that the availability of Micron GDDR6X VRAM is presently briefly provide. A lot in order that to satisfy the demand for the most well-liked GPU to make use of that reminiscence, the GeForce RTX 4070, Nvidia might launch a variant with slower, and cheaper, GDDR6 chips.
On the subject of VRAM and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40-series, there’s principally just one alternative: GDDR6X. The RTX 4070, 4080, and 4090 graphics playing cards, in addition to all of the Tremendous variants, use high-speed reminiscence that is unique to Micron. It additionally makes GDDR6 however so do different distributors, comparable to Samsung and SK Hynix, which helps maintain the worth down, although it is not fairly as quick.
Nevertheless, with Nvidia’s dominance of the discrete video card market reliant on a single firm in its provide chain, all it takes are just a few hiccups to impression the chain and trigger the manufacturing of playing cards to drop. In response to BenchLife.information (by way of Harukaze5719 on X) that is precisely what’s taking place proper now with the RTX 4070, Nvidia’s hottest card that makes use of GDDR6X.
To satisfy the Chinese language market’s demand for that GPU, BenchLife means that Nvidia is likely to be contemplating releasing a GDDR6-equipped variant of the RTX 4070.
The Founders Version RTX 4070 and all third-party fashions include 12 GB of Micron GDDR6X, clocked to 21 GT/s. Samsung mass produces 20 MT/s GDDR6 (although it does supply 24 MT/s for ‘sampling’) which is shut sufficient in velocity to be an acceptable substitute. The place the previous gives 504 GB/s of whole reminiscence bandwidth, an RTX 4070 with such GDDR6 would have 480 GB/s—a drop of simply 5%.
Assuming that Nvidia does produce a GDDR6 variant of the RTX 4070, even when it is only for PC avid gamers in China, the apparent query to ask subsequent is how a lot distinction would there be in value? GDDR6 is utilized by AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Sony so it is produced in far bigger portions and by three of the most important DRAM producers on the planet.
So, normally, it is a good bit cheaper than GDDR6X, although figuring out precisely how less expensive is tough to inform, as spot value monitoring providers sometimes do not report on Micron’s costs for its quicker VRAM. However as RTX 4070 makes use of six VRAM chips, even when GDDR6 is only some {dollars} per module cheaper, it may probably imply such a variant may have a price ticket decrease by $30 or extra.
That is unlikely, after all, as graphics card distributors will not cross on all of the financial savings to the shopper however any value discount on the 4070 can be welcome, particularly if it solely resulted in 5% much less reminiscence bandwidth and barely any impression on gaming efficiency. AMD’s different to the RTX 4070, the Radeon RX 7800 XT, makes use of GDDR6 rated at 19.5 MT/s and clearly would not undergo from utilizing it, although it does have a a lot wider reminiscence bus (256-bits vs 192-bits).
Hopefully, Nvidia will deal with us to a barely slower and cheaper RTX 4070 and if that occurs, we’ll strive our greatest to get a pattern in for evaluate. If it does come to cross, let’s hope that it is simply not the identical value, sure?