Leaked AMD plans for a 3D High Bandwidth Memory 9 times faster than GDDR5

AMD and SK Hynix seem to have been partnering up for some great things behind the closed doors of their secret labs. In an exclusive report, courtesy of game-debate.com, leaked presentation slides have been surfaced showcasing future plans between the two manufacturers, in which they are working on developing 3D stacked High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capable to outperform current GDDR5 memory modules in impressive fashion. The alleged HBM memory could run up to nine times faster than the GDDR5. The two companies have started this project with the intention to replace current GDDR5 memory due to its latest decrease in performance breakthrough.

As these high speed memories are currently the peak of the market, AMD feels there is much more potential there and that the GDDR5 is starting to reach its limits. The new HBM memory will be implemented on AMD Radeon R9 300 series of graphics cards. Reportedly, the plan is that by next year, this revolutionary module will be introduced on the Radeon R9 390X and Radeon R9 380X. The first generation of HBM memory will aproximately be 4.5X faster than the GDDR5, with a maximum bandwidth of around 128GB/s, in contrast with the current output of 28GB/s the GDDR5 is providing. The second generation will allegedly be firing around 256GB/s by doubling the speed from 1Gbps to 2Gbps. Like this wasn’t enough, AMD and SK Hynix are looking to quadruple the HBM 3D memory capacity to reach 4GB.

The two giants will be putting the finishing touches on this super technology by the end of this year. Due to its high potential, we might see 3D HBM memories with 12GB for future GPUs. The Radeon R9 300 series will be getting first these new 3D stacks and this might happen pretty soon apparently. Will this new AMD breakthrough bring Nvidia to its knees, and can they pull it off? We’ll have to wait and see.