Graphics memory for Nvidia: Samsung is on top with GDDR7, HBM3e continues to cause problems 13 comments
Samsung’s GDDR7 is used on the Nvidia RTX 5000 (details), but the HBM3e with 12 stacks requires another redesign to get up and running. Even Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed this at CES 2025, after already defending Samsung a good six months ago.
Samsung produces GDDR7 memory for the GeForce RTX 50
Nvidia needs all three graphics memory makers, so even the Nvidia boss can get confused sometimes. During the big presentation stage of the new GeForce RTX 5090 and the smaller offshoots, he named Micron as the partner that supplies the memory. A mistake, as quickly became apparent later and which was also confirmed by Nvidia: it is Samsung, not Micron, which supplies the GDDR7 chips for the first four Blackwell gaming graphics cards.
Redesign needed at Samsung HBM
But good news for Samsung is immediately followed by bad news. After regularly stating since last spring, with the start of Nvidia’s internal GTC 2024 exhibition, that Samsung’s HBM3e with a higher battery count would finally be approved by Nvidia and could be used, it is not yet the case at the beginning of the year. 2025. The fact that Nvidia’s requirements still haven’t been met nine months later is surprising and points to a deeper problem that even requires an overhaul in places not mentioned.
They have to come up with a new design, but they can do it and they work very quickly.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia
Are the rumors from last spring true?
Once again, it could be that the rumors from May last year, which spoke of too high power consumption and therefore wasted heat in the new generation of HBM chips, contained a more or less part of truth. In June, the boss of Nvidia defended Samsung and explained that the problem was not a story, it just had to be fixed.
Very similar words now come from the CEO of Nvidia. Jensen Huang was quoted as saying that you trust your partner and that they will be able to do it, and this was received favorably by Korean media in particular.
They work there. They will succeed. No questions. I am confident that Samsung will succeed with HBM. I have confidence, tomorrow is Wednesday.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday
HBM3e with more layers is complex
SK Hynix also noted that the HBM3e with an increased number of batteries is not a surefire success. Nvidia announced the first products with SK Hynix’s HBM3e in late 2023, but reduced the timeline a few months later. Furthermore, HBM3e is almost never used in full configuration on Nvidia cards; there is always room for maneuver. Slower clock speed, no full expansion, Samsung supposedly too much power consumption and waste heat – all these problems ultimately go hand in hand.
12-stack solutions will be followed this year by 16-stack chips, so the challenges will become even greater.
Topics: CES 2025 GDDR7 Graphics Cards HBM Nvidia Samsung Memory Technologies Source: Business Korea
An engineer by training, Alexandre shares his knowledge on GPU performance for gaming and creation.
