AMD Has Priority Access over Nvidia For HBM2

AMD made history earlier this month by being the first major GPU vendor to ship HBM with their top end Fury and Fury X graphics cards. Nvidia however, has been absent so far, waiting on HBM2, a more advanced version of the HBM1 shipping with Fury(X), before getting into the new tech. According to a report though, AMD is leveraging their deal with SK Hynix to get priority access to HBM2 in time for their upcoming Arctic Islands GPUs.

While HBM1 is limited to 4GB and 512GB/s, HBM2 increases those numbers significantly with up to 16/32GB of VRAM and over 1024 GB/s. Like HBM1, HBM2 is expected to be in limited supply at launch. If AMD has priority for HBM2, and the stocks are low, it may mean that Nvidia practically won’t be able to use HBM2 until the supply improves enough that AMD can’t use what is available. This might create a de facto exclusively for AMD, offering a chance for the underdog to dominate with HBM2 GPUs.

If the supply of HBM2 is limited, it could complicate things for Nvidia. Their Pascal architecture is set for 2016 and could be designed for either GDDR5 or HBM2, which vary widely in implementation. Nvidia can choose to go with GDDR5 but risk losing its lead over AMD and inability to refresh with HBM2 later on. If Nvidia does go with HBM2, supply might be heavily constrained, allowing AMD a chance to grab market share. It will be interesting to see both side’s offerings in early 2016 and the choices they make for their lineup.

Thank you WCCFTech for providing us with this information