Samsung to show off the world's fastest GDDR7 memory at 37Gbps for next-gen GPUs at ISSCC

Samsung will be showcasing its next-gen GDDR7 memory clocked at 37Gbps bandwidth at the ISSCC conference between February 18 and February 22, so... next month, we'll get a taste of ultra-fast next-gen memory ready for next-gen graphics cards.

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GDDR7 memory has already been announced at up to 32Gbps, but we've got Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all in the GDDR7 battle, and now Samsung is going to show off its 37Gbps GDDR7 memory next month. Micron won't have its GDDR7 ready until at least 2026, and that'll only be 36Gbps.

Samsung and SK hynix will roll out their GDDR7 memory at lower speeds at first, with 32Gbps as the entry-level for next-gen GDDR7 memory; after that, we'll see 35Gbps and then 37Gbps after that for refreshed GPUs, I'd say. I think we'll see NVIDIA introduce its lower-end GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs, like the GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 with GDDR7 memory at 32Gbps, while the higher-end GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 with GDDR7 memory at 35Gbps.

• Read more: Samsung next-gen GDDR7 memory: 50% less stand-by power than GDDR6
• Read more: Samsung announces next-gen GDDR7 memory, with insane 36Gbps bandwidth
• Read more: Samsung GDDR7: 36Gbps bandwidth confirmed, uses PAM3 signaling
• Read more: Samsung teases next-gen GDDR7 memory: insane 32Gbps (GDDR6X = 21Gbps)

After that, we might see refreshed GeForce RTX 50 SUPER series graphics cards, or an RTX 5090 Ti or RTX 5080 Ti, with faster GDDR7 memory at 37Gbps, while the mid-range RTX 5070 SUPER (or RTX 5070 SUPER Ti, or both) and the RTX 5060 SUPER (or RTX 5060 Ti SUPER, if we see an RTX 5060 SUPER card) with GDDR7 memory at 35Gbps. That's just me riffing, but it would be nice to see.

Back to Samsung's new GDDR7 memory at 37Gbps, on a next-gen GPU with a 384-bit memory bus (like a beefed-up RTX 5090 or RTX 5090 Ti) we'll see up to an amazing 1.7TB/sec memory bandwidth.

This would be a huge increase over the RTX 4090 and its 24GB of GDDR6X memory at 21Gbps offering 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth. That's a 70% increase in memory bandwidth, which would be huge for 4K gaming, as well as enabling ray tracing (RT) and DLSS with ultra graphics settings enabled.

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Samsung is promising a 20% improvement in power efficiency and up to 1.5TB/sec memory bandwidth in its initial announcement of GDDR7 memory. This is a large 1.4x bandwidth improvement over GDDR6 memory, which has up to 1.1TB/sec memory bandwidth at its max. We haven't seen GDDR6 memory at 1.1TB/sec on any GeForce RTX 40 series or any of AMD's current-gen Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs, just to note.

The fastest deployment of GDDR6 memory right now is inside of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card, which has 16GB of GDDR6X memory clocked at 23Gbps bandwidth on a 256-bit memory bus. Remember, the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 features 24GB of GDDR6X, but it's only clocked at 21Gbps. GDDR7 memory is going to be really exciting for next-gen GPUs, to say the least.

We should expect more details from Samsung and its next-gen GDDR7 memory at ISSCC to also include a roadmap, so we'll get an expectation of when to expect it. NVIDIA is most likely going to roll out next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs with Samsung's next-gen GDDR7 memory later this year, where GDDR7 memory will really take off in 2025 and beyond.