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There is new info about the GDDR5X memory modules that AMD and Nvidia will probably use with their upcoming graphic cards:

 

Micron Begins to Sample GDDR5X Memory, Unveils Specs of Chips

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10193/micron-begins-to-sample-gddr5x-memory

This past week Micron has quietly added its GDDR5X memory chips to its product catalogue and revealed that the DRAM devices are currently sampling to partners. The company also disclosed specifications of the chips they currently ship to allies and which potentially will be mass-produced later this summer. As it appears, the first samples, though running at much higher data rates than GDDR5, will not be reaching the maximum data rates initially laid out in the GDDR5X specification.

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The addition of GDDR5X samples to Micron’s parts catalog has three important implications. First, the initial development of Micron’s GDDR5X memory chips is officially complete and the company has achieved its key goals (to increase performance of GDDR5X without increasing its power consumption). Second, one or more customers of Micron are already testing processors with GDDR5X memory controllers, which means that certain future GPUs from companies like AMD or NVIDIA do support GDDR5X and already exist in silicon. Third, the initial GDDR5X lineup from Micron will consist of moderately clocked ICs.

 

				GPU Memory Math
	AMD Radeon R9 Fury X	AMD Radeon R9 290X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960	GDDR5X 256-bit interface	GDDR5X 256-bit interface	GDDR5X 128-bit interface	GDDR5X 128-bit interface
Total Capacity	4 GB	4 GB	6 GB	2 GB	8 GB	8 GB	4 GB	4 GB
B/W Per Pin	1 GB/s	5 Gb/s	7 Gb/s	7 Gb/s	12 Gb/s	10 Gb/s	12 Gb/s	10 Gb/s
Chip capacity	8 Gb	2 Gb	4 Gb	4 Gb	8 Gb	8 Gb	8 Gb	8 Gb
No. Chips/Stacks	4	16	12	4	8	8	4	4
B/W Per Chip/Stack	128 GB/s	20 GB/s	28 GB/s	28 GB/s	48 GB/s	40 GB/s	48 GB/s	40 GB/s
Bus Width	4096-bit	512-bit	384-bit	128-bit	256-bit	256-bit	128-bit	128-bit
Total B/W	512 GB/s	320 GB/s	336 GB/s	112 GB/s	384 GB/s	320 GB/s	192 GB/s	160 GB/s
Estimated DRAM Power Consumption	14.6 W	30 W	31.5 W	10 W	20 W	20 W	10 W	10 W

Thanks to GDDR5X memory chips with 10 Gb/s – 12 Gb/s data rates, developers of graphics cards will be able to increase peak bandwidth of 256-bit memory sub-systems to 320 GB/s – 384 GB/s. Which is an impressive achievement, because this amount of bandwidth is comparable to that of AMD’s Radeon R9 290/390 or NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti/Titan X graphics adapters. The latter use 512-bit and 384-bit memory interfaces, respectively, which are quite expensive and intricate to implement.

 

Not only are the new GDDR5X modules as fast if not faster than the current GDDR5 ones, but they are so while needing smaller memory interfaces (so the GPU chips can be smaller and, therefore, cheaper) and using less power (that can be used for the GPU chip instead).