A couple of weeks ago at AMD’s Ryzen event we saw a Vega 10 Radeon GPU running with 8GB HBM2 memory, knocking through DOOM 4K at a rock solid 60 frames per second. This raised a number of questions about the pricing of Vega 10. HBM2 yields are low and incorporating them on all Radeon cards could be commercial suicide. According to a new report, AMD is looking to sidestep this issue with its upcoming Vega chips, offering users the choice between GDDR5, GDDR5X and HBM2.

Both AMD and Nvidia have ran into a few teething troubles with HBM (High Bandwidth Memory). We thought Nvidia’s flagship Pascal GPUs would but alas no. HBM (and HBM2) can be considerably more expensive that GDDR5(X) and also harder to produce in mass quantities. “ In the mainstream GPU segment, GDDR5 remains an extremely cost-effective, efficient and viable memory technology,” said AMD’s Robert Hallock.

This change from AMD will offer PC gamers the choice - get a cheaper card with GDDR5, or pay a little extra for the premium HBM2 version of the next-gen Radeon Vega graphics card.

In addition to this, it looks as if Vega will cover the entire range from flagship graphics cards all the way down to entry level units, with AMD adapting the memory as necessary. Right at the top end we're expecting to see a premium Vega card, possibly with up to 16GB HBM2, designed to go toe-toe with the imminent arrival of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. There should hopefully then be an introductory range all the way down to GTX 1060-level performance, filling the current gap in AMD’s lineup.

AMD is planning to roll out the entire range very soon so we can hopefully look forward to these early next year.

Would you be willing to pay considerably more to have higher bandwidth memory? Is AMD perhaps confusing the market? Let us know what you think of this below!