GDDR6 VRAM Prices Plummet: 8GB of Memory Now Costs $27

RX 7900 XTX showing twelve 2GB GDDR6 chips
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Due to the rapidly dropping demand for graphics cards in recent quarters, coupled with the end of the component shortages of 2021, prices on GDDR6 memory have plummeted. As noticed by 3DCenter.org, spot prices of GDDR6 decreased to less than a quarter of what they once were during the past 1.5 years. At present, 8GB of GDDR6 now costs $27 on the spot market. That certainly raises the question of why both AMD and Nvidia have opted not to install 16GB or more memory on many of the best graphics cards.

Back in February 2022, an 8Gb GDDR6 chip (1GB) cost about $13 on the spot market. That's according to data from DRAMeXchange, a market intelligence firm, compiled by Reddit user -Balance. Right now, an 8Gb IC costs $3.364, so 8GB of such memory costs roughly $27 if you buy it on the spot market.

Of course, buying off the spot market is something that big add-in-board manufacturers rarely do as they have long-term supply contracts with companies like Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Contract prices tend to differ from spot market prices, in the positive direction (meaning, contracts cost less). Furthermore, vendors can't just buy any GDDR6 chip since the GPU vendors (AMD, Intel, and Nvidia) support very specific DRAM ICs with their graphics processors, with the supported memory IC types flashed into the firmware.

GDDR6

(Image credit: 3DCenter.org/Twitter)

Given the spot prices of GDDR6, equipping a graphics board with 8GB of memory cost at least $104 in early 2022 — a sizeable amount of money. But $13 per 8Gb GDDR6 chip was probably the highest price in years, as demand for graphics cards was growing steadily since Q2 2020 and peaked in Q1 2022, according to Jon Peddie Research.

Sales of graphics cards have been on a downward trend since the first quarter of last year, and similarly demand for GDDR6 SGRAM along with its spot prices has dropped. Despite lower GDDR6 prices, both AMD and Nvidia have opted to equip their latest midrange offerings — RTX 4060 Ti and RX 7600 — with 8GB of memory. Nvidia has a 16GB variant planned, but that won't arrive until next month.

We do need to consider that a $27 increase in the bill-of-materials (BoM) can translate into double that for the retail price. That would make a 16GB card cost $54 extra (give or take). Also, the above IC prices are for 8Gb ICs, but modern GPUs are using 16Gb ICs (2GB each) — that's necessary to get 8GB on a 128-bit interface with just four chips. However, we assume 16Gb IC prices are generally tracking the 8Gb IC prices.

Ultimately, equipping an AIB with 16GB of memory can be costly, even today, especially if you want to be flexible in terms of price. 8GB on sub-$300 cards like the upcoming RTX 4060 and the RX 7600 makes more sense, but it's tough to take on the substantially higher priced models.

There are other considerations as well. Adding memory chips to both sides of a graphics card PCB adds complexity to the design. Another point to consider is that when AMD and Nvidia made design decisions about their Navi 33 and AD106/AD107 GPUs, that was probably sometime in 2020. Back then, demand for graphics cards was increasing and so were GDDR6 prices, so they opted for a 128-bit bus. That saved die area and made 8GB of onboard memory the default configuration for these midrange GPUs.

Since 2020, things have obviously changed a lot. The reduced GDDR6 and GDDR6X prices mean that both AMD and Nvidia should be able to hit slightly lower MSRPs for their Radeon RX 7600 and GeForce RTX 4060-class offerings. Alternatively, with the high asking prices of the latest generation GPUs, doubling the VRAM should be a viable option. Unfortunately, outside of the upcoming RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, graphics cards with double the VRAM (two 16Gb chips per channel on both sides of the PCB) are usually reserved for the more lucrative professional GPU market.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Before GPU prices skyrocketed it was the norm, for a card with double the vram to carry about a $50 price premium, which is why TH and other publications would always put in the reviews to not cheap out and go with the smaller capacity card.
    Reply
  • cypeq
    Current generation cards only use 2GB ICs.
    Entire article hangs on a thread that 2GB ICs, have strong price relation to 1GB ones.
    Which is purely a guess because demand for those is high and for 1GB ones is low,
    market prices are strongly driven by demand not only production cost.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    I would just add that AMD and Nvidia have to be sure that they're spec'ing products which remain profitable to make, even when component prices recover towards long-term trends. So, I don't think we're going to see a wave of mismatched cards with low-end GPUs and huge amounts of RAM. That just doesn't make a lot of sense.

    If anything, we might see more examples like Intel's A770 and the RTX 4060 Ti, with both an 8 GB and a 16 GB version of the card. If GDDR6 prices rebound too much, the 16 GB version can go out of production and their board partners can just focus on the 8 GB version.

    In the meantime, maybe they can take advantage of the low memory pricing by providing discounts on existing models to end consumers.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    cypeq said:
    Current generation cards only use 2GB ICs.
    Entire article hangs on a thread that 2GB ICs, have strong price relation to 1GB ones.
    Which is purely a guess because demand for those is high and for 1GB ones is low,
    market prices are strongly driven by demand not only production cost.
    Not only that, but if the article is advocating for even higher-memory GPUs, then maybe it should include pricing data on 4 GB chips, since that won't add board costs like making double-sided PCBs would.
    Reply
  • Geef
    I think I'd pay an extra 100 dollars to buy a 32GB video card. There should be an option to buy like at a fast food restaurant.

    SMALL = 8GB
    MEDIUM = 16GB
    LARGE = 32GB

    You pick the card type... "Yeah I want a 4090... Medium size, with high clock speeds. Can I get that with Sweet and Sour sauce?"
    Reply
  • nitrium
    So what is nVidia's excuse for being so stingy with VRAM on the 4000 series cards? In theory, the price difference between the announced 16GB RTX 4060Ti and the 8GB already launched should be <$50, right?
    Reply
  • thestryker
    nitrium said:
    So what is nVidia's excuse for being so stingy with VRAM on the 4000 series cards? In theory, the price difference between the announced 16GB RTX 4060Ti and the 8GB already launched should be <$50, right?
    Their narrow bus width means that they'd have to clamshell on memory like they did with the 3090. I'd be surprised if the extra engineering cost of doing so isn't the same or higher than the cost of the memory itself.

    That's not to say their current pricing is good or that there shouldn't be higher capacity available just that it isn't as simple as "just add some VRAM".
    Reply
  • RedBear87
    Basically you made your question and answered it, nice, here in Italy there's an old journalist (Gigi Marzullo) who makes a late night program where he asks guests to do that.

    The RTX 4060Ti 16GB might be, to a large extent, just Nvidia's answer to that silly boy who runs AMD's marketing and pointed out that you can have a previous generation RDNA2 card with 16GB for $500 and it will probably sell exactly for $500.

    Neither Nvidia nor AMD will sell $300-400 GPUs with 16GB VRAM, in part because they planned their lineup when prices were much higher. We'll have to wait for more refreshes or possibly even the next generation, assuming that there won't be yet another crisis that will raise memory prices in the nearish future...
    Reply
  • sherhi
    Whole market, until recently, used to be a duopoly, third player doesn't change much. It almost feels like they collude not to disturb each other into all out price war. They know very well 8gbs are entry level 1080p cards (which is by no means "midrange", I don't know why journalists eat that marketing bs) and artificially force you to pay premium for standard feature (they can get away with it because every producer does the same). It's actually brilliant, you either spend more now (they win) or you spend more money much sooner than you would want to in next 2-3 years (they win again). Basically they are shortening the lifespan of their products which is ecologically shady at best.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    @ $3.364/GiB, I'll gladly pay $107.648 for 32 GiB of GDDR6
    Reply