The best RAM is not the one with the highest storage capacity, nor the fastest, nor the one with the least latency or the most memory channels. Since the one who is good in one section, is not in the others. However, there is RAM memory that meets all these requirements. The problem? You can’t buy it at any store, well, actually, no one can. We talk about the HBM memory.
One of the issues with the PC is that it’s a non-unified architecture in terms of memory, which means you have to waste time copying information from main RAM to local ones, like video . Ideally, everything should be under the same type of memory. Which exists, but unfortunately you can’t buy it, at least separately.
What is the best RAM?
In the computer world, HBM memory
But what makes it so special? Its cost is not, it is an expensive memory and that is why other more classic memories like DDR and GDDR have won the game. However, it has a number of features that make it the best type of RAM currently available. And so it’s a shame that we don’t see it on PC, because it would allow us to have processors like in consoles, but without sacrificing performance to latency as happens to them. Specifically, its advantages are:
- Be, stacked memory chips they take up less space than conventional memory modules.
- He has a bandwidth comparable to GDDR6 and with the HBM3 it even exceeded it.
- Bandwidth power consumption is lower than any other type of memory. Up to half per bit transmitted
- Its latency is the lowest of all, in some systems it functions as a last level cache before conventional RAM.
Why can’t we buy HBM memory?
However, despite its benefits, we haven’t seen it used and its biggest downside is the fact that it’s not really an independent product. The reason for this is that this type of memory does not communicate in the traditional way, where an interface has a transmitter and a receiver and electrical impulses are sent according to established protocols and times.
The pitfall of HBM memory is that it requires a huge chip which is the base where the processor and memory chips are mounted which is used for communication. This allows you to have many more pins, allowing you to perform transfers at a lower speed each, but this is equivalent to the amount of data of conventional memories. We have to assume that the chips use data pins that communicate horizontally and the trick here is to do it vertically.
This way of communicating the processor with its RAM memory requires everything to be built in one piece and is a slower and more delicate process. If we need a large volume of chips, then HBM memory will not be our friend and we will lose market share. This is what happened to AMD, which to make matters worse must have seen in its time how, at the same price, it had a less powerful architecture due to the increase in the cost of this type of memory.
In any case, it would be the ideal RAM for PCs, it would allow a fully unified memory system, with good bandwidth also for graphics and AI, with adequate latency to get the most out of the CPU. But will we ever see a socket with HBM memory around it to act as system RAM? Who knows.
