Reports indicate that Nvidia has given Samsung the hurry up to double its production of GDDR7, the very same stuff you'll find strapped to RTX 50-series GPUs. And while it's tempting to get excited about the idea of many, many RTX 50-series Super variants hitting the market sometime soon with oodles and oodles of delicious VRAM, hence the production call, we probably shouldn't count our chickens just yet.
That's because of the ever-present spectre of AI hanging over our gaming hardware hopes and dreams. After all, AI hardware is where Nvidia makes the vast majority of its money these days, and given the recent loosening of chip export restrictions, I'd say it's a safer bet that most of this memory is destined for China-friendly RTX Pro 6000 variants and the like. Boo.
Still, ETnews reports that Nvidia has told Samsung to double up its GDDR7 production—according to its industry sources—and that the Korean DRAM manufacturer has duly responded. The sources are quoted as saying "mass production is imminent", although the outlet itself speculates that the GDDR7 is likely destined for AI accelerators.
Still, why not both? It'd make sense that while Nvidia was ordering a job lot of the super-speedy VRAM, some of it might be earmarked for new gaming GPUs, too. While us gamers might only be a small fraction of Nvidia's revenue at this point, rumours persist that the RTX 50-series Super variants will be equipped with much more VRAM than the current GPUs.
And, given that VRAM loadouts of the current cards have been criticised for being a little light, it also makes sense that Nvidia will be looking to stuff the new variants with a fair bit more. After all, most RTX Super/Ti variants to date have been clockspeed boosted to differentiate them from their peers, but most of the RTX 50-series cards we've tested have been surprisingly easy to overclock regardless.
So I'd say there wouldn't be a massive amount to be gained releasing a Super variant, if out-of-the-box higher clockspeeds were the only thing customers were paying for.
More VRAM, though? That might shift a few units, although by the look of Nvidia's recent financials, it's been selling the current cards hand over fist. Still, whatever the results may be (and presuming ETnews is correct), I'd say it's still likely that the lion's share of GDDR7 will be going towards increased AI GPU production, at the very least. We can fantasise, though, can't we?
1. Best overall: AMD Radeon RX 9070
2. Best value: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB
3. Best budget: Intel Arc B570
4. Best mid-range: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti
5. Best high-end: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090
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