Micron champions 96GB VRAM GPUs while abandoning consumer RAM market amid global shortage

Micron stopped making consumer memory -- now it's reminding you how important GDDR7 RAM will be

* Micron says GDDR7 can enable up to 96GB of VRAM on GPUs for richer textures, larger worlds, and better on-device AI. The chipmaker recently shuttered its Crucial consumer RAM brand. * 96GB VRAM feels extreme amid the ongoing memory shortage and tighter VRAM GPU availability. * It's unclear when GPUs that feature GDDR7 VRAM will release as Nvidia and AMD have reportedly delayed next-gen GPU launches. Micron, the same company that killed off its consumer RAM brand Crucial a few months ago, just published a blog post entitled, "The new performance bottleneck: How more GPU memory unlocks next gen gaming and AI PCs." In the post, Micron unpacks the importance of memory in the next-gen era of PC performance, emphasizing that GDDR7 VRAM is poised to be a game-changer for the GPU industry (via PC Gamer). The company then explains that with GDDR7, the company's new 24GB density enables up to 96GB of graphics memory, "giving GPUs significantly more space for high-resolution textures, expansive worlds, and advanced visual effects." Crucial will no longer sell you RAM as Micron goes business-only It's the end of an era. Posts 2 By Simon Batt Given the ongoing memory shortage, 96GB of VRAM feels extreme It's unclear when GDDR7-equipped GPUs would release Given recent reports indicate that Nvidia has reduced the availability of its two most affordable 16GB GPUs, the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5070 Ti, the prospect of a gaming GPU with 96GB of VRAM feels a bit wild amid the ongoing memory crisis. According to Micron, the "push toward cinematic quality gaming" and the "rapid emergence of AI-powered PCs" are driving the need for GPUs equipped with ample GDDR7 RAM. "As worlds grow larger, textures more detailed, and on device AI more integral to responsiveness and personalization, the demands placed on GPU memory have surged," writes Micron. The company also cites real-time ray tracing, massive datasets, lighting maps, shadows, higher-resolutions, and faster refresh rates as another reason GDDR7 RAM-equipped GPUs are on the way. "The problem is that when GPU memory can't hold all this data at once, the system is forced to constantly swap assets in and out. That leads to the issues gamers know too well: texture pop in, mid frame stutters, uneven frame times, and sudden drops during intense ray traced scenes," writes Micron. While all this sounds great, it's important to point out that Micron shuttered its Crucial consumer brand just a few months ago, to focus its efforts on providing memory to tech giant AI datacenters. Though to be fair, this post is focused on GDDR7 RAM designed for VRAM use with GPUs, and not consumer-focused GDDR5 RAM. You can read Micron's full blog post here. Subscribe to the newsletter for GDDR7 VRAM analysis Want clearer context on GDDR7 and massive VRAM claims? Subscribe to the newsletter for concise, jargon-free breakdowns, expert implications, and practical takeaways about GPU memory trends and what they mean for gaming hardware and AI-capable PCs. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Recent reports indicate that Nvidia won't release its Super RTX 50 series any time soon and that its RTX 60 line has been pushed back as well. AMD has also reportedly decided to delay new GPU releases until 2027. AMD is reportedly pausing new GPU launches until 2027 It's going to be awhile before we see new graphics cards from the industry's second biggest graphics card maker. Posts 4 By Patrick O'Rourke

Micron wants your next GPU to have 96GB of VRAM in it, but I don't really know who it's expecting will make it for you

Just about the most tone-deaf this brand could be during the RAMpocalypse "The next era of PC performance will be defined not by more compute, but by memory scale", begins a new blog post from former creator of the best RAM for gaming, Micron. The blog post really begins as it means to go on, and by that I mean, it's horrifically tone-deaf. For context, we're in the middle of a global RAM shortage, and about two months ago, Micron decided to shut down its consumer brand, Crucial, meaning gamers and PC builders now have even fewer products to try and get their hands on. The blog post, entitled "The new performance bottleneck: How more GPU memory unlocks next-gen gaming and AI PCs," essentially shines a light on the importance of memory for consumers who are trying to get true next-generation performance out of their machines. It talks about Micron's latest evolution of GDDR7 VRAM density and bandwidth in the best graphics cards, and it's pretty much Micron admitting that RAM and VRAM are going to be pivotal for the best gaming PCs going forward: "Memory capacity and efficiency now determine how smoothly a system can deliver immersive gameplay, intelligent creation tools, and real time simulation, making memory a foundational enabler of next generation visual computing," the blog post summizes. If you were in any doubt about how screwed up the current memory demand situation is, it's being heavily speculated that when Nvidia launches its next generation of graphics cards, they won't even be supplying the VRAM for them for board partners (Asus, Gigabyte, PNY, MSI, and other companies who manufacutre GPUs) to sell onward to consumers. That will almost certainly mean less VRAM in each new GPU SKU, but it will also mean the cost of manufacturing will land at the door of those smaller brands instead of Nvidia, and consumers will then need to pay even more for a new graphics card. To be frank, Micron's blog post seems completely deluded and reads more like a B2B appeal to discrete GPU makers to use its VRAM over Samsung and SK Hynix. For us consumers, it's talking about a future that no one will be able to afford, given the current climate: "Micron's new 24Gb density enables up to 96GB of graphics memory, giving GPUs significantly more space for high-resolution textures, expansive worlds, and advanced visual effects", it continues. Again, just to pull our feet back down to earth before we start dreaming up a reality where 96GB of VRAM is anywhere close to a standard for graphics cards, let me put things in context. The RTX 5080, one of Nvidia's highest-end GPUs from this generation, only has 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM. The RTX 5070 mid-ranger came under so much controversy for only having 12GB. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RTX 4090 came out before all of that and went extremely gungho for native performance. They only have 24GB of VRAM. In its latest range of 50 Series GPUs, Nvidia made it seem like it was fighting tooth and nail to part with as little VRAM as possible, which resulted in an emphasis on DLSS upscaling, anger over "fake frames", and a lot of disgruntled PC builders switching to AMD graphics cards. In other words, the thought of a GPU that uses even 30GB of VRAM is laughable on its own, and that's before you take into account that this is being dreamed up by Micron, the brand that abandoned 30 years' worth of consumer loyalty to make a quick buck building data centers for AI companies. And none of that mentions the other elephant in the room, which is that hardly any games today actually utilize that sort of VRAM. Maybe they would if the majority of game optimization today wasn't ignored in favor of AI upscaling slapping a bandage over performance issues, but that isn't the case. Most games today are horrendously optimized for PC, and my personal take is that it's because DLSS and FSR are a much less costly way to ensure a game runs well without the need for launch delays and polish time for game devs. But Micron doesn't seem to realize that: "To keep these visual pipelines running efficiently, the memory subsystem must deliver data rapidly and consistently," the blog post says. Yes, Micron, couldn't agree more, but even in an ideal world where Nvidia wants to give us more native performance, who is going to make that memory for consumers while you're busy servicing AI companies? Micron seems to be particularly idealistic about the future of computing technology. The other week, another Micron blog post detailed that the company is working on producing the world's first Gen 6 SSD. Of course, this is only aimed at AI data centers for now. I've reviewed multiple Gen 5 SSDs, and for years, those have still been pointlessly fast (and expensive) for the majority of applications and games. We're not even close to that type of storage being the norm for consumers yet, and Crucial seems intent on moving onto the next big thing. Well, Micron, it's nice to dream, but as someone currently covering a memory shortage which likely won't be going away for the next three years, I'd suggest we maybe keep expectations a bit more down to earth as to not incite gamer rage. For more on the best gaming PCs, check out the best CPU for gaming, the best computer speakers, and the best gaming PCs in the UK.