How Micron’s GDDR6X memory is the secret to unlocking 4K on Nvidia’s RTX 30-series cards

Even with consoles iterating on a regular cadence, PC hardware has found ways to stay ahead. This is typically due to innovations that change how computer graphics work, and that is happening right now with Nvidia’s next wave of GeForce RTX GPUs. The RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 use Micron’s new GDDR6X memory. This is a step above the traditional GDDR6 VRAM, and it could represent a generational leap forward in system-bandwidth performance thanks to Micron’s PAM4 tech.

Pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) is the name for pushing 2 bits of data over a connection instead of 1 bit. It’s a technical concept, but essentially, this enables the system to call from 4 potential states instead of 2 with each burst of information. With PAM4, Micron and Nvidia are promising a significant boost to I/O data rates and bandwidth. GDDR6X is also more power efficient. At 21Gb/s, GDDR6X uses 15% less power per bit than GDDR6 at 14Gb/s.