Radeon RX 9070 XT with Samsung Memory Found to Be 1-2% Slower Than SK Hynix Models
New information from China reveals that Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs with Samsung memory are performing slower than expected. A Chinese reviewer, named “51972,” reported a significant performance drop in these GPUs that use GDDR6 memory chips from Samsung. According to the reviewer, the issue affects the overall performance of the Radeon RX 9070 XT models with Samsung memory.
The reviewer shared these findings on the Chinese social media platform Bilibili, explaining the performance regression found in these GPUs. After analyzing several cards, it became clear that the slowest models had one common factor: they used Samsung video memory.
Radeon RX 9070 XT with Samsung Memory: 1% to 2% Slower
In total, 22 Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs were tested. Among them, the 10 slowest cards shared the same problem: they used Samsung memory. When tested using the 3DMark Speedway benchmark, these GPUs with Samsung memory scored lower compared to other models with different memory chips.
One notable example showed that a Radeon RX 9070 XT with SK Hynix memory, running at a lower frequency of 2.681 MHz, was faster than another card with Samsung memory running at a higher frequency of 2.887 MHz. This suggests that despite running at a higher clock speed, the Samsung memory is slowing down the performance of the GPU.
In fact, the RX 9070 XT cards with Samsung memory are between 1% and 2% slower than those using SK Hynix memory, even though they have higher clock speeds and power consumption. The reviewer reached out to AMD’s engineers in China, who confirmed that the problem was due to higher latency in the Samsung GDDR6 memory.
Latency Differences Between Samsung and SK Hynix Memory
According to the engineers at AMD China, the GPUs with Samsung memory have higher latency compared to those with SK Hynix memory. Even under higher temperatures, GPUs with SK Hynix memory did not experience any significant performance drops, unlike the Samsung-based ones.
The review confirmed that tools to measure the latency of video memory do exist but are not publicly available. Using a tool called Microbenchmark, the reviewer found that SK Hynix chips performed better in high-resolution tests, showing a noticeable difference in latency compared to Samsung chips.
