Samsung to End B-Die DDR4: The Overclockers' Favorite
by Anton Shilov on May 14, 2019 3:00 PM EST
For many years leading DRAM module manufacturers have used Samsung’s B-die 8 Gb memory chips for their fastest and most advanced DIMMs. This quarter Samsung intends to discontinue production of B-die, forcing its partners to find a worthy replacement.
According to Samsung’s most recent Product Guide, the company will EOL its B-die 8 Gb memory chips in Q2 2019. It is not particularly clear when exactly Samsung ceases to make its legendary memory chips, but it looks like it is time for companies like Corsair or G.Skill to stock pile B-die ICs for existing DDR4-4000 and faster kits.
Samsung will continue to produce C-die and D-die 8 Gb memory chips using its 10 nm-class process technologies. Officially rated for DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600 speed bins, these ICs have been in production since 2016 and 2017 respectively. By now, these memory devices have to be mature enough for high-end memory modules, but far not all makers of DIMMs use them for leading-edge products. Also their overclockability beyond those speeds pales in comparison to B-die.
It is worth noting that in the same document, Samsung has listed its 16 Gb A-dies memory devices made using a 10 nm-class process technology that are used to build high-capacity 32 GB UDIMMs and other memory modules required for servers and workstations.
We have reached out to makers of memory modules to find out which memory chips will replace Samsung’s legendary B-die memory chips on high-end modules. We are yet to receive their responses. These products will not disappear overnight, but it looks like their days are numbered.
Related Reading
- Samsung Starts Production of 8 Gb DDR4-3600 ICs Using 2nd Gen 10nm-Class Tech
- Samsung Begins To Produce DDR4 Memory Using '10nm Class' Process Tech
- G.Skill Unveils 64 GB DDR4-4266 and 128 GB DDR4-4000 Kits for HEDTs
- G.Skill Announces DDR4-4800 and DDR4-4500 Kits for Z390 Boards
- Corsair Builds 32 GB DDR4-4333 Kit, Only for Pre-Binned Coffee Lake CPUs
Source: Samsung (via Tom’s Hardware)
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SirMaster - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Dang this sucks I think.I bought 3000MHz CL14 B-Die for relatively cheap and overclocked it to 4000MHz CL16 with ease. B-Die is really truely awesome.
I hope the new A-Die is as good.
wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Crazy, I read about this so long ago I thought it was here.Santoval - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
The only explanation might be that B-dies cost more money than they make, barely break even or are marginally profitable. So Samsung apparently decided that they are not worth the cost, their time and/or the wafers they need to spend on them, in the place of wafers for more mainstream and server memory dies, from which their DRAM business makes almost all the money anyway.However optics and marketing wise this is a bad move. Overclockers might be a tiny niche subset of their memory clients but they tend to stir disproportionally loud "noise". This is why even many non overclockers have known about the quality of Samsung's DRAM. Quality of niche products slowly builds up positive feedback for Samsung's brand in general, or at least their memory business (DRAM and possibly flash as well).
Why would Samsung kill that is beyond me. This reminds me of kiosks in my country. Generally you can divide my country's kiosks in two categories : the professional and the amateurs. There is one key difference between them that applies in almost all the cases. The amateurs do not sell bus tickets "because they are not profitable".
On the contrary, the professionals sell bus tickets despite their very low profit. Why? Because 9 out 10 times when someone goes to a kiosk to buy tickets they will also buy something else. The reverse is happens with the amateurs. If people are told they sell no tickets 9 out 10 times they leave without buying anything.
You can immediately recognize a professional kiosk. They are posh and very busy. And 99% of times these guys sell bus tickets. Amateur kiosks, in contrast, look like they've seen better days many decades ago, noone wants to go to them unless they have to, and by now I can *smell* the upcoming "Sorry, we do not sell tickets" line from many meters away. A professional kiosk owner told me about the "tickets vs no tickets" difference 20 to 25 years ago and since then I've been amazed about how right he was. Samsung should not stop selling "tickets".
notashill - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link
99% of DRAM is sold directly to device manufacturers and I am sure they do not care about what overclocking people post on forums.And the RAM sold directly to consumers isn't branded by the company making the chips. People buy Crucial or HyperX RAM, not Samsung or Micron. And those companies rarely if ever even say who their DRAM supplier is.
Thanny - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
This is fake news.See the full Samsung document here:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi/...
The screenshot above is just one table clipped out. On the very same page is another table showing two B-die SKU's that are not EOL.
And below that are tables showing many memory modules using B-dies that are not EOL, among those that are EOL.
Samsung B-die memory is not going away.
Gastec - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link
Scaremongering to help the sales of "B-die" DIMM's from G.Skill and Corsair.