SK hynix on Thursday said that its range-topping 256 GB DDR5 RDIMM based on 32 Gb memory devices has passed the Intel Data Center Certified process, the industry's first memory module at this capacity to do so. Normally, certification of a memory module by Intel would be mundane, but this module is special; it combines capacity, low power consumption, and performance, thus potentially saving data center operators millions of dollars.
AI servers not only consume plenty of premium high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used on AI accelerators like Nvidia B300, but also tons of commodity server DDR5 SDRAM that connect to x86 processors. A single high-capacity DDR5 memory module can consume up to 15W or even 25W (depending on performance, capabilities, and workloads), so a fully equipped 12-channel Xeon 6 memory subsystem can draw between 180W and 300W, comparable to the CPU's power consumption.
