NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra B300" GPUs may introduce a docketed design on GB300 servers, which will make maintenance and upgrades easier.
With a socket-based design, NVDIDIA's Blackwell Ultra "B300" AI GPUs could be utilized just like CPUs
The current data center high-performance chips from NVIDIA bring the OAM design, which is an on-board solution. With this design, the GPU chips are soldered permanently to the server motherboard such as the GB200, where the users will find both Grace CPUs and Blackwell GPUs on a single board.
However, this could be the last series featuring the onboard design as several reports suggest that NVIDIA could move to a different design with the Blackwell B300 "Ultra" GPUs for GB300 servers. As per MoneyDJ and Economic Daily News (via Trendforce), the B300 GPUs could feature a socket-based design, which will allow the users to install or uninstall the GPUs from the motherboards.
The socketed approach on NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra "B300" AI GPUs approach is said to simplify the manufacturing process for NVIDIA and can benefit several companies, especially the Taiwan-based Foxconn and LOTES, which produce interconnect components and sockets. The current Blackwell GPUs are soldered directly to the motherboard and with the transition to a socket-type design, the B300 GPUs could be removed from the motherboard just like CPUs.
With this transition, there will be several benefits including improved yield rate and flexible production as the GPU won't have to be soldered into the socket and NVIDIA wouldn't need to rely on Surface Mount Technology. Moreover, the process will simplify the maintenance and after-sales services as the whole motherboard won't have to be replaced in cases of GPU-related problems.
As a result, the upgrades could reduce the overall time for downtime when the GPUs are changed and it will help companies to offer more reliable servers to their customers. However, it is expected that the new socket design will introduce some performance reduction as this will introduce some higher latency. Nonetheless, if maintenance, upgrades, and better yields are improved, the trade-off will be worth the design transition.
Another important change with the B300 is the adoption of FP4(Floating Point 4), which benefits inference. Inference is how the trained models make predictions on data and serves as a crucial aspect of AI computation. The B200 is already exceptional in AI workloads and has already been deployed by various companies.
Meanwhile, the B300 "Blackwell Ultra" is expected to enhance its performance significantly but surprisingly, it won't be the first to feature the socket-based design as AMD already introduced this design with its MI300A chips introduced in 2023.
NVIDIA Data Center / AI GPU Roadmap
| GPU Codename | Feynman | Rubin (Ultra) | Rubin | Blackwell (Ultra) | Blackwell | Hopper | Ampere | Volta | Pascal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Family | GF200? | GR300? | GR200? | GB300 | GB200/GB100 | GH200/GH100 | GA100 | GV100 | GP100 |
| GPU SKU | F200? | R300? | R200? | B300 | B100/B200 | H100/H200 | A100 | V100 | P100 |
| Process Tech | TSMC A16? | TSMC N2P? | TSMC N3P? | TSMC 4NP | TSMC 4NP | TSMC 5nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 12nm | TSMC 16nm |
| CPU | Rosa | Vera | Vera | Grace | Grace | Grace | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Memory | HBM4e/HBM5? | HBM4 | HBM4 | HBM3e | HBM3e | HBM2e/HBM3/HBM3e | HBM2e | HBM2 | HBM2 |
| Launch | 2028 | 2027 | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2022-2024 | 2020-2022 | 2018 | 2016 |
News Source: Trendforce
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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