Tuesday, June 22nd 2010
New NVIDIA GF100 Board Surfaces, Suggests New High-End SKU
Sources in the hardware industry leaked some interesting pictures of a new, supposedly reference-design NVIDIA GF100 GPU graphics card PCB, watermarked by board partner Little Tiger. The pictures reveal a PCB that's similar to that of the GeForce GTX 480, but with a stronger VRM that makes use of better high-C surface-mount capacitors (completely doing away with cylindrical capacitors), and draws power from two 8-pin PCI-Express power inputs. The design can deliver up to 375W of power (that's not the board power we're talking about).
This also opens up speculation about what NVIDIA would do with this design. The most talked about theory as of now points to a new high-end SKU by NVIDIA based on the GF100, that enables all streaming multiprocessors (SMs) physically present on the GF100, taking the CUDA core count up to 512, and ROP count to 64. The most likely marketing name for this SKU is GeForce GTX 485. Apart from higher CUDA core and ROP count than that of the GTX 480, slightly higher clock-speeds for the GPU are also on the cards. The memory subsystem remains untouched, at 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 924 MHz (effective 3.7 GHz), over a 384-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA could release this SKU this fall.
Sources:
Hardware-Infos, Expreview
This also opens up speculation about what NVIDIA would do with this design. The most talked about theory as of now points to a new high-end SKU by NVIDIA based on the GF100, that enables all streaming multiprocessors (SMs) physically present on the GF100, taking the CUDA core count up to 512, and ROP count to 64. The most likely marketing name for this SKU is GeForce GTX 485. Apart from higher CUDA core and ROP count than that of the GTX 480, slightly higher clock-speeds for the GPU are also on the cards. The memory subsystem remains untouched, at 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 924 MHz (effective 3.7 GHz), over a 384-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA could release this SKU this fall.
75 Comments on New NVIDIA GF100 Board Surfaces, Suggests New High-End SKU
but I hope it will take off because I want price wars right now, this years price is really pathetic
The only way I'd buy a GF100 based card is if it comes with a pre-installed full cover waterblock and still costs the same as an air cooled one (and fat chance of that happening).
I also tend to run dual-GPU setups, and my 880W isn't even close to surviving two of those.
This will allow higher OC.
Still waiting for the GTX 295 of the GTX4xx series. :(
I want to see a direct Board comparison between the 480 and 485, not some disabled garbage to Compare Power draw and performance levels. It is expected the 485 will have higher clock speeds. From the same board maker that W1zzard reviewed the 480 with.
But i'll just get a second GTX 470 and call it a day.:)
Also, don't forget that, the HD5970 PCB is also configured to accept two 8-pin connectors. So it seems ATi really set a new standard...;)Consumers card about Price/Performance, and generally only care about price/performance. And when power consumption to performance is in line with the previous generation cards, consumers don't tend to care.
Enthusiasts might take a look at power consumption, but only when comparing two similar performing cards at similar prices. But I gurantee you that if you take two cards that perform identically, and price one $100 less, the cheaper one will sell more units, even if it consumes double the power.