Wednesday, October 17th 2012
NVIDIA Kepler Refresh GPU Family Detailed
A 3DCenter.org report shed light on what NVIDIA's GPU lineup for 2013 could look like. According to the report, NVIDIA's next-generation GPUs could follow a similar path to previous-generation "Fermi Refresh" (GF11x), which turned the performance-per-Watt equation around back in favor of NVIDIA, even though the company's current GeForce Kepler has an established energy-efficiency lead. The "Kepler Refresh" family of GPUs (GK11x), according to the report, could see significant increases in cost-performance, with a bit of clever re-shuffling of the GPU lineup.
NVIDIA's GK104 GPU exceeded performance expectations, which allowed it to drive this generation's flagship single-GPU graphics card for NVIDIA, the GTX 680, giving the company time to perfect the most upscaled chip of this generation, and for its foundry partners to refine its 28 nm manufacturing process. When it's time for Kepler Refresh to go to office, TSMC will have refined its process enough for mass-production of GK110, a 7.1 billion transistor chip on which NVIDIA's low-volume Tesla K20 GPU compute accelerator is currently based.
The GK110 will take back the reins of powering NVIDIA's flagship single-GPU product, the GeForce GTX 780. This product could offer a massive 40-55% performance increase over GeForce GTX 680, with a price ranging anywhere between US $499 and $599. The same chip could even power the second fastest single-GPU SKU, the GTX 770. The GK110 physically packs 2880 CUDA cores, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.
Moving on, the real successor to the GK104, the GK114, could form the foundation for high-performance SKUs such as the GTX 760 Ti and 760. The chip has the same exact specifications as the GK104, leaving NVIDIA to tinker with clock speeds to increase performance. The GK114 will be relegated to performance-segment SKUs from the high-end segment it currently powers, and so even with minimal increases in clock speed, the chip will have achieved sizable performance gains over current GTX 660 Ti and GTX 660.
Lastly, the GK106 could see a refresh to GK116, too, retaining specifications and leaving room for clock speed increases, much in the same way as GK114, except, it gets a demotion to GTX 750 Ti, GTX 750, as well, and so with minimal R&D, the GTX 750 series gains a sizable performance gain over its previous generation.
Source:
3DCenter.org
NVIDIA's GK104 GPU exceeded performance expectations, which allowed it to drive this generation's flagship single-GPU graphics card for NVIDIA, the GTX 680, giving the company time to perfect the most upscaled chip of this generation, and for its foundry partners to refine its 28 nm manufacturing process. When it's time for Kepler Refresh to go to office, TSMC will have refined its process enough for mass-production of GK110, a 7.1 billion transistor chip on which NVIDIA's low-volume Tesla K20 GPU compute accelerator is currently based.
The GK110 will take back the reins of powering NVIDIA's flagship single-GPU product, the GeForce GTX 780. This product could offer a massive 40-55% performance increase over GeForce GTX 680, with a price ranging anywhere between US $499 and $599. The same chip could even power the second fastest single-GPU SKU, the GTX 770. The GK110 physically packs 2880 CUDA cores, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.
Moving on, the real successor to the GK104, the GK114, could form the foundation for high-performance SKUs such as the GTX 760 Ti and 760. The chip has the same exact specifications as the GK104, leaving NVIDIA to tinker with clock speeds to increase performance. The GK114 will be relegated to performance-segment SKUs from the high-end segment it currently powers, and so even with minimal increases in clock speed, the chip will have achieved sizable performance gains over current GTX 660 Ti and GTX 660.
Lastly, the GK106 could see a refresh to GK116, too, retaining specifications and leaving room for clock speed increases, much in the same way as GK114, except, it gets a demotion to GTX 750 Ti, GTX 750, as well, and so with minimal R&D, the GTX 750 series gains a sizable performance gain over its previous generation.
127 Comments on NVIDIA Kepler Refresh GPU Family Detailed
Nvidia never claimed that the GTX 680 was three times as powerful as the GTX 580- that's just an assumption that some people jumped to....such as this article. The suggestion is the authors based on the fact that a single 680 achieved (superficially) what previously ran with three 580's. You'll note that the author still notes the difference in AA setting.