Friday, August 1st 2014

NVIDIA to Launch GeForce GTX 880 in September
NVIDIA is expected to unveil its next generation high-end graphics card, the GeForce GTX 880, in September 2014. The company could tease its upcoming products at Gamescom. The company is reportedly holding a huge media event in California this September, where it's widely expected to discuss high-end graphics cards based on the "Maxwell" architecture. Much like AMD's Hawaii press event that predated actual launch of its R9 290 series by several weeks; NVIDIA's event is expected to be a paper-launch of one or more graphics cards based on its GM204 silicon, with market availability expected in time for Holiday 2014 sales.
The GM204 is expected to be NVIDIA's next workhorse chip, which will be marketed as high-end in the GeForce GTX 800 series, and performance-segment in its following GTX 900 series; much like how the company milked its "Kepler" based GK104 across two series. It's expected to be built on the existing 28 nm process, although one cannot rule out an optical shrink to 20 nm later (like NVIDIA shrunk the G92 from 65 nm to 55 nm). The GTX 880 reportedly features around 3,200 CUDA cores, and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory.
Source:
VideoCardz
The GM204 is expected to be NVIDIA's next workhorse chip, which will be marketed as high-end in the GeForce GTX 800 series, and performance-segment in its following GTX 900 series; much like how the company milked its "Kepler" based GK104 across two series. It's expected to be built on the existing 28 nm process, although one cannot rule out an optical shrink to 20 nm later (like NVIDIA shrunk the G92 from 65 nm to 55 nm). The GTX 880 reportedly features around 3,200 CUDA cores, and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory.
96 Comments on NVIDIA to Launch GeForce GTX 880 in September
I find it interesting that the launch date seems to get earlier and earlier as time goes on. A few months ago it was predicted the 880 would launch Q1 2015, then it was slated for a December release, then October and now September. Although it is a paper launch so as the article says, we probably won't see availability till the end of the year.
The 880 will be above the 780 (perhaps get up into 290X range) while not encroaching on the 780Ti. If really nice Nvidia may price at $450, because this die is perhaps smaller than a GK104, while nowhere near a GK110 which Nvidia won’t/can’t sell consistently on a cards disconneted 10-15% below the $500 MSRP.
So we all know how this goes… A "tech paper teaser" in September, mid-Oct launch with the normal reference brigade cards, while AIB customs mid-end November for the customary 10-15% charge… do the math. Other than efficiency there’s be no real justification to run to get this over the 780.
This just provides the path in facilitating EOL of the GK104 (760/770) while increasing the margins, so they remain price effective with AMD, while permit GK110 (2304 sp) to dwindle down. I could see a them produce a cost-effective Quadro part to finish off, rather than discounting them to gamers.
I can definitely see Nvidia going right to 16nm with the rate 20nm is going, and releasing GM210 (big die Maxwell) on 16nm. Actually, this is what I hope for mostly.
By this they could reduce die 25-30% and Cuda almost 35% (if it scales the same) and should/could be still a GTX770 performance. I couldn't see them delivering anything with 3,200 CUDA cores, if anything over 2,000 Cudas or a die bigger than 300mm2, I'll be surprised and perhaps a little disillusioned.
GTX 580 - Vendor custom boards available at launch
GTX 680 - Vendor custom boards available at launch
GTX 770 - Vendor custom boards available at launch
GTX 780 - Vendor custom boards available at launch
GTX 780 Ti - Vendor custom boards available at launch
First Maxwell cards - Vendor custom boards available at launch
If you're looking at historical precedent, the only cards that aren't available as vendor custom are dual GPU cards and cards not included in Nvidia's series-market segment numerical naming convention ( GTX Titan/Titan Black, Tesla, Quadro) You buy online from Tajikistan ?
Gigabyte Windforce OC - same price as reference (reviewed by W1zzard on launch day)
EVGA Superclocked ACX - $10 more than reference (1.5% more) (reviewed by W1zzard on launch day) So, just recapping, this card in your opinion doesn't have a market even though the specifications aren't known, the price isn't known, it's performance isn't known, it's actual entry date isn't known,
and it's feature set isn't known, because it conflicts with a card which may or may not be EOL'ed at the time of launch (either in its entirety or as a $500 3GB iteration) In what world is a performance GPU only 35% larger than the same vendors low end chip ? If GM 107 is 148mm² packing 640 cores, how the **** is GM 204 supposed to pack anything close to 2000 into 200mm² ????
I forgot, the actual mathematics are unimportant....your personal disappointment is the fact that you're trying to get across by setting an unrealistic target. Well, for my part, I'll be disillusioned if Intel's next desktop CPU doesn't have a thermal envelope of 2 watts and AMD's next flagship GPU doesn't stay under 35C under full gaming load. When you stock up on Xanax in preparation for this graphics Armageddon, grab me some. Depends upon whether the die shrink outweighs the wafer cost, as it usually does. 16nmFF (20nm BEOL+16nm FEOL) is supposed to bring a ~15% reduction in die size over the same design rendered by 20nm - a 15% reduction does not equate to 15% more die candidates per wafer which is dependant upon the actual die size (you could try inputting various sizes into a die-per-wafer calculatorto see the variances).Latest estimates put 16nmFF at ~21% more expensive per wafer than 20nm. Even with the known parameters you would still need to factor in what kind of deal each vendor has in place regarding yield. The usual arrangement is per-wafer with guaranteed minimum yields or per viable die.
GK106 @ 221mm2 Vs GM107 @ 148mm2 = ~35% reduction
GK104 @ 294mm2 - 30% = 205mm2
GK 106 in its fully enabled form (the GTX 660) has 23% more performancethan a fully enabled GM 107 (GTX 750 Ti). You expect GM 204 to be 20% slower than the GPU it is replacing in the product stack (GK 104) ???
@HumanSmoke : Very aggressive with statistics you are lol
If you look to TSMC 20nm struggle youll find what i mean , nvidia can't decide to skip to 16nm for simple reasons , it will take more time , that 16nm installation to fabs look very long way , and nvidia will be stuck at 28 nm with power and price disadvantage