NVIDIA Moving Around the Fabled GeForce GTX TITAN II

[btarunr]

NVIDIA is moving around engineering samples of what it describes as "GM200 A1 graphics processor," in its shipping manifest. The sample was making its way from Taiwan, to Bangalore, India, from where it's likely pushed to the company's facilities in Bangalore and Hyderabad. A1 steppings of NVIDIA chips are usually pre-production, and bound for just a few more rounds of testing, before being upgraded to "A2" and mass-produced. German tech site 3DCenter.org also pulled out some likely specifications from its sources.

To begin with, the GM200, like the GM204, will be built on existing 28 nm silicon fabrication process, as both NVIDIA and AMD appear to have suffered design setbacks due to their common foundry partner, TSMC, not being able to set its next-gen 20 nm node up to speed in time. The GM200 is expected to feature over 4,000 CUDA cores, although the exact number is unknown. It is expected to widen the memory bus to 512-bit. Given the existing process, the GPU will be huge. Over 600 mm² huge. NVIDIA will probably bank on the energy efficiency of its "Maxwell" architecture to cope with thermal loads put out by a chip that big. The GM200-based "GeForce GTX TITAN II" could launch in the first half of 2015.



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[VulkanBros]

I dont even want to know the price of this tning - twice the price of the original Titan

 

[ZoneDymo]

And it will be about 1500 dollars

 

[Sony Xperia S]

And it will be about 1500 dollars

I dont even want to know the price of this tning - twice the price of the original Titan

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

The original titanIC was build on an earlier version of the lithography process, so yields should have been improved by now which means the production costs are much much lower without those insane margins which they put atop.

If they really set it at that price tag, then I do not want to know who are those who will give them what they ask.

Be very careful because this policy leads to a disaster - ever growing prices, so at some point virtually no one will be able to buy, only they will buy it from themselves. ahahaha

 

[ZoneDymo]

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

The original titanIC was build on an earlier version of the lithography process, so yields should have been improved by now which means the production costs are much much lower without those insane margins which they put atop.

If they really set it at that price tag, then I do not want to know who are those who will give them what they ask.

Be very careful because this policy leads to a disaster - ever growing prices, so at some point virtually no one will be able to buy, only they will buy it from themselves. ahahaha

Its a company that wants to make as much profit as they can, there is your reason.
Its not really about production cost at all, if that was what prices of products where based on we would be paying SOOOOO much less for everything.
The "at some point virtually no one will be able to buy" does not go here as Nvidia (and AMD) have a wide range of cards and many all of those will be much more affordable.

Titan is like Intel's 1000+ dollar Extreme series.

 

[Sempron Guy]

You can always try Nvidia, just use the right marketing for it this time

 

[the54thvoid]

Well, I learned my lesson last year. If there is a Maxwell Titan part I'll steer well clear of it, knowing there will be a bloody good chance 2-3 months later a non compute part would be released for hundreds of pounds/dollars less.

There is a slim chance all the very early rumours are wrong though and GM204 is not 880. After all, GK104 was GTX680 because Nvidia knew they could make it the top tier part. GK100 was canned. Compare with GF100/110 and GF104. Kepler was 'out of order' (in both manufacturing and price!)

Perhaps GM204 is mainstream, GM200 is 880. And they can make more money off a compute GM200 part with more memory. After all, GK110 is the Titan, 780, 780Ti and Titan Black architecture. GM200 doesn't mean Titan alone.

I think the next arch's from Nvidia and AMD should allow the 4k gaming on a single card to be a reality though, albeit, just and no more.

 

[Ruru]

The die size would be large as hell, the 65nm GT200 is the largest what comes to mind, and that's already 576mm2..

 

[HumanSmoke]

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

It probably won't be....because the first GM200 products will likely follow the GK110 model - Pro (Tesla) boards first. With Intel giving away KNL dev kits to anyone who can spell c-o-d-i-n-g, let alone actually do it, it's more of an imperative to stay on top of the HPC market I would have thought

The original titanIC was build on an earlier version of the lithography process, so yields should have been improved by now which means the production costs are much much lower without those insane margins which they put atop.

The GTX Titan Z also uses fairly new (GK 110-350-) B1 silicon on an established process. Pricing will be whatever Nvidia deem they can get away with charging for the number of boards they hope to sell/have in inventory. If the company is serious about moving quantity then they will be priced accordingly. If they intend to just drip feed them into the channel with barely enough quantity to stay relevant, then the price is largely irrelevant.

BTW: Even if the GM200 scales just 1mm larger on a side than GK 110 ( 600mm^2 vs 551mm^2), that still equates to a loss of 20% in the number of die candidates per 300mm wafer compared to GK 110

Be very careful because this policy leads to a disaster - ever growing prices, so at some point virtually no one will be able to buy, only they will buy it from themselves. ahahaha

If the big GPU sales to desktop buyers impacted the overall revenue stream to any large degree then I'd agree. While the volume mid/small GPU cards tend to get regular price adjustments, the same isn't usually the case for the high end low volume market (for either vendor I might add). That in itself should be an indicator.

The die size would be large as hell, the 65nm GT200 is the largest what comes to mind, and that's already 576mm2..

576mm^2 equates to 24 * 24. 600mm^2 equates to 24.49 * 24.49. More of an issue when you map them out on a wafer- those half-millimetres add up. BTW: GT200 isn't the largest GPU by a long shot. The original Larrabee was estimated at ~650-700mm^2, and even the in-production Xeon Phi GPU is estimated to be not much smaller. Intel aren't shy about specifications in general- there isn't an Intel CPU that hasn't had its die size publicized. I'd challenge anyone to find the die size and transistor count specification of a Xeon Phi GPU.

 

[NC37]

Well, I learned my lesson last year. If there is a Maxwell Titan part I'll steer well clear of it, knowing there will be a bloody good chance 2-3 months later a non compute part would be released for hundreds of pounds/dollars less.

There is a slim chance all the very early rumours are wrong though and GM204 is not 880. After all, GK104 was GTX680 because Nvidia knew they could make it the top tier part. GK100 was canned. Compare with GF100/110 and GF104. Kepler was 'out of order' (in both manufacturing and price!)

Perhaps GM204 is mainstream, GM200 is 880. And they can make more money off a compute GM200 part with more memory. After all, GK110 is the Titan, 780, 780Ti and Titan Black architecture. GM200 doesn't mean Titan alone.

I think the next arch's from Nvidia and AMD should allow the 4k gaming on a single card to be a reality though, albeit, just and no more.

Nah I doubt it. 880 will likely be the 204.

If only everyone could learn that lesson...we'd have another GTX 460 era on us. Powerful and affordable GPUs which scale wonderfully with SLI.

I may buy NV GPUs more often than AMD, but times like this I root for AMD. NV is getting away with it and they know they can. Course AMD isn't helping things. They pull the same tricks.

 

[Roel]

This is surely interesting, I was aiming for the 880 but GM200 seems significantly faster if these rumors are true. Expected CUDA cores at least 25% more than GM204, the 880 was expected to have 3200 cores. And a massive 512-bit memory bus vs 256-bit so it will probably be 8GB vs 4GB. I am going to wait until more is known before making any decisions and see if the price difference will be worth it compared to how long the card will last me.

 

[techy1]

Titan is like Intel's 1000+ dollar Extreme series.

NO, Titan in CPU world would be like AMD's FX "gold" (or something) edition , that would be barely better than regullar FX, worse than compettition, but costs 1000$+

 

[ZoneDymo]

NO, Titan in CPU world would be like AMD's FX "gold" (or something) edition , that would be barely better than regullar FX, worse than compettition, but costs 1000$+

Which is pretty much the same as Intel's Extreme editions

 

[Xzibit]

I'd challenge anyone to find the die size and transistor count specification of a Xeon Phi GPU.

TechPowerUp - Intel Xeon Phi SE10X

 

[HumanSmoke]

TechPowerUp - Intel Xeon Phi SE10X

That number, 350mm^2 is a guess I'm picking since it crops up as anecdotal "evidence" without documentation, and as a guess it seems a bad one at that. Dave Kanter's take is:

The total size of the LLC should be around 144MB or 2MB/core, which corresponds to roughly 250mm2 on a 14nm process. While this is fairly large, Knights Landing is probably a 700mm2 device, and spending about a third of the die area on cache is a very reasonable design choice as discussed in an earlier article on microservers. Assuming 256KB L2 cache per core, the inclusive LLC is unlikely to be any smaller than 2MB/core to maintain an 8:1 capacity ratio.

Even Charlie D, the Intel shill pegs the 350mm^2 as a fairy story, so I wouldn't place too much stock in it.

BTW: The Xeon Phi review in the db - it leads to a CPU review !?!

 

[techy1]

Which is pretty much the same as Intel's Extreme editions

but Intel's Extreme at least is NOT worse than competition, but all of Titans are

 

[GhostRyder]

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

The original titanIC was build on an earlier version of the lithography process, so yields should have been improved by now which means the production costs are much much lower without those insane margins which they put atop.

If they really set it at that price tag, then I do not want to know who are those who will give them what they ask.

Be very careful because this policy leads to a disaster - ever growing prices, so at some point virtually no one will be able to buy, only they will buy it from themselves. ahahaha

If someone buys it there is a sane reason from their perspective, it probably will be 1000+ dollar minimum if we are to take anything from the recent Z release.

Its still so far off it does not matter at this point beyond a first glimpse if this turns out to be it. I mean in all honesty 2015 is a good while off and this has a vague first half estimate which can always change. I just hope this time around they release the 880 first instead of trying to push the Titan off on people then release the X80 model.

 

[the54thvoid]

but Intel's Extreme at least is NOT worse than competition, but all of Titans are

No, Titan Black is the fastest single gpu consumer gfx card (stock comparison to stock 780Ti). The i7 3960 cpu from intel is not a huge amount faster than the i7 3930 but it is/was twice the price (way back when i bought mine). It's actually a very good analogy of premium product at inflated premium price. Doesn't make it a rational scaling with performance but that doesn't seem to matter at that end.

 

[Patriot]

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

The original titanIC was build on an earlier version of the lithography process, so yields should have been improved by now which means the production costs are much much lower without those insane margins which they put atop.

If they really set it at that price tag, then I do not want to know who are those who will give them what they ask.

Be very careful because this policy leads to a disaster - ever growing prices, so at some point virtually no one will be able to buy, only they will buy it from themselves. ahahaha

There is no sane reason the Titan-Z was 3k ... Don't try to limit nvidia's actions by reason... it just won't work.

 

[the54thvoid]

There is no sane reason the Titan-Z was 3k

Correct. It's an embarrassment - which is a shame as it's actually a decent card. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru.../66869-nvidia-titan-z-performance-review.html

Don't try to limit nvidia's actions by reason... it just won't work.

It will for most products. Why GTX680 was released and at the price point it was, why Titan was released etc. All makes perfect business sense.

 

[GhostRyder]

Correct. It's an embarrassment - which is a shame as it's actually a decent card. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru.../66869-nvidia-titan-z-performance-review.html

Agreed, for all the situations you would want the card they left an opening for a better alternative which I believe was the overall problem with Titan-Z.

It will for most products. Why GTX680 was released and at the price point it was, why Titan was released etc. All makes perfect business sense.

I think everything is just going up in price, its actually getting harder and harder to be a PC gamer in this day and age. I still remember when spending 100 bucks on a GPU got me BF2 and 2142 at a great high performance experience which has almost diminished in this day and age. Hopefully we will see some improvements to the pricing structures down the line at some point, but either way it will take time.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

You can always try Nvidia, just use the right marketing for it this time

lol I think their marketting for the first Titan was fine. That card sold like hot cakes.

 

[Ahhzz]

There is no sane reason or arguments for it to be $1500.

.....

Nvidia. 'Nuff Said.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

It amazes me how quickly threads that involve the "Titan" escalate into a pissing match about price. IMO that horse has been beaten enough, and pricing of GPUs these days in general.

 

[xorbe]

lol I think their marketting for the first Titan was fine. That card sold like hot cakes.

The price point was okay for the high rollers for the performance offered 18 months ago. It's still a great card, and in fact $/year it looks like it's going to last quite a while, and an acceptable deal in fact for having had 6GB. NVidia is going to be competing with themselves attempting to woo existing Titan owners that they need a new card. Gonna be a pretty tough sell! And we all know the non-Titan version will be along soon after.