The return of Kepler (yes really) ASUS relaunching the GT710

[Arika]

This maybe one of the more confusing things Asus has done in recent years. Maybe they just have massive unused stock of chips?

 

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We've noticed of late that certain companies are 'relaunching' older parts in new designs. We've seen it recently with some of the older AMD APUs finding their way into new motherboard designs, but here it's a case of a base GPU returning to the market. ASUS has listed on its website a 'new' GT 710: this is a super low end graphics chip with 192 CUDA cores on the 87 mm2 GK208 Kepler die that originally launched in late 2015 / early 2016. The goal of this sort of graphics card us to supply basic video outputs to machines that do not come with any integrated graphics on the processor.

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What's different about this card, which comes with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, is that it has four HDMI video outputs. On a modern graphics card you might expect a DisplayPort or two, but here it's all just HDMI. Despite the GK208 GPU not supporting HDMI 2.0 natively, this is the sort of card that is going to take advantage of NVIDIA opening up 4K60 with 4:2:0 subchroma sampling support on Kepler, which makes it useful for video at the most (you won't want to be running a full desktop experience with it).

ASUS states that the card can support 4K60 in this mode when one monitor is attached, or 4K30 when multiple displays are attached. 

 

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The GT710-4H-SL-2GD5 is expected to be in the ~$50 range when it comes to market.

 

and for shits and giggles

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. ASUS suggests using multiple cards at once for anyone that needs 12-16+ displays.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15713/asus-launches-an-old-gpu-the-nvidia-gt-710-with-four-hdmi-ports

 

 

I mean...i can see why something like this can exist especially given the popularity spike in AMD cpus that do no come with integrated graphics...but why kepler of all things?

I think we're probably only going to see this in OEM business/basic home machines running an AMD non-APU

 

or just a very cheap way to add more monitors if that's something you're in to.

[Jurrunio]

manufacturing process limit maybe? 28nm is old enough to be really cheap and widely available, but Nvidia didnt make such low end GPU with 9 series. That's why Asus chose 7 series for such product

[ZcanKal]

Why did they stop at 4 HDMI ports?  Just stack them and get 8.

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, ZcanKal said:

Why did they stop at 4 HDMI ports?  Just stack them and get 8.

Nvidia limit, Geforce cards dont go beyond 4. 

[RejZoR]

This is such a weird price bracket. Also, it doesn't seem to be just ASUS. Just checked Computer Universe store here in Europe and they have bunch of GT710 in stock from various vendors (and even some GT730). And only other alternative is Radeon R5 230. And I'd consider all of them essentially useless for anything but desktop use only.

I mean, lowest end CPU's have iGPU anyway, at least on Intel's side, so this really only makes it useful for really high end CPU's that don't come with GPU or servers that have the same problem. Or you just need so many outputs.

[Curufinwe_wins]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

This is such a weird price bracket. Also, it doesn't seem to be just ASUS. Just checked Computer Universe store here in Europe and they have bunch of GT710 in stock from various vendors (and even some GT730). And only other alternative is Radeon R5 230. And I'd consider all of them essentially useless for anything but desktop use only.

I mean, lowest end CPU's have iGPU anyway, at least on Intel's side, so this really only makes it useful for really high end CPU's that don't come with GPU or servers that have the same problem. Or you just need so many outputs.

Or old systems that don't have graphics. Like anything Core2 or older on the desktop side. Plus almost all of zen1/+/2 and almost all of FX. It's really unfortunate actually how often this could be useful. Plus Kepler's encoding engine should do a much better job than most Broadwell (or older) iGPUs for this sort of thing...

 

I really need to pick up a shittastic gpu that I can dedicate to testing other hardware some day... It's been the bane of my existence with my current PC (well what was my current PC before my motherboard died last month and I swapped to a 9700k) that I lack the ability to test gpu and other part functionality separately.

 

Speaking of which, 100% being honest here... not having an iGPU was the reason in the end I didn't buy Zen2. It sounds so stupid and counter-enthusiast demands, but holy mother of god, one finicky system and the difference an iGPU makes for troubleshooting is just insane....

[RejZoR]

There are APU's with AMD. You won't find top of the line processors with crappy iGPU on either side tho.

[Curufinwe_wins]

15 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

There are APU's with AMD. You won't find top of the line processors with crappy iGPU on either side tho.

Ehh, 9900K(S) offers iGPU. Traditionally even the top of the line non-HEDT intel processors have iGPUs, though 'enthusiasts' asked for years to get them removed for more cpu power (thus things like the -KF line).

 

I, like you, had been living that HEDT 5820k life... I just can't justify it again after 5 years of intermittent issues.

 

But the APUs are dramatically less powerful unfortunately (between the shittastic FX APUs and Zen APUs being limited to 4 cores). If AMD offered an equivalent on desktop to a 4800H I would have bought that in a heart beat. I don't need a good GPU, I just want one that 'functions' so that troubleshooting inevitable problems is way less painful.

 

I don't consider a R5 3600 or an i5-9500 top of the line, nor budget cpus, and right now... it is one of the largest distinquishers between the two brands (obviously the 9500 is noticeably worse than a 3600, I'm just talking about within the individual stacks).

[xentropa]

I guess wish.com already had an overstock of rebranded Ampere cards.

[TechyBen]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

This is such a weird price bracket. Also, it doesn't seem to be just ASUS. Just checked Computer Universe store here in Europe and they have bunch of GT710 in stock from various vendors (and even some GT730). And only other alternative is Radeon R5 230. And I'd consider all of them essentially useless for anything but desktop use only.

I mean, lowest end CPU's have iGPU anyway, at least on Intel's side, so this really only makes it useful for really high end CPU's that don't come with GPU or servers that have the same problem. Or you just need so many outputs.

IIRC the same thing happens/ed with other low end cards. The low end get sold for like a near decade from manufacture unless another low end card comes in and beats it in budget/availability. And while they are around, the vendor/designer has little to no need or economic drive to replace it (hence no 910 or 1010 cards, though I forgot the 1030 even exists! and the name "GTX 1030" is a joke lol), because they wish to clear old stock first.

 

PS, a quick search shows the 710 new (no idea if new old stock or new production stock) is at least half the price of a new 1030. So price point is certainly a driving factor here.

[mr moose]

I saw a bunch of 710's on scorptec's website a week ago, I really didn't think anything of it.  People always need a useless GPU for office computers and stuff.  Especially if your office computer need 4 or 5 monitors for graphs and production machinery control.

[it_dont_work]

19 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I saw a bunch of 710's on scorptec's website a week ago, I really didn't think anything of it.  People always need a useless GPU for office computers and stuff.  Especially if your office computer need 4 or 5 monitors for graphs and production machinery control.

I tend to agree, this is kind common, I used to setup similar in theatres for large rear projection displays with ancient matrox cards. 

[RejZoR]

I still have GeForce 8400GS as a backup card. It was the lowest end card at the time, like 30€ when new and I bought it because my main died and I needed something while I was waiting for RMA to be done. Then I thought, selling it for 15€ would be a waste of money so I just kept it as backup. And it came handy once more for debugging to see if graphic card was the issue. And I'm just gonna keep it for as long as there are drivers available for it on latest OS. Or for as long as it'll be compatible with PCIe slots. Though I think drivers will be an issue faster than the slot...

[porina]

I wonder is this the kinda thing you might use if you were to do a videowall or similar? You just want to output to a bunch of monitors and that's it.

[soldier_ph]

Ok I want one. Just for shits and giggles. 

[SansVarnic]

I like it for the ability to do multi-display but AMD Display cards will go up to 6 with Mini-HDMI ports.

[williamcll]

Guess there's no use for NVS cards anymore with this around.

[descendency]

9 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

manufacturing process limit maybe? 28nm is old enough to be really cheap and widely available, but Nvidia didnt make such low end GPU with 9 series. That's why Asus chose 7 series for such product

I wonder how available the 28nm process really is right now. A lot of the fabs I'm sure got converted. I'm sure you're right or ASUS wouldn't do this, but it does make me wonder how available these older processes are. 

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, descendency said:

I wonder how available the 28nm process really is right now. A lot of the fabs I'm sure got converted. I'm sure you're right or ASUS wouldn't do this, but it does make me wonder how available these older processes are. 

Raspberry Pi 4 is on 28nm as well, and that's one of the cheapest programmable computers money can buy today 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

10 hours ago, Arika S said:

 

 

I mean...i can see why something like this can exist especially given the popularity spike in AMD cpus that do no come with integrated graphics...

The thing is, will it be cheap enough to justify not getting just any other card? I mean, among buyers of those "consumer high end" CPUs, how many have no use for a GPU whatsoever? And even among those, there's the question of whether this really costs that much less or uses that much less power.

 

Then again, there's a market for Matrox, so I guess it somehow makes sense at some niche?

 

9 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I mean, lowest end CPU's have iGPU anyway, at least on Intel's side, so this really only makes it useful for really high end CPU's that don't come with GPU or servers that have the same problem. Or you just need so many outputs.

Servers may have onboard graphics, so it would be mostly weird X299 / Threadripper builds or, probably, the many-display situation.

Even then, enough displays may also over-burden its horsepower. I wouldn't be surprised if they used 4 HDMIs because it won't be that comfortable past 4x1080p, depending on what you do in each display.

 

44 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Guess there's no use for NVS cards anymore with this around.

I forgot about those, put them in the "Matrox segment"  There also some low power FirePro cards, but I think those are closer to the 710 or the likes of R5s etc.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

10 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

pcie x1 connection ._.

 

1 hour ago, Pascal... said:

Ok I want one. Just for shits and giggles. 

 

 

You know, it would be worth just so I use those pesky x1 slots for something!

Half of them are blocked by a 2-slot GPU anyway (thanks ASRock for inverting the order. I still have nothing to plug there, though )

 

[ZcanKal]

wait a second...  The Athlon 300GE is the same price as this, and that has a CPU and a GPU...

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

The thing is, will it be cheap enough to justify not getting just any other card? I mean, among buyers of those "consumer high end" CPUs, how many have no use for a GPU whatsoever? And even among those, there's the question of whether this really costs that much less or uses that much less power.

 

Then again, there's a market for Matrox, so I guess it somehow makes sense at some niche?

 

Servers may have onboard graphics, so it would be mostly weird X299 / Threadripper builds or, probably, the many-display situation.

Even then, enough displays may also over-burden its horsepower. I wouldn't be surprised if they used 4 HDMIs because it won't be that comfortable past 4x1080p, depending on what you do in each display.

 

I forgot about those, put them in the "Matrox segment"  There also some low power FirePro cards, but I think those are closer to the 710 or the likes of R5s etc.

All HEDT, most FX, most Core2, many old Xeons, most Zen. Most server graphics (when present) are 2d only, which while totally good enough for their function, and indeed eliminating most of the troubleshooting need for these, even the smallest 3d gpu can be quite helpful when moving free/cheap old server stuff into random consumer roles.

 

13 minutes ago, ZcanKal said:

wait a second...  The Athlon 300GE is the same price as this, and that has a CPU and a GPU...

yes. But requires a compatible motherboard, ram, etc etc. This is for troubleshooting and/or keeping old ass systems afloat at minimum cost. (In the last two years I did end up throwing something similar in a Q6600 PC for my grandparents)

[rcmaehl]

Are we going to get extended driver support too or will the drivers be EoL 2021 like they'd be normally?

[Shreyas1]

Looks like someone bought a bunch of rtx 2080ti s from wish and had no idea what to do with them