Nvidia preparing Four 28nm Maxwell Skus & Jumping to 16nm in 2015?

[fojacko]

Hopefully the 860/870 provides enough of a increase in performance to make the purchase worthwhile (660ti > 760 wasn't enough imo)

[Accursed Entity]

All these rumors are going to look so bad when the real things get released. It's always the same with each series... I don't even get excited by rumors.

[Opsilon]

Interesting, i hope AMD pulls up something cool so i can have a hard time to actually decide what i want, and let's hope that NVidia keeps the promise that the cards will be cheaper this time around, because last 2 years, at least in my country it was performance or price, bad price/performance.

My 670 ( 507 $ ) was quite a bit cheaper than a 7970 ( 570 $ ) when i bought it, and you can still find 7970's in stores that are more expensive than 290's.... yeah 290's... sucks balls if you are a noob in PC hardware, and the worst thing is that the 290x is cheaper than 780... but the 295x2 costs 2064,45 $, yeah 500$ more than in the States or Canada, i can buy 3 290x's for that price, with custom coolers, prices over here suck balls!!! Not to mention Nvidia's pricing does not help there from the get go...

[CreativeTHC]

seems like nvidia got sick of the tiny difference between AMD-nVIDIA, 5 to 10 fps?! .. interesting.. tho i would wonder the price of this things.. but it would be even a bigger  suprise to see a "decent" price for a card with 4gb ram at least, not like we're use to se now from nvidia u___u

[ChrisxIxCross]

Poll seems to be broken, the forum thinks there's multiple questions.

Poll is fixed, forgot to tick the enable multiple choice option. 

[kuddlesworth9419]

I think Nvidia is taking longer to bring out the next GPU's because they want them to perform really well on higher resolution displays such as 4K and 8K. They are probably also trying to implement other technologies onto the PCB and the GPU itself like better integration of G-Sync.

[geogga]

Can someone TLDR this long ass article?

Jezzzz

[Guest MixedCore]

NVIDIA to skip 20nm fabrication process, third generation Maxwell to use 16nm? 

Now here comes the most surprising news from the SemiAccurate Article. According to their sources, Nvidia will SKIP 20nm and jump straight into 16nm. Not only that this will be the first time a same GPU will be remanufactured and relaunched on a smaller process. 

That doesn't seem very likely. It's a known problem the one which manufacturers have with implementing/substainably producing chips on a smaller manufacturing process.

[ChrisxIxCross]

That doesn't seem very likely. It's a known problem the one which manufacturers have with implementing/substainably producing chips with a smaller manufacturing process.

My thoughts exactly TSMC had an extremely tough time getting around to getting 20nm let alone 16nm. Imo what I would like to happen is we dont get anything this fall and get 20nm in the spring next year. 

[Socky]

16nm Maxwell PLZ I WANT

[jmaster299]

Other places like Eteknix are starting to run with this information too. If it's true, it may completely alter my upgrade plans.

 

My thoughts exactly TSMC had an extremely tough time getting around to getting 20nm let alone 16nm. Imo what I would like to happen is we dont get anything this fall and get 20nm in the spring next year. 

According to the articles talking about this, the issue with the 20nm fabrication has been solved and they are ready to go with production. But they are well on their way to getting 16nm production ready to go, so Nvidia just doesn't want to waste time with 20nm. It's MUCH cheaper for Nvidia to go with an improved 28nm fabrication, so from a business standpoint it makes more sense for them to do that if they can offer a 20-30% performance increase over the current 700 series.

They could release more powerful 28nm 800 series cards with cheaper price points than the 700 series but have the same or better profit margin. Then when the 16nm chips come out, we will get a much more significant performance jump. 

[ViruZ_HUN]

Hi!

 

Nvidia keeps screwing me around:P. I personally don't understand what they mean that they gonna release 2 kind of Maxwell series. One on end of this year, second on the q1/2 2015.

 

Sources: 

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-may-skip-20nm-process-technology-jump-straight-to-16nm/

http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-gm204-maxwell-gpus-may-jump-from-28nm-to-16nm-skip-20nm/

http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-gm204-maxwell-gpus-may-jump-from-28nm-to-16nm-skip-20nm/

 

EDITORIAL — In case you didn’t know that already, NVIDIA will soon launch new Maxwell graphics processing unit, the GM204. Today we bring you the latest information about this particular processor, which will power upcoming GeForce 800 series graphics cards.

The GK104 to retire soon

The GM204 is expected to replace the whole GK104 stack. It is the first silicon based on second generation Maxwell architecture. This generation will later be updated with GK110 successor, the GM200.

According to SemiAccurate, NVIDIA is preparing at least four GeForce SKUs to be released before jumping into smaller fabrication process. The list includes:

• GeForce GTX 880 Ti
• GeForce GTX 880
• GeForce GTX 870
• GeForce GTX 860

All these cards will differ in Streaming Multiprocessor count. Various sources claim that full GM204 chip would feature between 15 and 20 SMs (1920-2560 CUDAs). Maxwell core is obviously much more power efficient than Kepler, thus the next flagship will most likely have less cores than full GK110 processor. This has not happened before.

NVIDIA to skip 20nm fabrication process, third generation Maxwell to use 16nm?

Now, here’s the biggest shocker coming from SemiAccurate article. According to their sources, NVIDIA will skip 20nm node and move straight to 16nm. Not only that, GM204 will be the first GPU remanufactured and relaunched using this process.

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 880 will launch is set for Q3. If everything goes according to plan, the new flagship should appear in October.

The second wave would launch somewhere in mid-Q1/2015, which gives us 4 to 6 months between the second and third generation of Maxwell. Long story short, the GM204 at A stepping is expected to be the last 28nm GPU NVIDIA is going to make. The GM204 B and all future GPUs will use 16nm node.

There are few possibilities here, and I think they are all worth to mention.

Scenario #1: GM204B cards are called the same as GM204A models

According to SA, those new graphics cards based on B revision, would still carry GTX 8xx naming scheme. In fact, all these cards would have the same codename as their 28nm revisions.

Of course it all depends on TSMC. The volume and launch date may be affected by the difficulties met by the foundry.

In case you didn’t know, the GK110 processor was also released in B revision. It was first used by GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition. The transition to B stepping was rather quiet, and only a very comprehensive analysis would reveal the advantage of GK110B. However GK110 was 28nm all the time.

Scenario #2: GM204B cards renamed

The GM204 is going to be much different. The B revision, will carry much more than just a name. Smaller node will decrease power consumption significantly. Launching a new SKU with the same codename as its 28nm variant would cause an absolute chaos on the market. This is where the other theory comes in. NVIDIA may add a special postfix to its naming schema to indicate which parts are using smaller node, for instance GTX+ (like they did with 9800 GTX+), or call it Green, GHz or Whatever Edition.

Scenario #3: GM204B cards to wait for GeForce 900 series

If TSMC 16nm yields will not be as high as expected, there is a chance that new parts would wait for GeForce 900 series. In fact I think this is the most reasonable scenario (assuming that the whole 16nm thing is true), because nobody wants to buy a new flagship, only later to see the same card with much lower power consumption and higher overclockability in just few months. According to this scenario, GTX 880 would be relaunched as GTX 970, but of course using the GM204B GPU. This theory would also leaves GeForce 1000 series for Pascal (has anyone figured how they are going to name these cards?).

Bear in mind that Charlie’s website is called semi accurate for a reason. It could all be wrong from the beginning. However SA is exceptionally accurate where it comes to NVIDIA’s roadmaps.

[AnnoyedShelf]

According to their sources, NVIDIA will skip 20nm node and move straight to 16nm.

God damn, that's one hell of a leap.  Let's just hope it works, that'd be a tough manufacturing process to pull off.

[AlwaysFSX]

I highly doubt they're going to use 16nm FinFET for Maxwell so late in 2015. GM2xx will still likely be 28 and released sooner than they'll run up another tab trying to get worthwhile chips to sell on a smaller node.

[AnnoyedShelf]

I highly doubt they're going to use 16nm FinFET for Maxwell so late in 2015. GM2xx will still likely be 28 and released sooner than they'll run up another tab trying to get worthwhile chips to sell on a smaller node.

Yeah, that seems more reasonable.  I thought that 16nm seemed a little too good to be true.

[Askew]

REPOSTAVO

 

The news is over a week old did you really think nobody posted it already?

[AlwaysFSX]

Yeah, that seems more reasonable.  I thought that 16nm seemed a little too good to be true.

FinFET has had 16nm down better than TSMC has 20nm being worked on. Nvidia's going to release 800 on 28 and then 900 on 16. Why they skipped 22 which was working just fine, I'll never know.

[AnnoyedShelf]

FinFET has had 16nm down better than TSMC has 20nm being worked on. Nvidia's going to release 800 on 28 and then 900 on 16. Why they skipped 22 which was working just fine, I'll never know.

Smaller manufacturing process = more transistors.

[AlwaysFSX]

Smaller manufacturing process = more transistors.

Spending less money = more money made because it f*cking works

[AnnoyedShelf]

Spending less money = more money made because it f*cking works

Well met. However, I think Nvidia is looking to get way ahead of the competition.

[AlwaysFSX]

Well met. However, I think Nvidia is looking to get way ahead of the competition.

Yeah.... They're not Intel, they can't do that.

[consoleconvergence2pc]

This has already been posted more than once

[AnnoyedShelf]

Yeah.... They're not Intel, they can't do that.

You have a point, but they do make great products and have been pushing into newer markets.  Who knows, maybe they want a 780Ti in a phone or something (I highly doubt it)

[ViruZ_HUN]

You have a point, but they do make great products and have been pushing into newer markets.  Who knows, maybe they want a 780Ti in a phone or something (I highly doubt it)

In 5 years Titan Z will be in Samsungs " Samsung Extreme X"

[Goldilock]

If they will use Finfet it will be a hell of hot chip.