By whole line of 28nm Maxwell GPUs. You mean GM107 and GM108? The model numbers for the others are GM204, GM206 and GM200 and verified by drivers.
Yes, all of those Maxwells. I flat out don't believe that NVidia would create a 28nm Maxwell design solely to produce GM107 and GM108. These are chips destined for the laptop market, where power savings would be utterly vital, and yet these are the only ones in the whole lineup built on 28nm? It just doesn't add up. In your scenario the only reasonable explanation for them going 28nm is time-to-market- but NVidia already has the laptop dGPU market stitched up, no need to rush out a 28nm Maxwell just for that. It could be a pre-emptive reaction against Broadwell, I guess, but Broadwell is not hitting until Q4- roughly the same time as the other Maxwells are meant to arrive.
And that SOC process isnt as bad as its portrait. My i5 4670 is essentially build on the same.
No, your 4670 is build on Intel's higher performance variant of its 22nm process. Its true SoCs (Bay Trail, Merrifield) are built on the lower power variant of the 22nm node. That is the process which is equivalent to 20nm SoC (in terms of power envelope, not tech, obviously).
TSMC and statements are something that doesnt go hand in hand. So lets see when they actually delivers. We all know how incorrect TSMCs own roadmaps are.
Hah, yeah, I got a good laugh looking at some old roadmaps saying that 20nm was coming in 2013 and 16nm in 2014. But despite the roadmaps frequently slipping, they have consistently had the gap between 20nm and 16nm at ~1 year. Given how similar the two processes are, it's not hard to believe that the gap would not be very large. Not the mention the canning of the 20nm HP process would free up resources to work on 16nm, and provide a very good incentive to get 16nm out the door.
Late 2014 seems be a battle between 20nm Maxwell and 20nm GCN 1.1.
Apart from the 20nm part, I agree.