If GP104 starts out on 256 bit GDDR5 (non-X) I think quite a few people in this thread are overestimating its performance. 1080 vs 980Ti might look a bit like 285 vs 7970GHz.
Not that I totally disagree, but to pedant - 980's are already only 165w, so would be far from obselete crap vs a 120W / identical performance die shrunk competitor. They'd have to price cut a lot of course but fine for stalling for a few months.
This seems like the fastest way for AMD to take its market share at single digits, if true. If Polaris 10 is as slow as you expect it to be, AMD will be offering no new SKU that would be an actual upgrade for hawaii/GM204 users and upwards.Imagine loyal AMD customers on hawaii since late 2013 waiting for something better than Fury X - this sends them straight to nvidia. AMD's only chance to sell anything midrange or higher would be to attract a small portion of the crowd that did not find Fiji worthwhile the first time round and budget buyers that still use pitcairns etc and will be looking for an upgrade in the 150-200 range. AMD will have to price their Fiji respins really low as well, since nvidia will be ruling the roost at 450+ with much higher performance. AMD getting pigeonholed in cheap brackets while competing with their 28nm SKUs smells disaster.
The question is whether Polaris 10 will really have 2560 shading units. If yes then it may beat Fury easily with all announced improvements.
If GP104 starts out on 256 bit GDDR5 (non-X) I think quite a few people in this thread are overestimating its performance. 1080 vs 980Ti might look a bit like 285 vs 7970GHz.
Yup, which is why I don't think it will happen. NV knows 256 GDDR5 is going to limit it's performance.
Better to wait a few months for GDDR5X.
1. 285 is a 384-bit bus chip, not a 256-bit. It's also overloaded with 8 ACEs for no reason given how few shaders it has. It also has TrueAudio that wastes graphics transistor space.
2. NV's next gen mid-range chip has almost always matched or outperformed the last gen's flagship card. You are saying it'll be the first time in 20 years when this isn't going to happen?
3. You can get 320GB/sec bandwidth and 384GB/sec with 256-bit and GDDR5X @ 10Gbps and 12Gbps, respectively. 980Ti has 336GB/sec. Micron already has both 10 and 12Gbps GDDR5X.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10193/micron-begins-to-sample-gddr5x-memory
If this rumored May launch is accurate than either tight supply with GDDR5X, which will burn brand goodwill with potential customers, or decent availability with GDDR5.
1. It only implements 256-bit and the limitations of that can be seen under certain conditions.
2. Same thing could be said before Nvidia created an additional price tier with their Titan line, i.e. "they've never done that before so they won't do it ever."
3. From the article you link: "Micron claims that it is set to start mass production of the new memory this summer, which hopefully means we're going to be seeing graphics cards featuring GDDR5X before the end of the year." For a mass market position such as a traditional $400-550 *70/*80 it will be surprising to see volume retail availability before late August if they are using GDDR5X.
Note I specifically said if GP104 is GDDR5 and not GDDR5X.
If this rumored May launch is accurate than either tight supply with GDDR5X, which will burn brand goodwill with potential customers, or decent availability with GDDR5.
Very unlike to be May, given we haven't got any concrete leaks.
Still a few months out.
1070/1080 should be optimally designed so there is no reason at all to expect them to not beat 970/980 by at least 50% if NV is touting 100% increase in perf/watt.
For the GTX 1080 to be 50% faster than the GTX980, it should be close to 300mm2 and 9B transistors. That will put it 10-20% faster than GM200 and GTX 980Ti.
If they will use GDDR-5, they will need 384-bit memory. That GPU could be released in early Summer.
If they will use 256-bit memory they will need GDDR-5X. This one could only be released after Summer of 2016.
Also, 2x the perf/watt doesnt necessarily mean at the same TDP as the GTX 980.
With big Pascal rumored to have 17B transistors, that would be pretty underwhelming 1080. Pretty much 1/2...when 980 was 2/3 of Titan X, so was old 460/560 compared to 580... 780 was even 80 percent of Titan Black/780Ti, granted that was cut down 100/110, not a 104 class of chip...
As of January 15, 2015, Samsung Electronics announced in a press release that it had begun mass production of "8 Gb" (8 × 1024 bits) GDDR5 memory chips based on a 20 nm fabrication process. To meet the demand of higher resolution displays (such as 4K) becoming more mainstream, higher density chips are required in order to facilitate larger frame buffers for graphically intensive computation, namely PC gaming and other 3D rendering. Increased bandwidth of the new high-density modules equates to 8 Gbit/s per pin × 170 pins on the BGA package x 32-bits per I/O cycle, or 256 Gbit/s effective bandwidth per chip.
On January 6, 2015, Micron Technology President Mark Adams announced the successful sampling of 8 Gb GDDR5 on the company's fiscal Q1-2015 earnings call.[21][22] The company then announced, on January 25th, 2015, that it had begun commercial shipments of GDDR5 using a 20 nm process technology.[23][24][25] The formal announcement of Micron's 8 Gb GDDR5 appeared in the form of a blog post by Kristopher Kido on the company's website September 1, 2015.
Doesn't Jen-Hsun usually parade a board (working or otherwise) around on stage prior to launch? So far we haven't even seen a Pascal chip much less a complete card. The Drive PX2 which he said had Pascal chips on it were proven to be just Maxwell MXM modules.I think I read retail launch around May 27-29th. That means possibly just 2 months left before GP104 reference cards are in retail on Newegg/Amazon. Would be crazy if true since that's more than 6 months ahead of Vega.
Doesn't Jen-Hsun usually parade a board (working or otherwise) around on stage prior to launch? So far we haven't even seen a Pascal chip much less a complete card. The Drive PX2 which he said had Pascal chips on it were proven to be just Maxwell MXM modules.
I literally ordered another gtx 970 yesterday. Just my luck, huh?
If I was you I would cancel or return that order. Even if they only give you store credit, so you can get a 1070 or sell your current 970 and stretch to a 1080.
More about this card and its usage in Science http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/03/canadas_chime_telescope_taps_amd_for_gpubased_super/P.S. Fiji from S9300x2 has the same TDP and has 6.9 TFLOPs of compute power.
Card sells for $5,999
OEMs asked them for this type of GPUs otherwise I do not see any other reason to produce them. Unless - something with Pascal or technology behind it is just plainly wrong. Lets hope that the last thing is not the case.
Nvidia just released mobile Quadro based on GM204 with 1140 MHz core clock, 150W and 4.7 TFLOPs of compute power.
OEMs asked them for this type of GPUs otherwise I do not see any other reason to produce them. Unless - something with Pascal or technology behind it is just plainly wrong. Lets hope that the last thing is not the case.
P.S. Fiji from S9300x2 has the same TDP and has 6.9 TFLOPs of compute power.
The power of GTX970 was price.GTX980 was crap from start to today.Another explanation is that NV has 0 competition in that space so releasing a 1.5 year old 980 at high prices maximizes profits while still delivering top of the line performance for that market segment. Why release a card 2x faster when you can milk old tech at maximum profit margin? The desktop market is different. A lot of gamers upgrade in Q3/4 as many high profile AAA games release around that time. If NV has GP104 out in volumes by Q3, they will flood the market in Q4, while Vega will be a spec on the map. This would repeat the 970/980 strategy, but with even less competition. Fiji cannot overclock well. If 1070/1080 have 20-25% OCing headroom and 1080 is 20-25% faster than 980Ti, it's going to be hard to imagine waiting 6-8 months for Vega. I keep coming back to this point: the fastest way to lose a generation is to not show up on time (for AMD specifically). Unlike many NV customers, AMD buyers/objective gamers will not wait 6-8 months for AMD to show up. If GP104 launches in June-July and AMD has weak Polaris 10, that's like 90%+ of $350-550 market share sales going to NV.
Either GP104 launching soon is not reality or AMD's Polaris is much faster or AMD is about to get hammered.
Let's look at it another way. Even if 1070 8GB just matches 980Ti, has only 15% overclocking headroom and costs $399, I personally would not buy any Fiji card for more than $299. Fury X uses 280W of power and has 4GB VRAM. I'd easily pay $100 premium for 2X the VRAM, 20%+ more OCed performance over Fury X OC, with 100-120W less power, DP1.3/HDMI 2.0a/HDR support, latest video codec, etc. I am actually scared for the GPU market since while some 7950/7970/280/290 owners skipped this gen, it's going to much harder to not upgrade to 1070/1080.
Also, historically speaking, NV cards tend to overclock better too. That's why even if AMD lowers Fury X to $349, $399 1070 ~ 980Ti would still be better. That's why I am saying Fury X @ $299 if 1070 is at least as fast as a 980Ti with 15% OC room on top. If NV prices 1070 @ $329 like 970, those things will fly off the shelves faster than Skylake K during the first 6 months. Scary times for AMD.
But what is better?