NVIDIA Volta gets 16nm FinFET treatment - could arrive in 2017 (Fudzilla)

[Sweepr]

When have we ever seen a new architecture released a year after the last. Even from GK104 to GM107 was 2 years.

To be fair GP104 launched late May, so Q4-16/Q1-17 for a successor doesn't sound so absurd on the same process.

 

[jpiniero]

In that case GP102 doesn't make sense either.

They do need to refresh Quadros though. So GP102 makes sense in that they were able to shave 100 mm2 off and only lose DP, HBM2 and NVLink.

I'd have to say that it's more likely that 2017 will be a Pascal refresh; and 2018 will be when you will see Volta for consumers. They really need to milk this because there is no telling how long both will be on this node for GPUs.

 

[Silverforce11]

It's a wee bit early to start the hype train on Volta. Maybe next year, we can depart the station and start the journey.

People still have yet to buy their halo Titan X Pascal, give them some time to enjoy the purchase with peace of mind.

 

[railven]

It's a wee bit early to start the hype train on Volta. Maybe next year, we can depart the station and start the journey.

People still have yet to buy their halo Titan X Pascal, give them some time to enjoy the purchase with peace of mind.

Halo buyers have no peace of mind! It's always "okay, what's next"

I'm not even Titan-status but I was itching to buy a new card by month 6. Haha.

 

[garagisti]

www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/41122-nvidia-volta-is-16nm-finfet

Funny, Wccftech in story about Titan X based on Pascal claimed that Nvidia will have a Titan refresh with full Pascal chip, and HBM 2. If truth is somewhere in between, should i possibly assume that Volta is but merely tweaked Pascal, which itself is but tweaked Maxwell. Not necessarily a bad thing, but wonder how great the support for DX12 would be. I'd wager other than that, and the price, such a card would be peachy.

 

[crazzy.heartz]

Yeah, about that....

I offered to install my 290X water cooled on my GF's rig, she has a FreeSync monitor. She said no. Haha.

Sometimes people end up with FreeSync because the monitor is on a damn good clearance price and it played no part in the buying decision.

The AIO with watertubes and big chunky radiator might have dissuaded her from installing that.. Fear of new/unknown i think.. In my experience, girls tend to reject any hand-me-down items, regardless of value.

That's what im saying though.. Majority of good monitors from LG/Samsung and others have Freesync inbuilt and don't cost more because of that.

Anyone with a predisposition towards Nvda may not buy AMD for Freesync; but then, they were not going to use faster than Nvidia AMD GPU in the first place, even when offered for free.. As what happened with your significant other.

An educated consumer will choose differently.

At this point in time your opinion doesn't hold any water. The market says that Freesync and Gsync are niche markets and it doesn't influence buying decisions for mass market dGPUs.

Majority of newer monitors and the ones in the pipeline contain Freesync as it has no price penalty. As railven mentioned above, his GF bought one without even knowing that..

A gamer who is aware, will notice Freesync & it's advantages and then, it makes sense to buy a Freesync GPU for a Freesync monitor.

 

[3DVagabond]

A gamer who is aware, will notice Freesync & it's advantages and then, it makes sense to buy a Freesync GPU for a Freesync monitor.

Yes. Saying it makes no difference in the buying decision is indefensible. It's just a statement with zero facts to back it up except that not everybody cares. lol

 

[Kenmitch]

Sometimes people end up with FreeSync because the monitor is on a damn good clearance price and it played no part in the buying decision.

Funny but true. Guess it can go both ways in the end.

I was looking for a 1440p 144hz monitor for a while. Pretty much ignoring the sync option as I didn't really want to get tied to either camp. Figured the 1440p 144hz was key specs for me and would be there either way.

Wound up picking up the Dell S2716DGR G-Sync model on the BestBuy special for $449.99 a couple days ago. Sale price washed away the G-Sync tax as far as I'm concerned. Fully adjustable stand was also one of the key points for me. My rig is on a portable cpu desk as I roll it around the house. Couple tweaks and it looks nice for a TN panel.

 

[railven]

The AIO with watertubes and big chunky radiator might have dissuaded her from installing that.. Fear of new/unknown i think.. In my experience, girls tend to reject any hand-me-down items, regardless of value.

She had no issues accepting my H100i when I switched to the H110i. So it isn't that. She's just been an NV girl since the day I met her. I'm sure once she sees G-Sync on my end, she MIGHT change her mind but I'd have to do that before she gets my 980 Ti, otherwise it would be useless as I doubt she'd want to downgrade to a 290X.

That's what im saying though.. Majority of good monitors from LG/Samsung and others have Freesync inbuilt and don't cost more because of that.

Anyone with a predisposition towards Nvda may not buy AMD for Freesync; but then, they were not going to use faster than Nvidia AMD GPU in the first place, even when offered for free.. As what happened with your significant other.

An educated consumer will choose differently.

Problem is most consumers aren't as educated (or frankly care). They buy mostly based on dollar value or word of month/personal experience. Chances are high majority of my family with have a FreeSync monitor by the time I finish my upgrade wave (GF got one, and honestly she only has it because $220 for a 2560x1080 21:9 IPS was a freaking steal!) but it will have zero to do with the feature and just the fact that these monitors tend to include the option at no cost.

Majority of newer monitors and the ones in the pipeline contain Freesync as it has no price penalty. As railven mentioned above, his GF bought one without even knowing that..

Correction, we knew (since I bought it). We just don't use it because she doesn't want to use a Radeon card.

Funny but true. Guess it can go both ways in the end.

I was looking for a 1440p 144hz monitor for a while. Pretty much ignoring the sync option as I didn't really want to get tied to either camp. Figured the 1440p 144hz was key specs for me and would be there either way.

Wound up picking up the Dell S2716DGR G-Sync model on the BestBuy special for $449.99 a couple days ago. Sale price washed away the G-Sync tax as far as I'm concerned. Fully adjustable stand was also one of the key points for me. My rig is on a portable cpu desk as I roll it around the house. Couple tweaks and it looks nice for a TN panel.

If I could get a good deal on a 21:9 1440p panel with G-Sync I'd have one by now. I know the monitor is probably the second most important part of a rig, since you're basically staring at it for everything you do, but man I just can't convince myself (or her) to drop >$1,000+ just for the G-Sync models.
Non G-Sync: $600-800
G-Sync: $1100 - $1200

Woof! I might have to wait for closer to holiday sales. That itchy buying finger doesn't help

 

[sirmo]

Funny, Wccftech in story about Titan X based on Pascal claimed that Nvidia will have a Titan refresh with full Pascal chip, and HBM 2. If truth is somewhere in between, should i possibly assume that Volta is but merely tweaked Pascal, which itself is but tweaked Maxwell. Not necessarily a bad thing, but wonder how great the support for DX12 would be. I'd wager other than that, and the price, such a card would be peachy.

In the earlier Nvidia roadmaps Pascal was not even on the roadmap.. like it was Maxwell then Volta..

My thinking is Volta wasn't going to be ready in time for Vega so they introduced Pascal with Maxwell tweaks.

So I don't expect Volta until mid next year at the earliest.

 

[A_Skywalker]

gets 16 nm treatment? Was anyone thinking it will be 22 nm or what?

 

[Kenmitch]

gets 16 nm treatment? Was anyone thinking it will be 22 nm or what?

It's Fudzilla what do you expect?

Really it's too early to even speculate Volta at this time anyways.

 

[eddman]

I have a theory regarding Pascal, Volta and the 16nm process.

As you know, Pascal wasn't even on NVidia's roadmap when they first revealed Volta. It was added later.

I think at first they intended Volta to be the true successor of Maxwell on the 20nm process, but after TSMC failed to make it work and chip companies had to migrate to the untested and cutting edge FinFET 16nm process which is far more complex than planar processes, NVidia chose to play it safe and instead of trying to make a completely new architecture (Volta) work on 16nm, they decided to simply optimize the current Maxwell, add a few new features and call it a day. More or less like intel's old tick-tock approach; play it safe with a new process and then after you get the hang of it, use it for a whole new microarchitecture.

Now that they have enough experience with 16nm, Volta should be easier to design and manufacture.

 

[CakeMonster]

16/14 needs to last for many years. 2017 will be a cheap (for NV at least) Pascal tweak. If we're lucky we get Pascal 2016, Pascal 2017, Volta 2018, Volta 2019. It might take even longer, but I bet NV has a backup plan to bring us yearly incremental releases anyway.

 

[littleg]

Wonder if this has anything to do with NV's lower performance in the new gen APIs. Pascal was likely too late in the development cycle to incorporate the necessary hardware to really take advantage of DX12 / Vulkan but with Volta they could compete.

If the current trends are anything to go by then the new AMD chips should be fairly beastly in the low level stuff which the majority of new games in 2017 will be using. Would make sense for NV to try and get something out to counter that advantage. Also explains the rushed launches of the Pascal line.

 

[Sweepr]

GV100 in 2017