So... when are the 20nm Nvidia video cards coming out?

[poohbear]

hey all, sitting on 2 670 GTX in SLI, and while the new 970 GTX is awesome, its not really a viable upgrade for us GTX 670 SLI owners aside from the 4GB RAM. From the benchmarks i see GTX 670 SLI is still 30% faster than 1 GTX 970, and they've been great for all my needs so i'll just sit on em a bit longer.

So, when exactly is the Maxwell refresh due? It'll be 20nm if i'm not mistaken? Will it be summer next year? Thanks for any insight!

 

[3DVagabond]

Who knows? There are rumors no 20nm GPU's. They'll hold out for 16nm FF.

 

[sontin]

nVidia will jump to 16nm FinFet in 2016.

 

[CakeMonster]

Do we know anything? I'm skeptical about things being stated flat out here with no source.

I'm quite curious about what 20nm or 16nm will perform like. Remember that any process can be tweaked way beyond what is usually done if there is no new process to replace it. So don't expect a "fresh" 20nm to be much better than 28nm to begin with in the current situation.

 

[CakeMonster]

double post.

 

[Borealis7]

when Apple stops hogging all the Silicons.

 

[iiiankiii]

Here's how I think it's going to work. The next gpu released will be 30-35% faster than the current high end. I don't see 100% increase any longer. The 980 ti will be a large die, still be on 28nm and will consume a good amount of power. I don't think there will be a 20/16nm gpu from Nvidia for around another year. That gpu (gtx 1080) will be low power and will be 10-15% faster than the 980 ti. Rinse and repeat. Mark it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The problem is 20nm, 16FF etc is all more expensive than 28nm and will be so for quite some years ahead.

So while 20 and 16FF got some other properties as benefit. Cost sisnt one of them.

Its cheaper to make a 6B transistor 28nm than it will be to make 20 or 16FF.

So if you want 20 or 16FF, prices will have to go up.

 

[Bateluer]

When it doesn't cost them a half billion dollars to buy into it.

 

[Qwertilot]

They might do the professional cards on 20nm along with the anologous huge die graphic cards. They can put quite a premium on those if they have to.

Obviously not about to do a 20nm medium sized Maxwell die in a hurry though after this release and how good they got in on 28nm.

No major issue though really - if pascal (or whatever they call it!) can leap straight to 16nm we'll be ensured quite a big performance/power use jump even if they can't tweak the architecture too much more.

 

[Wild Thing]

I wish Samsung would open a fab and compete against the Taiwanese and Glofo.
They would have got 20nm sorted and to market.

 

[Genx87]

I'd guess in the Spring.

 

[Borealis7]

The problem is 20nm, 16FF etc is all more expensive than 28nm and will be so for quite some years ahead.

So while 20 and 16FF got some other properties as benefit. Cost sisnt one of them.

Its cheaper to make a 6B transistor 28nm than it will be to make 20 or 16FF.

So if you want 20 or 16FF, prices will have to go up.

i thought Intel said cost per transistor does go down and "Moores Law lives on" down to 10nm and 7nm.

 

[ShintaiDK]

i thought Intel said cost per transistor does go down and "Moores Law lives on" down to 10nm and 7nm.

It does. If you got the tools (Samsung, GF and TSMC doesnt provide this).
And if you are willing to lay down 500-1000M$ on the IC design. And thats something you really only gonna see on high performance CPUs.

 

[nvgpu]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8367/intels-14nm-technology-in-detail

Intel could have been fabbing 14nm GPUs for Nvidia and earning income from that instead of leaving Fab 42 idle like that, it's really ridiculous.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320670

 

[dangerman1337]

I don't think we'll see a shrink for Nvidia until 16nmFF with Pascal. Some sites (WcFTech and Fudzilla were hugging the figurative nuts on a 20nm Maxwell this year) and people seem to have the idea there'll be a 20nm "GM210" yet no credible evidence has come up yet. Eyrines at Beyond3D (who was 100% correct practically with GM204) has said GM200 will be 28nm and early next year and 16nmFF down the line (not sure if Maxwell refresh but a big 16nmFF Maxwell would be pointless as they would be moving to Pascal by then).

 

[RussianSensation]

hey all, sitting on 2 670 GTX in SLI, and while the new 970 GTX is awesome, its not really a viable upgrade for us GTX 670 SLI owners aside from the 4GB RAM. From the benchmarks i see GTX 670 SLI is still 30% faster than 1 GTX 970, and they've been great for all my needs so i'll just sit on em a bit longer.

1. If you sell both of the 670s for $330 in total which is easily possible, it'll only cost you another $330 to get 60% more performance. I think that's a great deal given how much it cost to move up from 780 to 780Ti or from 970 to 980 for far smaller gains.

2. Even if NV shrinks these cards, a $699-799 GM210 should have the performance of 970 SLI next year. I think the time to buy 970(s) is now because next year I'd rather take a single large monolith chip for $700 with 90% of the performance to not deal with SLI.

3. Since 670 SLI is still plenty fast for today's games, you could keep waiting if you have other priorities. It's not as if 670 SLI is slow since that's still 780Ti/980 level of performance. The longer you keep waiting to upgrade, the better will the performance and performance/$ get (970 SLI is 60% faster than 780Ti for the same price just 1 year later).

Your cards aren't going to drop that much more in price I would imagine. So if you aren't requiring an upgrade, maybe jump on a refresh of 970/980 where I think NV will bring 980's level of performance to a $330 price level in late of 2015 due to competition from AMD.

 

[poohbear]

thanks for the input guys. So the next video card refresh from nvidia is for spring 2015? Those will be a Maxwell refresh yea? i can hold out till then. my GTX 670s in SLI are doing fine atm. And spring 2015 refresh will still be 28nm yea?

 

[ShintaiDK]

thanks for the input guys. So the next video card refresh from nvidia is for spring 2015? Those will be a Maxwell refresh yea? i can hold out till then. my GTX 670s in SLI are doing fine atm. And spring 2015 refresh will still be 28nm yea?

It will most likely be some 550-600mm2 28nm Maxwell cards yes.

GTX990 and GTX990TI?

 

[poohbear]

And next spring is the likely release date?

 

[Kippa]

If they do go ahead and make a Titan II, could they still do that on a 28nm node? Or would that more likely be on 20nm/16nm?

 

[SlickR12345]

AMD 300 series graphic cards are going to be in 20nm, though they are said be coming next year, so good 6 months from now.

Nvidia is probably going to update to 20nm somewhere next summer.

 

[3DVagabond]

AMD 300 series graphic cards are going to be in 20nm, though they are said be coming next year, so good 6 months from now.

Nvidia is probably going to update to 20nm somewhere next summer.

Do you know which 20nm process AMD are supposed to use?

 

[matszpk]

Perhaps NVIDIA will releases 20nm GPU's quickly after Radeon R300. Ofcourse, this is only my assumption.

 

[dangerman1337]

It will most likely be some 550-600mm2 28nm Maxwell cards yes.

GTX990 and GTX990TI?

Yeah that and a GTX 995 with Dual GM204s (full amount of Shader cores with lower clocks than the 980).

I don't think AMD will bring out anything that will make Nvidia shrink, 20nm at this point is just not worth it and shrinking so we can just get say 4K on a single Maxwell GPU won't be enough, we'll have to wait for Pascal (especially if top Pascal has a 512-bit bus paired with 3D memory...).