Nvidia Kepler GK104: More Leaks, Rumors on Specifications
Nvidia's Kepler goes big with its 1536 CUDA cores, a vast improvement over the Fermi's 512 CUDA cores.
As reported on February 7th, we got a first glimpse of the rumored specifications for Nvidia's Kepler based graphics cards. The leaked specifications were met with both "wow.. can't wait" and "wow... those are so fake why even post" from both sides of the comment fence. Now, we are starting to get more pieces of information on the upcoming Kepler series. Based on information coming out of German-based 3dcenter.org, we may have a clearer picture of the true specifications for Kepler GK104.
Outside of the switch to the 28 nm process, one of the major changes in the Kepler architecture is to allow for more CUDA cores. This is achieved by no longer having shader frequency, just GPU frequency. Each Stream Multiprocessor will contain 96 CUDA cores, unlike the 32 - 48 that Fermi had. This change in layout of the CUDA cores will have the GK104 sporting up to 1536 CUDA cores, which is a big boost from GF110 and GTX 580. The number of texture units have doubled from 64 to 128 on GK104. The GK104 will only have 32 ROPS versus 48 in GF110 but it shouldn't affect performance compared to the Fermi.
The above GK104 architectural overview comes from Bright Side of News.
Nvidia Kepler GK104:
- 28nm production at TSMC,
- Die size 340mm²
- 4 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC)
- 4 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) per GPC = 16 SM
- 96 Stream Processors (SP) per SM = 1536 CUDA cores
- 8 Texture Units (TMU) per SM = 128 TMUs
- 32 Raster OPeration Units (ROPs)
- Chip clock (top model): 950 MHz
- 1250 MHz actual (5.00 GHz effective) memory, 160 GB/s memory bandwidth
- 256-bit DDR memory interface (up to GDDR5)
- 2048 MB (2 GB) memory amount standard
- 2.9 TFLOP/s single-precision floating point compute power
- 486 GFLOP/s double-precision floating point compute power
- Elimination of Hotclocks
The GK104's performance is expected to exceed the GTX 580 at the $350 to $400 price range. In addition, it is expected to outperform AMD's HD 7950 at similar price point and challenge the HD 7970 for the performance crown. The GK104 looks to be the similar to the current generation GTX 560 Ti with regards to price to performance in its category.
Please keep in mind, of course, that these specifications are from 3dcenter's supposed reliable source. We won't know for sure until Nvidia shows its hand. Stay tuned!
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Given the lies (ahem, rumours) they were shilling out, the Nvidia was expected to beat the 7970 for half the price!
I see that's been downgraded to 'challenge', which is wholly disappointing, seeing as AMD are milking people with their new pricing strategy, it doesn't look like nVidia are going to convert anyone.
Given the lies (ahem, rumours) they were shilling out, the Nvidia was expected to beat the 7970 for half the price!I see that's been downgraded to 'challenge', which is wholly disappointing, seeing as AMD are milking people with their new pricing strategy, it doesn't look like nVidia are going to convert anyone.
Who cares, I'm loving the competition. I love how they keep trying to out do each other over and over because the consumers end up winning. It's like Intel vs AMD except on a different front. When it comes to cpu recommendations, its always "Intel Intel Intel." But with GPUs, its a really huge toss up between the two which gives consumers more options but still able to get their money's worth.
It doesn't matter if the source is reliable or not, because whats important is that all of them tells there's a Huge improvement in the GPU..
I just hope there are plenty of chips to go around. When quantities are low, backwater countries like mine (new zealand) get totally ripped off with pricing. I recently upgraded my GPUs, and while I had really wanted a 7970, they were going for 1200 dollars here. I ended up just getting a GTX 580 for a little under 700. that's almost have the price. where's the logic in that?!
I just want the prices to drop since recently AMD 79xx pricing scheme which is bullsh1t
$%ing boring already. Give us GPU a real world benchmark suite to compare with existing GPUs. Not even a test product in the bench. We need one and need one now not in April. Unless gamers can hibernate the wait would simply ruin NVidia in short term. Am NVidia user but boy am I starting to shop around for AMD.
Looks to my like each CUDA core is going to be much less powerful than on Fermi.
No, it seems the cores have similar performance with Fermi cores, only the frequency is different.
simple math: 512 CUDA cores=250watts
1536CUDA cores=750Watts, assuming that 28nm tech gives them a 40% reduction on power usage, will consume at least 500 watts...not feasible.
nVidia always said that their cards would launch in March/April and as such AMD rushed a couple of their cards out to be first for this current generation. Unless your PC just blew up, anyone that can't wait an extra few of weeks to see exactly where they stand is either an idiot or has far too much money on their hands.
It would not surprise me if nVidia has a solid launch with a good mid range card and a high end card that just about tops what AMD has to offer. I bet Kepler will be able to do far more than initial cards will suggest though and we'll see many, many iterations of virtually the same cards with different clock speeds to cover various price points, much like the current 560/560Ti/560Ti(448)...
[citation][nom]rmpumper[/nom]7950/7970 should be priced ~$50+ of 6950/6970 prices. So as it is now, if nvidia's gtx680 will be better than 7970 they will price it at >$600? That's a load of crock.
Every rumor and leak I've seen so far on gk104 pricing seems to indicate otherwise...http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia- [...] -299-230-/According to Nvidia's AIB partners the initial price set for the first gk104 based graphics card is $300. Of course this can go up or down based on the competition. Unfortunately, I have the feeling it'll be going up.[/citation]
So much for that then. $300 my ass.
I'm interested in seeing how the temperatures will compare.
User "mosu" has some faulty calculations there...
It is actually more like:
750 watts * 0,6 (from 40nm -> 28nm) * 0,63 (950 Mhz / 1500 Mhz) = 285 watts.
You see, if you drop clockrate by one percent, power density drops three percent...
So, when you drop clock from 1500 Mhz to 950 MHz, you can actually use about three times (3x) as much cores and still consume about the same amount of power.
1000+ cores & no shader clock.
Thats looks like amd gpu.
COOLING:
I bought my HD5870 from AMD solely because the GTX4xx cards ran hot and loud. I've been very happy with it overall. I can even run many games at maximum settings (1920x1080 @ 60Hz) including the new Amalur game (awesome game).
However, the die sizes seem similar between AMD and NVidia so cooling should be similar too.
Therefore, it's likely I'll buy an NVidia GTX670 or GTX680. Now that PhysX can run without dropping a game below 60FPS that's a plus, but NVidia also is a bit better with the driver support.
Games I put on HOLD waiting for a better card than the HD5870:
- Witcher 2
- Crysis 2 (High-Def pack)
- Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
- Metro 2033
- Grand Theft Auto IV
simple math: 512 CUDA cores=250watts 1536CUDA cores=750Watts, assuming that 28nm tech gives them a 40% reduction on power usage, will consume at least 500 watts...not feasible.
750*(6/10)= 450 not 500
I can see consoles doing that around 2014.
Competitiveness is awesome. The greatest inventions were driven mostly by wars. So bring it on Nvidia we want price wars!!!
simple math: 512 CUDA cores=250watts 1536CUDA cores=750Watts, assuming that 28nm tech gives them a 40% reduction on power usage, will consume at least 500 watts...not feasible.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Simple math: 512 cuda core, each at 1544mhz or 1536 cuda core, each at 950mhz
This last one would consumes 1,84 times the wattage, but with 40% reduction it would consume 1,1 times the wattage. With a few optimizations it will be easy to make it consumes the same or lower.
Feasible.
dayum if their new flagship will have 1500 cuda cores and will not cost an arm and a leg I will deff upgrade from my two gtx 280 ( 240 cuda cores x2 lolll)
nordichardware mentioned that this is replacement of 560Ti not the flagship specs
@ewood & vitornob: only future will tell, but I'll still be concerned about overclocking roof.Even there's three times the CUDA core count,there is only twice the computing power.Mine are simple considerations based on specs leaked and past experience.
Kepler seems to be too much improvement over Fermi. Either fake news or epic success of nVidia
@juhani: ideally you would be right, but there's more than CUDA cores and power consumption doesn't decrease in a linear manner, not even with frequency.
They have technology to make GPU with double the cudas. It is all about $$$x10^6 and software that is usually few years behind the hardware.
So seeing as we've all seemed to have missed the obvious...
GF104/114 doesn't have 512 cores. That's the big one (GF100/110) that has that many. 1536 might be the top end for Kepler, but GK104 isn't (or rather shouldn't be unless nvidia has changed their naming scheme.) the top end but the mid range. This seems to have some mixing of info.
ati 5870 is an awesome card, i didnt have pro-fps at 1920x1200 at some games with my i7-920, however when i switched to i5-2500k , i never had any problems. who cares if i dont get 60fps? i get 45 with max settings, its ridiculous to pay 600$ to get to 60fps..from 45..
ati 5870 is an awesome card, i didnt have pro-fps at 1920x1200 at some games with my i7-920, however when i switched to i5-2500k , i never had any problems. who cares if i dont get 60fps? i get 45 with max settings, its ridiculous to pay 600$ to get to 60fps..from 45..
you switched from i7 920 to a i5 2500k? /FACEPALM
ati 5870 is an awesome card, i didnt have pro-fps at 1920x1200 at some games with my i7-920, however when i switched to i5-2500k , i never had any problems. who cares if i dont get 60fps? i get 45 with max settings, its ridiculous to pay 600$ to get to 60fps..from 45..
I agree, but what about people who haven't upgraded in years? I'm still sitting on 2x9800GT (lol). If I'm to upgrade I might as well go all the way, right?
LOL Drew Im using a single 250! It was supposed to hold me over till the 480 came out but then I saw the power consumption and realized I needed a new power supply first. So I got the new psu and then the 580 was on the horizon so I said ok I'll wait for that. Then that came out and I had lost my job. So hopefully i'll get a job soon so I can finally upgrade.
In anyway, we live interesting times in GPU word at this moment. All I hope that Nvidia will have good GPU but not too good, so there will be competition ;-)
Normal situation has been faster than AMD, more expensive than AMD, more power hungry than AMD... (using bigger chips so more transistors to use...) But Nvidia has been promising less power hungry GPU's this time so have to wait and see...