Details on Nvidia Kepler GK104-based GTX 670 Ti Surface
When something goes wrong during the manufacturing process, what are manufacturers to do? Do what many other have done, you turn the part into a new item with the defective part disabled!
The next two SKUs based on the GK104 Kepler look to be set to release in May under the names GTX 670 and GTX 670 Ti. According to German publication 3DCenter.org, these GK104s will take the same route of the GF100: GK104 on the new cards will have one fewer Streaming Multiprocessors (SMX). These are basically GTX 680s that didn't make the cut during manufacturing with one of the SMX units disabled. The SMX units holds 192 CUDA cores, so with seven out of eight SMX units enabled, you end up with a 1344 CUDA core count. This allows Nvidia to salvage the graphics card and provide end-users with a card a tier or two down the performance charts.
Mocked Up Image of an SMX Unit Disabled
Rumored Specifications for the GeForce GTX 670 Ti:
- 4 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC)
- 7 SMX Units (192 CUDA cores per units)
- 1344 CUDA Cores
- 112 Texture Units (TU)
- 32 Raster Units (ROP)
- 256-bit Memory Controller
- 2 GB GDDR5 Memory
- Estimated base core clock of 900 MHz (boost clock not known)
- Estimated 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory clock, with around 160 GB/s memory bandwidth
- Estimated price $349-399 dollars
The GTX 670 Ti is expected to see a 20 percent drop in performance when compared to the GTX 680. With its estimated performance and price point, the GTX 670 Ti is set to do battle against AMD's Radeon HD 7950 and previous generation GTX 580.
It's only an estimation, in reality, it's most likely going to be more than the estimated price.
It's only an estimation, in reality, it's most likely going to be more than the estimated price.
Haven't you heard the stories? These ARE the mainstream gpu's. (Although factually, calling them gpu's is incorrect) Nvidia hasn't released their high end yet because the 7000 cards can't compete... for now.
Not bad at all. Assuming (by comparing the number of the cores from 680) that it will have performance between 7970 and 7950!!!!
I guessed that there will be a GK104 7/8 SMX and a 6/8 SMX (cause nvidia with such a small die could win from this chip even on $200 price). If the 2nd will become true too it will have 1152 cores 6/8 and not 1024.
If they will price GK104 7/8 SMX at $349, then there is a possibility for GK104 6/8 SMX to be lower than $300 (something like $249 up to $299). If this happens, this should become best seller...
Yea, and i'm sure they haven't released their low-end yet for the same reason...
No, this is most likely not speculation. When Kepler went live, the press was given access to their corporate ftp server for the launch goodies (pics, white-papers, reviewers guides, etc).
Anyway, you know files have tags, right? So at least two of the supposed GTX 680 images had 670 Ti as a tag. I mean, i have the files with me, so this is first hand info
Anyway, this is believable, because they do the same with the 560 Ti 448 Core edition.
Yeah Nvidia's PR for some reason called the 680 "mid-range". But then what they meant was that the dual GPU one is going to be "high end".
FLAME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agreed, which is why you'll probably see it at $399. This is unfortunate as I'm currently looking for a card but not in a hurry. I'd buy it at $350. At $400, I think I'll wait to see where the 7950 settles out first.
Guru3D reports a pretty nice overclock in their guides (though no more than I see out of the HD7970). However, it seems that their overclock is getting pushed back down by dynamic boost.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-680-overclock-guide/
HardOCP was a little less successful. They find that an overclocked HD7970 makes up significant ground compared to an overclocked GTX680.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review
In any case, until custom cooling/PCBs are available this appears you can count on decent overclockability, but your mileage may vary beyond that.
It will almost certainly be faster as long as you exclude compute benchmarks. With the 400 and 500 series, Nvidia had a faster architecture that was also larger, hotter, and consumed more power. This meant they had to seriously dial back the performance to make a dual GPU card fit within the required thermal, power, and price envelopes. Now, they are smaller, cooler, and less power hungry. AMD will run into these limitations first. Given that Nvidia is starting with the faster architecture, I can't see them loosing this one.
There is always a trade-off, however. Nvidia has given up significant compute functionality (I'll spare you the details) in order to gain this gaming performance advantage. While compute is gaining in importance, it isn't yet critical. I'd guess the majority of people in the market for these cards still see compute as a minor secondary consideration to gaming performance. There are those, like myself, who view compute as an important consideration, though.
The GTX670 will more than likely be positioned against the HD7870/7850. It'll probably be a hard fought battle for Nvidia given the HD7870's performance proximity to the HD7950. The HD7870 is just a damn good card. However I have little doubt that the GTX670 Ti will outperform the HD7950, and at a lower price.
I know a lot of people have high hopes for GK106, but I can almost guarantee you it will not be competitive with Pitcairn. But that's okay because it wasn't designed to. It was designed as a replacement for the GTX560/Ti in Nvidia's lineup. The relationship between gk104 and gk106 is similar to relationship between gf104 and gf106, and not gf100 and gf104 like many seem to believe. This means that core counts will be cut in half, and not by 25% like we usually see from Nvidia's mid range offerings. gk106 (GTX660 Ti) will probably have 768 CUDA cores, a 192-bit mem interface (possibly 128-bit) and 2GB or 1.5GB of GDDR5.
heck I am mad with my 1 GB GTX 560 Ti purchase I made at one point for $199 after rebate ... tired of settling for bargain cards ....
anyone else feel the same way ?
for me it is a GTX 680 or nothing if I buy a new card in the future