Report: Predicted Synthetic Benchmark Scores For GTX 980
VideoCardz.com has calculated the results of synthetically benchmarking a GTX 980 and GTX 970, based on their predicted specifications, which may sound a bit ridiculous, but there is something to it.
VideoCardz.com often shows early benchmarks of graphics cards, but this time it's doing something a little different. This time around, instead of running a benchmark of a graphics card to evaluate its performance, VideoCardz.com calculated the synthetic performance of the GTX 980 and GTX 970. Yes, these are artificial numbers of a synthetic GPU test.
Okay, we can criticize that VideoCardz.com made up test numbers all we want, but there is actually a good reason why they did it this way. Synthetic benchmark performance is a lot more predictable than actual game performance, and while a lot of games' performance won't align with the synthetic results, holistically a synthetic benchmark does give a good indication of what a graphics card is capable of.
As a point of reference, VideoCardz.com used the specifications of a GTX 980 with a core clock of 1127 MHz, predicting that it would score 12328 points in 3Dmark Fire Strike. This is just a bit less than a reference GTX 780 Ti, which scores 12702 points. The higher possible clock rate for the GTX 980 is 1190 MHz, where it would score 13005 points in the test, making it the king of the single-GPU graphics card hill.
The predicted 3DMark Fire Strike score for the GTX 970 at 970 MHz is set at 10282 MHz, succeeding the GTX 780 by a small margin.
Whether the numbers are correct remains unknown until we can do our own testing, but they certainly look very believable. That said, none of this matters until we know more about the rest of the card, especially what it will cost. There have been rumors about the GTX 980 (which was previously rumored to be called the GTX 880) being cheaper than its Kepler-based counterparts, but we don't really think that that's going to happen.
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Good luck nv
To answer your second question I'll point you to Videocardz.com :
Long story short, if NVIDIA didn’t rename 800 series to 900 series, we would have desktop 800 and mobile 900M series in relatively short time.
"That said, NVIDIA has finally came to the conclusion that synchronizing desktop and mobile platform series is crucial to keeping things simple. So technically there are no desktop 800 series, unless of course NVIDIA decides to launch them as OEM exclusive."
http://videocardz.com/51426/nvidia-to-skip-geforce-800-series-geforce-gtx-980-and-gtx-970-mid-september
LOL or if you got a 7970 3 years ago and just overclocked to perform the same as the silly overpriced 780.
If true it wouldn't really surprise me, it's not the first time this has happened, and it fits with similar jumps in naming from Nvidia/AMD in the past. This was the case with the GTX 300m series (if you can even refer to it as a series), the HD 9000m series, and the current 800m series, which is largely Kepler based. These mobile-only 'generations' are basically meant to please the OEMs who expect a refreshed lineup annually, and sometimes GPU roadmaps and OEM expectations don't align, so stuff like this happens. I guess the skip on the desktop side keeps the architectures in equivalent mobile and desktop lineups relatively cohesive. So basically, if there's ever a time when a new architecture is on the horizon, and Nvidia or AMD announce a new mobile lineup based on the current gen architecture, giving it the expected next gen naming scheme, that's probably a good indication there's going to be a skip on the desktop side.
No. GPU (architectural) generations are lengthening though, so that might contribute to the sentiment.
Good luck nv
Tonga is based off of Hawaii, they've already implemented it across most of their current lineup. What difference would patching up the few remaining holes make besides further obscuring their naming convention?