Rumor: Nvidia Prepping to Launch Kepler in February
In a move to address AMD's Radeon HD 7970's performance, Nvidia looks to have pushed its scheduled release of the GTX 680 to February over from the previously planned March/April to go along with Ivy Bridge's release.
A rumor from Chinese forums Chiphell suggests that Nvidia has pushed up the release of the GeForce GTX 680 to February, over previous planned March/April time frame. The source says the GTX 680 should be competitive in performance with the HD 7970. The GTX 680 will have a clock speed of 780 MHz, which is similar to the GTX 580. It will come with 2 GB of memory. It is suggested that the card with have a 512-bit memory bus but this has neither been confirmed nor are there much details of the final specifications for the GTX 680.
Based on the leaked information, the card doesn't look like it will be Nvidia's fastest next-generation GeForce Kepler chip. It sounds more like the GK107 chip with a 128-bit memory bus previously discussed in December. Hopefully Nvidia isn't rushing its next generation GPU to the market, as this writer remembers the GTX 280 release. That card didn't shake some of its noise and heat concerns until the GTX 285.
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Pyree I went to the Chinese forum where the rumour started and users there are saying that they have reliable leak on confirmation of the product. The package box for GTX680 is spotted in a Nvidia AIC partner factory.Reply -
phishy714 "The source says the GTX 680 should be competitive in performance with the HD7970."Reply
Sounds alot like what AMD said about bulldozer and Sandy Bridge. Remember how that turned out? -
phishy714 At the same time.. the G107 chip is their budget chip. If the 680 is in fact a "budget" card and can match performance with AMD's flagship.. I can't imagine what the hell Nvidia is coming out with. Then again this could all be completely false.Reply -
de5_Roy nice to see nvidia stepping up to the competition. i suspected that kepler yields are bad enough to shut nvidia up. i guess nvidia wouldn't have pushed it's kepler schedule ahead if it didn't have enough gpus to ship.Reply
february will have 7950 availability (jan 31), 78xx cards debuting. this will get very interesting. XD
btw, is the gpu called 680? so the rumor about 6xx being oem was wrong...
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bin1127 This is a good move as it coincides with a swell of new platform sells. Can toms leak some kepler info to us soon?Reply -
shine8210 God i been waiting for this a long time. 2 285gtx sli overclocked and Battlefield 3 on Ultra Settings getting only 10 to 25 fps, 20 fps average on 1920x1200. Nvidia don't let me down man, don't taser me bro!!! :o)Reply -
msgun98 NVIDIA 6-series are DOA. Anyone thats been following the production of AMD or NVIDIA's graphics cards knows that the 6-series is no more than just a higher-clocked version of the 5-series. In a few months the REAL Kepler will step forth (the 7-series)... THEN the competition will get interesting.Reply