Nvidia 'Ultimate Countdown' Points to Ampere on August 31

By Andrew E. Freedman
published

It could come in 21 days.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Nvidia is teasing a 21-day "ultimate countdown" that is seemingly pointing to its new consumer-facing Ampere GeForce graphics cards, likely to be known as the 3000-series.

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In a tweet, the company simply mentions the countdown campaign. But in a profile banner on the @NvidiaGeForce Twitter account, it reads "21 days, 21 years."

Nvidia Ultimate Countdown Banner

(Image credit: Nvidia)

That would suggest that an announcement will be made on August 31, which would be the same day the Nvidia GeForce 256, the company's first GPU, was released 21 years ago, in 1999.

That would suggest we'll see the card right after of this year's Gamescom.

You can see everything we know about Ampere so far here, and it seems we'll know way more in just a few weeks.

Andrew E. Freedman
Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Twitter: @FreedmanAE

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DookieDraws
    Is that supposed to be our wallet exploding in 21 days? :ROFLMAO:


    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    Hmm... something something early adoption something something...
    I just can't seem to remember...
    Reply
  • gamerk316
    About bloody time; been holding out on getting a new LG OLED because I've been waiting for something that can output HDMI 2.1.
    Reply
  • matt206
    I hope they'll soon release some Ampere cards that aren't just for gamers. Dying to get my hands on an Ampere equivalent to the Quadro RTX 8000. Hell, I'd even buy the new A100 if it weren't passively cooled. Hmm, maybe I could just get a passively-cooled A100 PCIe server card or two and attach my own high CFM fan(s) to the front? I'm sure my XL-ATX tower has enough room.
    Reply
  • kal326
    So where the RIVA/TNT cards not classified as “GPUs” for some reason? Or does that just sort of inconveniently screw up the whole 21 day/year thing?

    Edit: Nvidia made up the definition of GPU to basically match their GeForce 256 new product launch. It also was a first for consumer inclusion of T&L into the graphics chip versus relying on software CPU work for this.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    kal326 said:
    So where the RIVA/TNT cards not classified as “GPUs” for some reason? Or does that just sort of inconveniently screw up the whole 21 day/year thing?

    Edit: Nvidia made up the definition of GPU to basically match their GeForce 256 new product launch. It also was a first for consumer inclusion of T&L into the graphics chip versus relying on software CPU work for this.

    Nvidia was the first company to popularize the term (Sony coined the term years earlier with the PS1) so they decided the definition.

    "single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines"

    Previous video cards did not have those abilities, so by definition, they were not GPU's. ATi actually coined a term themselves for their cards, VPU, but that never caught on, and everyone just calls them GPU's now.
    Reply
  • neojack
    Ahah i was about to say "hey it's strange im pretty sure they did GPUs before the Geforce 256"

    My second GPU was a RIVA TNT2 M64 , with a glorious 32mb of ram. perfect for wing commander IV !

    (i don't remember the first, but i remember it was 4mb, and i played a lot of baldur's gate and fallout 1/2 on it !)


    some marketing guy just made up this 21 days thing.
    well, they could say it's 21 years for the GeForce brand
    Reply
  • mrnelson
    gamerk316 said:
    About bloody time; been holding out on getting a new LG OLED because I've been waiting for something that can output HDMI 2.1.
    This. Exactly!
    Reply