Nvidia Ampere GPU Announcement Imminent as Jensen Huang Schedules GTC Keynote

By Niels Broekhuijsen
last updated

GTC may unveil Nvidia's next-gen graphics architecture.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

On May 14 at 6 a.m. PT, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang will host the GTC 2020 keynote on YouTube. Now although the announcement (opens in new tab) of this keynote doesn't specifically mention Ampere, it would be a major surprise if we didn't hear about the next-generation graphics architecture. 

Ampere is set to succeed Turing and power the RTX 3000-series graphics cards. Not a lot of details are available at this time, with Nvidia proving quite good at keeping the details under wraps, but that doesn't stop us from being excited. The biggest thing we're looking forward to is the transition to 7nm, when Nvidia will finally transition away from 12nm and catch up with AMD. Supposedly, Ampere will deliver 50% faster performance.

Although an Ampere announcement isn't totally guaranteed, Nvidia did say we should "Get amped for latest platform breakthroughs in AI, deep learning, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and professional graphics" — a not so subtle hint of Ampere if ever we saw one.

The GTC keynote was originally scheduled for March 23, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it ended up canceled. This happened after promises of hosting the keynote online instead of at the conference, but in the end, Nvidia decided to postpone all GTC news altogether, to the dismay of its fans.

To view the GTC 2020 keynote, go to Nvidia's YouTube page on May 14 at 6 a.m. PT.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Pat Flynn
    Nvidia did say we should "Get amped for latest platform breakthroughs in AI, deep learning, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and professional graphics" — a not so subtle hint of Ampere if ever we saw one.

    This sounds more like Quadro, Jetson Xavior, and/or datacenter editions of something new. Nowhere in there do they say 'gaming' - it's a completely different division for nVidia. They even go so far as separating 'Gaming' to its own line on their financial reports.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Pat Flynn said:
    This sounds more like Quadro, Jetson Xavior, and/or datacenter editions of something new. Nowhere in there do they say 'gaming' - it's a completely different division for nVidia. They even go so far as separating 'Gaming' to its own line on their financial reports.
    Correct. No one is expecting the announcement of any new gaming cards or technologies at this event, but the next line of GTX hardware will largely be based on this architecture. Don't expect the 3000 series to be announced until fall at the earliest.
    Reply
  • Deicidium369
    Pat Flynn said:
    This sounds more like Quadro, Jetson Xavior, and/or datacenter editions of something new. Nowhere in there do they say 'gaming' - it's a completely different division for nVidia. They even go so far as separating 'Gaming' to its own line on their financial reports.
    Its more for the general release of Ampere - which will under pin the Tesla, Quadro and GeForce line... We know there is one supercomputer that was delayed to get the next gen. Not a complete different division, but a different segment - same engineers, same tech.
    Reply
  • Gurg
    "The biggest thing we're looking forward to is the transition to 7nm, when Nvidia will finally transition away from 12nm and catch up with AMD. "

    I couldn't care less about the node. Performance is what matters. AMD is still chasing the 1080ti in terms of gaming performance.
    Reply
  • Flayed
    It would be nice to have 2080 Super level of performance at say 180W
    Reply
  • junglist724
    Pat Flynn said:
    Nowhere in there do they say 'gaming'
    Nowhere in the news post was there the word "gaming". Your comment is the first mention of gaming you can find on the page.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Pat Flynn said:
    This sounds more like Quadro, Jetson Xavior, and/or datacenter editions of something new. Nowhere in there do they say 'gaming' - it's a completely different division for nVidia. They even go so far as separating 'Gaming' to its own line on their financial reports.
    Recall that Turing was first announced as a trio of Quadro cards, aimed primarily at high-end graphics workloads, at SIGGRAPH 2018 (IIRC).

    So, just because they're highlighting those other applications (which is in keeping with the general focus of GTC), doesn't mean it won't be the first we see of their next gaming GPUs.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Deicidium369 said:
    We know there is one supercomputer that was delayed to get the next gen. Not a complete different division, but a different segment - same engineers, same tech.
    Actually, no. Their HPC products do not intersect with their consumer product lines.

    Granted, the V100 was eventually sold as the TitanV, but the $3k price tag basically disqualifies it from consideration as a consumer product.
    Reply