A number of rumors about the upcoming GTX 880 graphics card from Nvidia are floating around the web. These rumors are about the specifications, and while some of them are very believable, others are somewhat questionable.
We'll start off with the CUDA core count, which is rumored to be 3200. This is a fairly believable number, as the GTX 780 Ti's Kepler-based GPU features 2880 CUDA cores. The Maxwell-based GTX 880 is also rumored to feature 32 ROPs as well as 200 TMUs. These are both fewer than the GTX 780 Ti, though we have to remember that this is a different architecture. The GPU is expected to run at 900 MHz base, with a boost frequency of 950 MHz.
Memory aboard is expected to be 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, running at an effective speed of 7.4 GHz. Very fast, but believable. Then there is the memory bus, which is the most questionable part of the rumored specification list; the memory bus is expected to 'only' be 256-bits wide. This will limit the memory bandwidth to 238 GB/s, while the GTX 780 Ti managed to push 336 GB/s with its 384-bits wide memory interface.
Other specifications include that it will be built on the 20 nm lithography process, which is not news, as well as that it will have 7.9 billion transistors. The board is also expected to have a TDP of 230 W, which makes sense as Maxwell is a more efficient architecture and the smaller lithography process will also cut energy consumption.
There is one last rumor going around, which is that this graphics card is not actually intended to be the successor to the GTX 780 (Ti). Given the reduced memory bandwidth, we're not sure exactly where this product will be positioned if the above specifications are correct.
Everything above is still very much in the rumor phase though, so as always, do be sure to take it with a heap of salt.
