Nvidia’s been rather quiet regarding the future of both the Titan brand and the GTX 980 Ti. But rumors are swirling there has been a leak with the final specs of Nvidia’s top of the range hardware. PCTuning.com (a Czech based website) were bang on GTX 980 specs – so perhaps their information has a little credibility.
This comes as there are reports the full GM200 GPU has been finalized and has been sent out to customers (in other words, board partners) for them to test. The memory bandwidth over the regular GTX 980 is pretty obvious. We don’t have an exact SMM count, but the highest is 2816.
—Die Size: 551mm^2
– SMMs/CUDA Cores: 20-22/ 2560-2816
– Memory Bus: 384 Bit
– Performance: ~50% Boost over GTX Titan Black
– Process: 28 nm
– Launch: Q4 2014
I do wonder how much RAM the GPU’s have – especially as there are (apparently) 8GB Maxwell GTX 980’s on the way. If that’s the case, then surely the Titan X or / and the 980 Ti will be packed with at least the same amount of RAM.
The primary difference between the 780 Ti and the Titan was its double precision performance. For gamer’s, it meant the Titan was generally a poorer bang for buck choice (if one can argue the bleeding edge is ever good value).
While Nvidia won’t acknowledge the existence of the cards, let alone hint at the performance they’re capable of, AMD are supposedly already ready to counter with their R9 390X GPU.
On a personal level, I’m partially surprised by the news – I’d half expected Nvidia to wait until the Maxwell Revision B’s (and the supposed 20 nm die shrink) happened before the GeForce Titan X / 980 Ti’s were released. This does offer further fuel on the fire Nvidia are planning on not making the 20 nm cards a straight swap, but instead a marked upgrade from the previous line. While this is far far from confirmation of a 9xxx GTX like scenario, it wouldn’t be surprising at this point.
With games like The Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor begging for every last KB of RAM they can get their hands on, it’s fair to say there’s probably quite a few 9xx series who’re having mixed feelings regarding their purchase. Yes, the cards are fast as hell – but with the caveat of “with enough RAM”. With 4K displays getting cheaper all the time, in a year or so I imagine there’ll be many a PC gamer who’ll adopt the 4K route. And a greater percentage still who will jump from the 1080P ship to 1440P – if 1440P displays become much cheaper, there is very reason not too.
With DirectX 12 and other emergying technologies ready to burst onto the scene next year, it’s pretty safe to say that no matter what your graphics card choice – by 2016 it’ll be out of date. This isn’t what you could argue about a card released in 2012 (March) and still considered fairly high end.
