Nvidia Geforce 'Maxwell' Thread

Boomstick777 · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:23

With a lot of focus on AMD's new cards launching this week, thought it would be an ideal time to have some discussion with rumors and conjecture about what's next for the green team

.

Maxwell is rumored to have over twice the performance per watt of Kepler architecture.

Some sites claim that Maxwell will launch much earlier than expected on 28nm. The reason for the early launch is to respond to AMD's upcoming Hawaii architecture - http://videocardz.com/45417/why-maxwell-will-probably-launch-on-28nm-process

Nvidia's Maxwell will be the firm's first GPU architecture that is able to access main memory - http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer...xwell-gpu-architecture-will-access-system-ram

Could Maxwell be just around the corner?

Orangey · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:36

Boomstick777 said:
Could Maxwell be just around the corner?

Nope... end of Q1 and perhaps pushed back because of 20nm woes. That's quite a few corners.

I don't think Nvidia will waste Maxwell just to take the performance crown back early. They'll squeeze every last remaining drop out of Kepler (Titan Ultra). So I think Maxwell will be 20nm.

Silent_Scone · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:41

It will be March time at a guess. I don't think the Titan Ultra will ever see the light of day personally. 790GTX might be a go however.

Boomstick777 · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:42

Yeah the most likely thing to happen could be price drops on the 7XX stack, and release a new 'halo' part the Titan Ultra or GTX 790 moniker to claim the performance crown. They could ride that out until 20nm, although 20nm is still a long ways off according to some sites. Guess it all depends on how good AMD's Hawaii is.

Jono8 · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:58

I dont see why nvidia are going to be bothered by the Hawaii release that much. They have already reaped the benefits of having a card performing at Titan levels since February and they have sold very well. They have also had a good 3 months headstart on releasing a more wallet friendly 780 ( although still overpriced in my opinion).

The R9 290x looks like it will just about beat the Titan but AMD are a bit late to the party in my opinion. Nvidia have probably already made a heap of money on the Titan and 780 due to AMD providing zero competition for 8 months. Nvidia can probably stand to reduce prices a bit and probably release a slightly faster Titan to take back the single GPU crown.

RavenXXX2 · 23 Sep 2013 at 12:58

Wallet friendly lol.

Jono8 · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:01

RavenXXX2 said:
Wallet friendly lol.

Compared to the Titan! Still a stupid price for a GPU in my opinion

Just to add to my post above, AMD might price the new R9 290x very aggresively at say ~£400 which would ofcourse give Nvidia something to think about!

I find that unlikely though.

Boomstick777 · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:05

Jono8 said:
I dont see why nvidia are going to be bothered by the Hawaii release that much. They have already reaped the benefits of having a card performing at Titan levels since February and they have sold very well. They have also had a good 3 months headstart on releasing a more wallet friendly 780 ( although still overpriced in my opinion).

The R9 290x looks like it will just about beat the Titan but AMD are a bit late to the party in my opinion. Nvidia have probably already made a heap of money on the Titan and 780 due to AMD providing zero competition for 8 months. Nvidia can probably stand to reduce prices a bit and probably release a slightly faster Titan to take back the single GPU crown.

Agreed,

With regard to price drops, brightsideofnews think Nvidia price drops are likely.

Even if you never plan to buy one of AMD's new GPUs, this is good news for you because Nvidia will likely be forced to drop the prices of their GTX 780 and GTX Titan GPUs at the very least and possibly even the rest of their GPUs in order to pre-emptively prepare for AMD's new Volcanic Islands line up.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...ctures-and-benchmarks-of-amd-hawaii-leak.aspx

MoRT489 · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:15

Boomstick777 said:
Yeah the most likely thing to happen could be price drops on the 7XX stack, and release a new 'halo' part the Titan Ultra or GTX 790 moniker to claim the performance crown. They could ride that out until 20nm, although 20nm is still a long ways off according to some sites. Guess it all depends on how good AMD's Hawaii is.

Nvidia "likely" and "price drops" used together - you crazy jesus, you craaaaazy!!

Kaapstad · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:39

Jono8 said:
I dont see why nvidia are going to be bothered by the Hawaii release that much. They have already reaped the benefits of having a card performing at Titan levels since February and they have sold very well. They have also had a good 3 months headstart on releasing a more wallet friendly 780 ( although still overpriced in my opinion).

The R9 290x looks like it will just about beat the Titan but AMD are a bit late to the party in my opinion. Nvidia have probably already made a heap of money on the Titan and 780 due to AMD providing zero competition for 8 months. Nvidia can probably stand to reduce prices a bit and probably release a slightly faster Titan to take back the single GPU crown.

The more I think about it, the more I think the R9 290x won't match a Titan. The big clue in those leaked benches if that's what they are is the Firestrike Extreme result. The problem with that bench is it really works the GPU hard and it is harder to run a high overclock where as with most of the other things they used it is easier to run high overclocks. If the R9 290X (when possibly overclocked) can not beat a stock Titan on a very graphics intensive bench like Firestrike Extreme this may be a clue to its true performance. The other bench that they did not run, Heaven 4 is also very hard on GPUs.

Jono8 · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:44

Boomstick777 said:
Agreed,

With regard to price drops, brightsideofnews think Nvidia price drops are likely.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...ctures-and-benchmarks-of-amd-hawaii-leak.aspx

Nvidia could probably just streamline their 700 series line up. £200 for 760. £300 for 770. £400 for 780. £100 between each performance bracket. I guess they could go more extreme and have £150,£250,£350-£400 but that is wishful thinking!

Silent_Scone · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:48

Kaapstad said:
The more I think about it, the more I think the R9 290x won't match a Titan. The big clue in those leaked benches if that's what they are is the Firestrike Extreme result. The problem with that bench is it really works the GPU hard and it is harder to run a high overclock where as with most of the other things they used it is easier to run high overclocks. If the R9 290X (when possibly overclocked) can not beat a stock Titan on a very graphics intensive bench like Firestrike Extreme this may be a clue to its true performance. The other bench that they did not run, Heaven 4 is also very hard on GPUs.

It happens every generation. People get hung up on specifications and the end result is always a little disappointing. That's not to say 290x isn't going to be a performer, but people seem to over estimate every-single-time.

Kaapstad · 23 Sep 2013 at 13:56

MjFrosty said:
It happens every generation. People get hung up on specifications and the end result is always a little disappointing. That's not to say 290x isn't going to be a performer, but people seem to over estimate every-single-time.

The one thing I do think is it will be very good bang for buck, they will be selling it for somewhat less than the HD7990.

Silent_Scone · 23 Sep 2013 at 14:05

Oh definitely. If it offers as good as or slightly more performance than the Titan then it will be great value for money. Although that's obviously largely to do with the inflated price of the Titan. Most people don't agree that £500 is a bargain!#

For Titan owners (or 780 owners for that matter) I don't think there's anything to be head scratching about...it's early days, and I'm sure people who've already bought a 780 GTX can wait a few months.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Sep 2013 at 14:33

MjFrosty said:
Oh definitely. If it offers as good as or slightly more performance than the Titan then it will be great value for money. Although that's obviously largely to do with the inflated price of the Titan. Most people don't agree that £500 is a bargain!#

For Titan owners (or 780 owners for that matter) I don't think there's anything to be head scratching about...it's early days, and I'm sure people who've already bought a 780 GTX can wait a few months.

The biggest problem with the GTX780 is not the £500+ price tag, but more to do with the performance gain over last gen top card is too small for the premium they are asking for.

flopper · 23 Sep 2013 at 15:04

maxwell is likely a year away.

Rroff · 23 Sep 2013 at 15:07

nVidia is on the list of TSMC clients who have allocations for 20nm production - the specific details aren't released publicly but I believe they are on the 2nd round of customers along with qualcomm for volume production which means they aren't likely to have 20nm GPUs ready for (mass) retail until around the end of Q1 2014 at the earliest.

Boomstick777 · 23 Sep 2013 at 15:09

Kaapstad said:
The one thing I do think is it will be very good bang for buck, they will be selling it for somewhat less than the HD7990.

Wait... Did Kaapstad.. A sentence with bang for buck?!

Nevermind..

Have a feeling Maxwell is going to be amazing, even if AMD's new cards are 5% - 10% faster than Titan, think it might be worth waiting for Maxwell..

*Edit*

flopper said:
maxwell is likely a year away.

In that case not worth waiting for then.

SS-89 · 23 Sep 2013 at 15:15

I only upgraded from a 7950 to my 780 recently so my next upgrade will likely be maxwell/amd pirate islands (or whatever the code name is lol). Tbh I doubt there will be a more than 5-10% difference between my clocked 780 and a clocked 290X assuming those benches were correct.

Hopefully maxwell is 20nm as it will more than likely have significant gains but I doubt we'll see it before end of Q1.

Sliver · 23 Sep 2013 at 18:06

I'm hoping for Maxwell to be released end of Q1 2014. That's when I plan to upgrade again. The rumour mill seems to suggest that Maxwell will be a large jump in performance, larger than previous jumps. Let's hope the rumour mill is right.