Did NVIDIA Originally Intend to Call GTX 680 as GTX 670 Ti?

Stanners · 24 Mar 2012 at 09:17

mmj_uk said:
He's already admitted to stumping up the cash for a 7970, clearly regretting it and trying to convince himself otherwise.

If GTX680 is a mid range card then it says more about AMD's lack of competitiveness than anything, not competitive in the CPU market and now floundering to beat NVidia's mid range cards in the GPU market.

I can not believe you rise to him, He has enough spin to stay in orbit for years

Meaker · 24 Mar 2012 at 09:20

mmj_uk said:
He's already admitted to stumping up the cash for a 7970, clearly regretting it and trying to convince himself otherwise.

If GTX680 is a mid range card then it says more about AMD's lack of competitiveness than anything, not competitive in the CPU market and now floundering to beat NVidia's mid range cards in the GPU market.

A 256bit chip with reduced compute power, smaller core and lower power consumption. Completely against the major direction Nvidia has been heading.

It more speaks that AMD knows what the process is capable of at the moment. Nvidia did as well and delayed their big chip.

Next refresh I will expect to see a 384bit GDDR5 2048 shader part that will have full compute potential. Nvidia will need a compute chip that can use PCI-E 3.0 since there are applications that actually benefit from the higher bandwidth connection.

Kmodo · 24 Mar 2012 at 09:21

I think I will replace my 480 with a card that is about £150 and twice the speed. I might be waiting awhile

mr griffin · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:02

Both cards look pretty good if you are building a new pc from scratch, but I am not seeing - feeling the need to upgrade from w/c 480 sli to either of these for performance. I would expect a single top end card to whoop both of mine by now. From what I can see these cards are not as fast as expected, but come with the hefty price tag!

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:04

PanMaster said:
Getting back on topic.
When will the 384-bit real GTX680 be released? Will it have 3Gb of VRAM and will it massively devalue the 256-bit cards including the 7xxx series ?

I posted this same news on Xtremesystems, its full of far fewer trolls, and much more valid information:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...iginally-Intend-to-Call-GTX-680-as-GTX-670-Ti

Opinions and speculation obtained from other peoples knowlegde:

1) The current 'GTX 680' is a fully fledged GK104, originally intended for release as a 'GTX 570 ti' because Nvidia didnt expect it to match the 7970 / had anticipated that the 7970 would have performed faster.

2) The 'GTX 570 Ti' would have been released at around the <£300 price point, had it not managed to beat the 7970 which is what Nvidia had thought and planned all along.

3) The 'real GTX 680' wouldnt have been released for a few more months, it would have been based on an early castrated version of the GK110 called the GK100, simply released so that Nvidia could have retaken the crown from AMD, and had a £400+ graphics card out there with the best performance.

4) GK104 happened to beat the 7970. Nvidia found out during their testing and weaker than anticipated performance from the 7970. So instead they decided to release the GK104 as the GTX 680, priced to match the 7970, and have now scrapped the GK100 / castrated GK110 design until the chip is fully ready.

The AMD fans are full out in force on OCUK however, and cant accept their precious 7970 being given a thorough spanking by Nvidias mid range GPU.

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:09

I enjoy these quotes very much

Funny though how you AMD guys have had little to say about the price gouging AMD did with HD7970. And best of all, now they have to figure out how to deal with GTX 680 being faster, more efficient, and cheaper! They wont sell any cards at current prices, and lowering them $100+ would really **** off everyone who paid the premium price. hehe.

Nobody is forcing enthusiasts to do anything. Next thing you'll complain about is how nVidia is forcing ATI owners to sell their HD7970's because they just released a faster, cheaper, and more efficient card.

Blaming your own fanboyism or Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a far more logical thing to do.

Clearly evident from the AMD fanboy brigade

easyrider · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:15

Instant Karmas gonna get AMD

Mr Krugga · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:24

At least we know that the GTX680 will go down in price when Nvidia releases their top card.

easyrider · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:28

Mr Krugga said:
At least we know that the GTX680 will go down in price when Nvidia releases their top card.

or the top card is 500+

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:28

Mr Krugga said:
At least we know that the GTX680 will go down in price when Nvidia releases their top card.

They wont be releasing it until 2013 now as the GTX 780. The cut down version of GK100 / GK110 that was planned for release this year likely wont be happening so that Nvidia can concentrate on getting the full chips potential working.

Basically, they want to avoid putting out another GTX 480 if they can and skip straight to the full GTX 580 as profits and efficiency on the GTX 480 was a disaster.

MichaelM · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:32

Pretty sad that Nvidia thinks so poorly of consumers that it will pull a switch like that instead of giving it their best go.

Although I guess if their best is another 480 style card we might be better off this way around.

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:36

MichaelM said:
Pretty sad that Nvidia thinks so poorly of consumers that it will pull a switch like that instead of giving it their best go.

Although I guess if their best is another 480 style card we might be better off this way around.

The original GTX 680 would have been a 'GTX 480' style card, it would have been a waste of money for Nvidia, and a horribly inefficient purchase for the consumer with the fully fledged 'GTX 580' style GTX 780 already due for launch within 6-8 months*.

*Note that the original GTX 680 based on GK100 / 110 would have still been several months away, with the fully fledged GK110 due early 2013.

chipachap · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:38

You can't really call it their mid-range card when their high-end was/is nowhere next to being complete. Someone posted an article about the increasing wafer prices and nVidia were too optimistic about what the GK110 was trying to achieve.

Even if GK110 is released Aug/Sept that's extremely late for that gen flagship, AMD may have their GK110 equivalent in the process.

Given that both companies source from TSMC (correct me if I'm wrong), they must both have near enough the same problem in relation to yields.

How do we know the 7970 is not what was previously meant to be a 7950 but they saw this problem and had to re-badge accordingly without doing it publicly/admitting bad yields and the 'real' 7970/7980/8970 (or whatever you would like to call it) will be released in Aug/Sept aswell?

AMD could come out and say our actual flagship is still being fine tuned and the 7970 is a stop-gap until it get's released.

Long story short both companies released their 'flagship' as this is what they had ready in the release time frame despite what they may talk about releasing in the future. It doesn't matter what people say a certain card is/was supposed to be, what matters is what that card does, not comparing it to future products (if anyone catches my drift)

@ bhavv. Those last 3 posts are the first I've seen decent logic and fairness from you! lol.

MichaelM · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:42

bhavv said:
The original GTX 680 would have been a 'GTX 480' style card, it would have been a waste of money for Nvidia, and a horribly inefficient purchase for the consumer with the fully fledged 'GTX 580' style GTX 780 already due for launch within a year.

And you are not the slightest bit uneasy about paying more than Nvidia intended the card to cost?

In hindsight, would you happily buy a 570 at 580 prices if they simply decided not to launch the 580?

The Running Man · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:42

i believe the tx 680 is a high mid range part that has been pushed up into a high range part due to amd release of the 79xx which is overpowered obe the top card allowing nvidia to get away with it

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:42

Its not that its a 'mid range card', its that the GK104 was only planned as a mid range GPU to replace the GTX 560 - 570 line.

Nvidia never intended to release a high end 'GTX 680' right now, nor did they expect GK104 to beat a 7970.

MichaelM said:
And you are not the slightest bit uneasy about paying more than Nvidia intended the card to cost?

In hindsight, would you happily buy a 570 at 580 prices if they simply decided not to launch the 580?

Thats exactly what I'm complaining about? The current GK104 based GTX 680 should cost <£300 which is what Nvidia had intended they needed to do to compete with the 7970, not >£400 because the 7970 hadnt met their expectations.

It isnt meant to be a £400 GPU, its barely even meant to be a £300 one.

If the 7970 was 10% faster than GK104, there would have never been a GTX 680, it would have been a GTX 670 Ti at <£300 on launch. Nvidia wouldnt have named it or priced it as a GTX 680 if it couldnt beat AMDs top end card.

If AMD release a new card that beats the GTX 680, this isnt a problem at all for Nvidia because they can just drop the price on the GTX 680 to <£300 and still be making a large profit on every sale. They never had to release a better card than GK104 to compete until the full GK110 was ready, the GK104 is still profitable in the £200-£300 market with cut down revisions, and vastly superior to everything else at that price point.

chipachap · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:50

bhavv said:
Its not that its a 'mid range card', its that the GK104 was only planned as a mid range GPU to replace the GTX 560 - 570 line.

Nvidia never intended to release a high end 'GTX 680' right now, nor did they expect GK104 to beat a 7970.

Thats exactly what I'm complaining about? The current GK104 based GTX 680 should cost <£300 which is what Nvidia had intended they needed to do to compete with the 7970, not >£400 because the 7970 hadnt met their expectations.

It isnt meant to be a £400 GPU, its barely even meant to be a £300 one.

Exactly, there top range 'this gen' card would not have been ready anyway for this round gen from AMD. It will probably be ready for release near when the 7980/8970 is being released.

Personally I think everyone is in for a shock when AMD next flagship is released, but we'll have to wait and see

EDIT: Given nVidia are not happy with TSMC and released this card at this price tells me that they couldn't afford to keep waiting for GK110 and had to release the 680 to cover R+D costs for the GK110 and future dev.

bhavv · 24 Mar 2012 at 10:52

If AMD release their next flagship, and it brings the GTX 680 price down to where it should be, then everyone is happy. I get my correctly priced 'mid range-ish' GTX 680s, other people can enjoy their £400+ AMD high end GPUs, Nvidia can pull out their overkill rofflestomp card many months later as it always is.

Unless AMD continue their price gauging and release their next flagship at £500.

chipachap said:
EDIT: Given nVidia are not happy with TSMC and released this card at this price tells me that they couldn't afford to keep waiting for GK110 and had to release the 680 to cover R+D costs for the GK110 and future dev.

And with how much profit the GK104 is making at over £400, Nvidia dont have to release anything better until the GK110 is fully ready in 2013 for their GTX 780.

chipachap · 24 Mar 2012 at 11:03

Both companies look to be in a similar situation IMO.

I know I'm like a broken record but if it was Nvidia that released the 680 first (disregard what chip they may have used) and AMD saw it they could have easily said 'We are disappointed with the 680 performance' the same way nVidia did and they could have showed us 8970 statistics/graphs (but telling us it was the 7970) and then re-badged/flashed accordingly.

Instead of one company being actually ahead of the other what each other keeps saying looks more like devious marketing schemes instead of their actual opinion, why would a company release hints on how good their next product may be, hinting at the opponent at what is coming? I'd let the stats speak for themselves instead of saying I'm disappointed with something.

chipachap · 24 Mar 2012 at 11:05

bhavv said:
If AMD release their next flagship, and it brings the GTX 680 price down to where it should be, then everyone is happy. I get my correctly priced 'mid range-ish' GTX 680s, other people can enjoy their £400+ AMD high end GPUs, Nvidia can pull out their overkill rofflestomp card many months later as it always is.

Unless AMD continue their price gauging and release their next flagship at £500.

And with how much profit the GK104 is making at over £400, Nvidia dont have to release anything better until the GK110 is fully ready in 2013 for their GTX 780.

Exactly, they can now use the money made to actually produce a working GK110 instead of telling people how good it should/will be when it actually gets released.