Nvidia: Next-Generation Maxwell Architecture Will Break New Grounds.

[Gregster]

While Nvidia Corp. reveals some things about its next-generation products, it does not want to disclose the whole picture and it clearly does not provide any precise timeframes. While without providing further details, at the annual investor day conference this week the company did disclose some of its expectations for its next-gen graphics and compute architecture code-named Maxwell.

What we do know about the Maxwell family of chips so far from the official sources is that they will integrate general-purpose Denver ARMv8-compatible cores in addition to graphics stream processors and that they will be able to support unified virtual memory technology with microprocessors from Intel or AMD, a rather big deal for many applications. It is also logical to expect higher horsepower in general, which will boost video games, the main driver for Nvidia’s GeForce business.

Officially, Nvidia expects three major things from the Maxwell architecture: improved graphics capabilities, simplified programmability (probably thanks to ARMv8 and unified memory enhancements) as well as energy-efficiency.

“Number one for Maxwell, that is likely something that we are doing that breaks new ground in visual capability, something that is even more beautiful. […] Number two, it is likely that Maxwell breaks new ground in programmability, ease of programmability, because we want to expand the general purpose nature of the processor without sacrificing its speedup relative to a microprocessor. […] The last thing, the energy efficiency of Maxwell, it is going to crush Kepler. […] We know exactly how to measure it now and we know what it means to be good,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia, during a Q&A session at the company’s investor day


The first GeForce consumer-class products based on Maxwell architecture are expected to emerge sometimes in 2014. Later on, Nvidia will release Maxwell-powered Tesla compute accelerator cards as well as Quadro professional graphics cards. Eventually, Maxwell architecture will be used for mobile application processors that belong to Parker family of Tegra products

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphi...well_Architecture_Will_Break_New_Grounds.html

 

[Gregster]

Sorry guys, I should not have posted Nvidia news in the AMD section. My bad

 

[Gregster]

Hate to say this, but any post positive about Nvidia would seem to instantly become a mark target to be burnt or make sure to be ran to the ground by some people...

Debate is fine, but when it turns into a rude and unnecessarily blunt exchange, the entire thread suffers. I think a good number of people, in life generally, have a hard time recognising what an opinion actually is, and even worse, seem to have a lack of respect for other folk's right to one. I never see it as my duty to shape someone elses opinion to suit my own tastes or bias (or ego).

I am not sure what was said/deleted and frankly don't care. The thread was a bit of good news for the GPU industry on the whole and good to see the future is looking strong for us PC gamers. I am not sure if anyone else is feeling the same but with the imminent release of the new consoles, I can see a few PC's gathering dust whilst all the games sales that the PC has (which is very good of late) will be lost to consoles in the future.

Love or hate AMD/Nvidia, we need both to be competing. If AMD or Nvidia were to fold, that wouldn't bode well for us PC enthusiasts and if you think Titan is a ridiculous price, imagine what you would be paying with only one supplier....

Maxwell is very much alive and this is a good thing

 

[Gregster]

All I know about maxwell is a pile of BS marketing

Fixed.

2014 – March of Maxwell

NVIDIA 20nm Maxwell GPUs would feature more than double the performance per watt over current generation Kepler architecture. Maxwell GPUs would also be integrated with the Nvidia’s project Denver which fuses general purpose ARM cores alongside the GPU core. Xbitlabs recently got many details on Project Denver, the Denver is basically an custom built ARMv8 64-Bit Processor which would be highly beneficial for computing purposes such as workstation and server usage.

The roadmap still mentions that the Maxwell GPUs would be able to churn out 14-16 GFlops with the much more power efficient designs compared to Kepler 28nm. However the regime of Kepler is far from over, as in 2013 the company plans to launch a refresh to its Kepler lineup. While recently showing the power of its GK110 Kepler core used in the Tesla K20 and Tesla K20X parts, there’s no doubt that the same chip with a different codename such as GK114 or GK204 could enter the consumer market.


Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-roadmap-...kepler-refresh-arrives-1h-2013/#ixzz2QSKDvINv

Reports suggest that the flagship of the GeForce 700 series, GeForce GTX 780 could have over 2000 cores. A much real number would be 2304 as being reported by Chip.de. The core count is not the only change Kepler 2 would get, NVIDIA would also be bumping up the memory interface bringing 3 GB GDDR5 buffer which would operate along a 384-bit interface ending the known bandwidth restrictions faced on GTX 680. The site also reports alleged clock speeds of the card such as 1100 MHz at stock and 1150 MHz boost while the memory could operate at 6.5 GHz effective frequency.

We have summed up details for the rest of GeForce 700 series lineup here. Overall, if the specs of the 700 series hold any truth than the next two GPU architecture from NVIDIA are one to really look forward to


Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-roadmap-...kepler-refresh-arrives-1h-2013/#ixzz2QSKUvX00

 

[Gregster]

Thanks Greg. That would be good if they improved the 256bit interface and added an extra 1gb of vram. Any word of if they plan to add in any compute units outside of titan gpu's?

No idea Matt. The 6 series isn't that bad at direct compute but could have been better. The 580 is faster than the 680 at compute

 

[Gregster]

Not fixed at all. No proof of the marketing BS.

So it is in turn BS marketing.

If you have nothing useful to say, stay out the thread. Both Nvida and AMD have NDA's and nothing will be confirmed till that is lifted (usually just before launch). There is plenty of AMD threads for you to wallow in.

It doesn't have any compute abilities at all though does it? Not one unit as far as i understand it. I've heard (and i don't know if this is true) that the only way around it for Nvidia is to disable the compute effects via the drivers. I heard (again i don't know if this is true) that is where the massive gains came from in Tomb Raider.(45% or whatever the figure was)

I think you are comparing Nvidia to AMD in this department and it doesn't work like that Matt. Direct compute is better on the 7970/50/580 over the 680 but it comes down to OpenGL and OpenCL if I am not mistaken. There is a couple of games that use compute and BF3/Civ 5 are 2 of them.

 

[Gregster]

Why does negativity towards nVidia always have to be related back to AMD?

Is it really that hard for you to accept that people don't like nVidia because of stuff nVidia does?

This is a Maxwell thread and not AMD. Stay on topic or I start RTMing.

 

[Gregster]

Considering how small the 670's are PCB wise do you reckon Maxwell will see even smaller PCB's Greg and maybe even high end graphics card require only a single 8 pin connector like the current 7850's and 660's?

As things shrink, it is quite possible. Take Titan for example, A massive die size and still very efficient, with only needing 8+6 power connectors.

 

[Gregster]

What do you think Gregster? You thought it was interesting enough to post

Jen's term of "Crush Kepler" is very interesting and hopefully will live up to that statement. I am an enthusiast and want to see competition between Nvidia and AMD and the consumers are the winners (price dependant of course).