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The first "proper" Kepler news Fri 17th Feb?

cainer said:
afaik they are due to release a 1.5gb version of the 7950??

if so this will be the sweet spot for 1080p gaming at the price point its likely to be
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Quite true, although I'm using 1440p, and I want at least 2GB of VRAM myself.

I'd prefer not to overclock much though, as I'm using an M-ITX system and the extra heat could pose a problem.


Will have to wait for full GTX680 reviews and the prices before making a real decision.
 
lets hope we see some price wars going on when these cards come out,current prices are way too high to justify upgrading
 
If these Benchmarks are true, then I'm afraid to say Kepler is a failure IMO.

It will be over-priced, I can't see it clocking higher, so the 7970 might be the better card.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
The 7950 is looking more and more tempting, still I will await some 680 overclocking results before making a move.
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The problem with the 7950 is that out of the box it only supplies GTX580 performance at GTX580 prices, one year late.

We normally see last gen top card matching performance for ~£200 within each successive generation. The 7900's (and now seemingly Kepler) are AWFUL value. Probably best to stick with 6900's or GTX500's unless you really need to willy wave. This is not like petrol prices where people have no choice but to put up and pay.
 
djxput said:
a bit off topic but I followed all the bulldozer stuff pretty closely and am still a bit peeved about how their marketing team talked it up. Even got others to do it also on review sites etc ...
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Of course. And, after all that making themselves look good they ended up looking really really silly.
 
straxusii said:
If these benchmarks prove to be accurate then in games the 680 is faster than the 580 by 33,36,10 and 35 percent so an averge of ~29%

How does this compare to previous Nvidia launches (using various review sites at 1080p)?

GTX480 was 41% faster than GTX285 so already this launch is worse than fermi by a large chalk.

GTX280 was 50% faster than 9800GTX.

8800GTX was 70% faster than 7900GTX


So looking like the worst high end Nvidia single GPU in recent memory.
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If my old age memory serve me correctly, the GTX 680 is not meant to replace the GTX 580.
 
Jas1222 said:
They lure you in with the good looking benchmarks .. then sting you with the £450+ prices :(
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That's usually how it works.

It will sell well and be a success IMO. Even if it was slightly worse than the 7970 it wouldn't matter because Nvidia have their loyal fan base who have been waiting for Kepler :)

There is a bright side to it of course. AMD will now drop their prices.


tribz said:
Why does the default clock say 706MHz then? Thats not a power saving speed either.
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It's all very mysterious isn't it? Maybe at 706mhz the card really does use very little power?

The pair of six pins is telling IMO. Basically the extra two pins are usually ground as a return for all that amperage. The fact it doesn't need that does suggest it uses very little power so who knows?

What is interesting is that I read an article a couple of days back that likened Tahiti to Fermi. IE basically it was the first time AMD had combined something (I think it was Direct Compute) with something else and thus they were having power and heat problems.

We do need to remember that Tahiti is 28nm. That means it could be true and it could actually use a lot more power than it really should. Kinda like Fermi.

In the end they revised Fermi and used low leakage transistors and a TDP throttle. But, the throttle shouldn't have even been needed in the first place. It was just to mask Fermi problems IMO.

One thing is for sure, Kepler is going to be completely and utterly different to Tahiti. That part of it all I do find very exciting :)
 
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ALXAndy said:
There is a bright side to it of course. AMD will now drop their prices.
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Will they? The performance looks very close to me AMD will only drop their prices if Nvidia matches them or better yet undercuts them (maybe be a possibility given the smaller die size).

Nvidia and AMD have enjoyed a year of inflated video card prices, 570's 6970's, 6950's have pretty much held their launch prices which is remarkable given that these companies are meant to compete against each other. :o
 
straxusii said:
If these benchmarks prove to be accurate then in games the 680 is faster than the 580 by 33,36,10 and 35 percent so an averge of ~29%

How does this compare to previous Nvidia launches (using various review sites at 1080p)?

GTX480 was 41% faster than GTX285 so already this launch is worse than fermi by a large chalk.

GTX280 was 50% faster than 9800GTX.

8800GTX was 70% faster than 7900GTX


So looking like the worst high end Nvidia single GPU in recent memory.
Click to expand...

Stop and think how much smaller this is than the GTX 480/580 and this becomes the best NVIDIA launch. Now imagine this same chip scaled up to 580 sizes (i.e. more shaders).

That's what I'll wait for when 28nm production is in full swing and prices have come down.
 
xsistor said:
Stop and think how much smaller this is than the GTX 480/580 and this becomes the best NVIDIA launch. Now imagine this same chip scaled up to 580 sizes (i.e. more shaders).

That's what I'll wait for when 28nm production is in full swing and prices have come down.
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I agree. The GTX 680 is only a x80 series by name. It was never intended to be the true successor to the 580 and it is only that now because Nvidia had no choice.

Right from the presentation for Kepler and Maxwell Nvidia made it clear that this first initial Kepler card would not be high and and would not be the replacement for Fermi.

But because of Tahiti they haven't been left with much choice. They can't sit back for 8 months and let AMD have the limelight all to themselves. The problem for them is that over the last three months nearly AMD has come along and replaced all of Nvidia's cards. That leaves them with a lot of very hard to sell cards.

If they came along with a mid ranged card right now it would be disastrous. If AMD hold the top spot then the fact is people who can't afford the 7970 will look for its little brother in the mid range, which will be the 7870. We've already seen lots of recommendations for that card and people saying how it was a good idea to wait for it.

I don't know if Nvidia will ever make a full sized "range" out of Kepler, but I suppose that part we can just wait and see. Will they release the 680 and then a 670ti 660 etc? or will they just rely on 680 sales until Q3/4?
 
First off, before AMD released 7970's it is highly likely they already have 8970 chips pre-made for lengthy testing etc. It's a technology market, always works that way.

Therefore nVidia would have had the same thing going and decided to release 'fake' benchs/screenshots/details/info etc. just to deter people from the AMD counterpart.

Just because I can claim that my top end part will beat the counterparts top end part by 40% doesn't mean that that is the part that will be included in my next product that goes to market.

As much as everyone thinks the 680 is actually a 660 renamed, I strongly reckon that nVidia knew they were falling behind and released details of the '780' as the 680.

Funny how it just worked out that the cards they were always planning to release earlier than the rest just beat their competitions with a similar price.

Seems to me like the most ingenious marketing scheme to hit us yet. IMHO the 660 was ALWAYS a 680 and the 680 specs were 760 or 780 specs or thereabouts. I'm not biased towards either company but nVidia seems to devious the past 6 months
 
Freddie1980 said:
Will they? The performance looks very close to me AMD will only drop their prices if Nvidia matches them or better yet undercuts them (maybe be a possibility given the smaller die size).

Nvidia and AMD have enjoyed a year of inflated video card prices, 570's 6970's, 6950's have pretty much held their launch prices which is remarkable given that these companies are meant to compete against each other. :o
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I think they will Freddie yes.

AMD have always been very good at providing cheap parts. They've also been very good at making Nvidia behave themselves when it comes to pricing too.

AMD have indeed enjoyed at least two month's worth of inflated prices. But IMO they will drop the 7970 to around £380 then drop the 7950 to £300 (if anything because of the 580's price drop) and then release Tenerife and charge £450 for that.
 
xsistor said:
Stop and think how much smaller this is than the GTX 480/580 and this becomes the best NVIDIA launch. Now imagine this same chip scaled up to 580 sizes (i.e. more shaders).

That's what I'll wait for when 28nm production is in full swing and prices have come down.
Click to expand...

The GTX680 is a high end GPU - these things might be useful if it is something priced much cheaper,ie,under £250. However the GTX680 isn't though and the only important metric is the performance upgrade from a GTX580.

The GK110 will probably be quite impressive,but it suffers from two problems. One, you cannot get it yet and two you cannot get it yet.

The GTX680 is all that is available ATM. Now,maybe the reviews out next week might indicate that the GTX680 is much faster than in the preview(or not),so the final GTX680 judgement by many people is a bit premature IMHO.

However,remember this. Even the GTX560TI at around 1GHZ could match or exceed a GTX570 in many games. The former had less VRAM,less memory bandwidth and a much smaller GPU die area and less transistors for the GPU too.
 
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