hardarse7 :
You (apparently) didn't read the second half of that sentence: "... and will be made available to the public the following month [May] at Computex 2016."
Everything else you said is speculation and history. There HAS to be a lot of pent-up demand for the new generation, and in terms of corporate life, every quarter's return is crucial so there isn't going to be a delay unless there *has* to be a delay. Nvidia can (and most likely will) absolutely crush AMD with Pascal. There is absolutely no reason why they should or will use some kind of strategic delay for that. Again you have to reason that sales of existing boards is dropping off as more and more rumors of Pascal circulate. And with every quarter's revenues a live-or-die moment for the stock price (and executives' bonuses), no rational company would wait when they don't have to.
I have a dead PC right now as we speak because the HD5700 in it died last month. But I haven't bought a replacement board because I want to go to pascal for 4k gaming, and anything I spend on a crappy holdover board is just money thrown in the garbage. My budget for the replacement is at the ~$1000 level since technically I have been waiting many years to upgrade my PC because I didn't want to upgrade until the next gen drops. I went so far as to buy a PS4 to stave off GPU lust while I waited. I bet I am not alone, and the 10xx boards are sure to be huge sellers.
By the way, anyone who's seen the GTX 980 through Titan reference boards knows there is NOTHING wrong with Nvidia's reference designs. As far as later revisions, that is natural but says nothing against the initial launch (actual sales) starting in May.
I most certainly did read the sentence and even took pains to address it. You apparently did not read my 1st sentence because it very clearly states"
"available to the public is code for what is oft called "paper release" ... some will be released but in extremely small quantities." ... in other words, they can say it's on sale cause newegg had 3... but weeks go by before most of us can get their hands on one.
780 - 23rd May, 2013
780 Ti - 7th November, 2013 ... 7 months later
980 - 19th September, 2014
980 Ti - 1st June, 2015 .. 8 months later
Every heard the expression "history repeats itself"... talk about speculation ? What evidence do you have that all of a sudden the industry will break from what we always see generation after generation and this release will be somehow different than all the previous ones ? The 970 has outsold and continues to outsell all AMD R7 / R9 2xx and 3xx series combined ... they need a new card why ? I don't have to **reason** that sales are dropping off because real information to the contrary is readily available.
I have been watching this industry for 30 years, building PCs for 25 years and its the same old tired story. Cards get announced / released to build up excitement ... the same way game and movie trailers arrive months before release. A new card comes out... you can't actually buy it anywhere ... then they start appearing on the shelves and sell out within minutes and it's 3 - 9 weeks before you can but them with any regularity.
While there's always the crowd that needs to be the first on their block to have the latest and greatest thing, those w/ patience are sitting there smirking saying "let them live on the bleeding edge".
Those w/ patience never get stuck with 1st stepping woes and even if there are no major issues, they invariably wind up with a "new and improved" product. Or are you suggesting that manufacturers do these redesigns to create a worse product ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepping_level
Cases in Point ...
-EVGA 970 SC where one of the 3 heat pipes missed the GPU (see article below)
-1st round of MSI 970s that had a problem related to adhesive used on sticker and damage caused sometimes by removing it
-Asus Z87 ear;ly steppings where if system went to sleep, connection to external drives were lost
-Every board made by every manufacturer prior to B3 steeping on P67 boards
As for pascal and 4k, it won't be enough... At best, 4k gaming at 60+ fps in 144 hz screens won't arrive at least until 2017. We don't even have a cable that can handle the bandwidth.
Where did anyone say anything is wrong with the reference design so lets stick to what was actually said. There's nothing "wrong" with the Toyoto Corolla but that doesn't make me **want** to go out and drive one. What anyone who bothers to read a performance reviews knows that there are drastic differences between reference and non reference designs. Such as the 15% faster out of the box performance we see at 1440p here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_980_Ti_G1_Gaming/30.html
Which card do you want ? The reference card that comes outta the box at 102.6 and OC's only 9.4% or the one that comes outta the box a whopping 15.5% faster at 118.5 fps and OCs 13.8% beyond that.
Read a good tear down article as the one with bit-tech and understand why cards do not perform the same ... because they are not built the same, they do not have the same componentry and they are not cooled in the same way. Read the bottom third of pages 2-4 and see why the cards always finish in the same order performance wise.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/2
When the 980 came out (reference) it was 5% faster than the 780 Ti (reference). So if you are sitting with the choice of waiting cupla months for that reference 980 or buying the 780 Ti, do ya
a) Wait and buy the reference 980 and be 5% faster than the 780 Ti reference
b) Buy the non reference 780 Ti (at a reduced price) because of impending new generation and be 10% faster than the 780 Ti reference.
Ya wanna know when Pascal is about to drop... retailers will have significant price cuts to clear stock ... we haven't seen this happen yet. The 970 for example is at the same price it was on release day.
Rumor has the release date of the "no HBM 1080" ... meaning someone, somewhere will be able to buy a card, is may 27th. The rumored release date of the 960 Ti was January ... I haven't seen it yet, that should give you an idea on the reliability or rumors.
http://videocardz.com/57886/nvidia-preparing-geforce-gtx-960-ti (6 days ago)
You should also be aware, contrary to what was stated, that HBM2 will not go into mass production until 3rd quarter
Before we begin I want to make clear it that I’m only posting this story because BenchLife stories are usually correct (in the past they released many Intel and AMD slides, which turned out to be true). However I’m still not convinced, especially about the name: GTX 1080 (I would rather expect GTX 1800, which corresponds to Quadro naming schema).
Most importantly though the new flagship would not have HBM2 memory. Card is allegedly equipped with 8GB GDDR5X memory, which basically means HBM2 will have to wait for Pascal GP100. Now does it make sense? Technically yes, because mass production of HBM2 modules is not expected to begin sooner than third quarter.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (GTX 1800) would launch on May 27th, which is just 4 days before Computex, allowing AIB partners to show their cards at the event.
Read carefully .... "made available to partners to show the card" and "being made available to the public to buy the card" are two very, very different things.
http://videocardz.com/nvidia/geforce-1000/geforce-gtx-1800 (today)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1800 Specifications
Release Date = Q3 2016
I see nothing to indicate that this round will be any different than the last two ... and with everyone expecting HBM2 and it obviously not being available for the 2nd quarter cards at least until 3rd quarter mass production, how many will sit tight waiting for HBM2 ???
I don't see a HBM2 equipped successor to the 980 Ti arriving till fal ... just in time Xmas 2016 XMas holiday shopping.