Will The Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 Launch At CES In January?

[jessterman21]

It will definitely be at least 192-bit 3GB. Probably $249 MSRP.

With 10 SMMs it should nearly match GTX 780 performance. Basically an overclocked GTX 970M.

 

[HomerThompson]

It will definitely be at least 192-bit 3GB. Probably $249 MSRP.

With 10 SMMs it should nearly match GTX 780 performance. Basically an overclocked GTX 970M.

Now that would be worth every penny of $250 and put some serious pressure on AMD. It would really hurt sales of the 970 though. That would definitely be the go-to 1080p card now if so.

 

[elbert]

Looking at the tomshardware review of the 980 the 960 could very well be 8 SMM's, and the memory interface seems to fit well with 2GB if so. I don't really see nVidia making a radically different die with 10 SMM blocks, and somehow carrying a bigger memory interface, I would expect the 950 ti to have 6 SMM, and the 950 to have for or 5, with less texure units (comparing to the 750 series)

Again fine if Nvidia is only wanting $150 for the GTX960. Just as you pointed out the 950 will have zero room for increased SMM's over the 750ti and would be lucky to sale for $100. IE the 750ti can be picked up for about $110 ATM. I think you need to look at the 970m before saying Nvidia needs to make a radically different die. 970m is a 192 bit memory bus with about 10 SSM's

 

[renz496]

Looking at the tomshardware review of the 980 the 960 could very well be 8 SMM's, and the memory interface seems to fit well with 2GB if so. I don't really see nVidia making a radically different die with 10 SMM blocks, and somehow carrying a bigger memory interface, I would expect the 950 ti to have 6 SMM, and the 950 to have for or 5, with less texure units (comparing to the 750 series)

Again fine if Nvidia is only wanting $150 for the GTX960. Just as you pointed out the 950 will have zero room for increased SMM's over the 750ti and would be lucky to sale for $100. IE the 750ti can be picked up for about $110 ATM. I think you need to look at the 970m before saying Nvidia needs to make a radically different die. 970m is a 192 bit memory bus with about 10 SSM's

don't worry. 750Ti lack full support for DX12 (and DX11.3) which is present in second generation maxwell. they can make GM117 with same performance as GTX750Ti and still sell them at $150 (GTX750Ti original MSRP) just for the full DX12 support only. 😛

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Hats off to people who correctly pointed out that Maxwell 1) utilizes the memory bus more efficiently 2) has an increased L2 cache (2 MB to be specific). Those of you who love to comment on things without understanding them fully: why don't you first gather more knowledge on the topic? Things in tech change fast. A few years ago everyone was fussing over RAM clocks and timings, nowadays no one really cares because the performance impact is minimal. Likewise, with Maxwell, things have changed and even a GTX 980 is happy with 256-bit bus. That card is a monster. Even knowing just this one fact, by all logic you shouldn't worried about 192-bit or even 128-bit bus on a card two tiers down, but noooooo, let's complain instead of thinking a bit first...

Completely agreed on 2 GB VRAM and $250 though: both numbers are ridiculous. I'm still on a 4-year-old 560 Ti 1 GB (love that card, only had to change the fans once) and the only thing that really annoys me for the last 2 years is that I did not invest into a 2 GB version or even a 570 2 GB. And soon, many games will use over 2 GB VRAM easily, especially more demanding ones.. At $50 difference it's a no-brainer, GTX 970 4 GB would be so much better than a 960 2 GB... even if that means a sacrifice on some other component (or not eating for a week, lol). 960 should be closer to $200 and for $250 I expect to see factory-OC'd version of it with 2-4 GB VRAM. Then there's something to think about.

 

[renz496]

Hats off to people who correctly pointed out that Maxwell 1) utilizes the memory bus more efficiently 2) has an increased L2 cache (2 MB to be specific). Those of you who love to comment on things without understanding them fully: why don't you first gather more knowledge on the topic? Things in tech change fast. A few years ago everyone was fussing over RAM clocks and timings, nowadays no one really cares because the performance impact is minimal. Likewise, with Maxwell, things have changed and even a GTX 980 is happy with 256-bit bus. That card is a monster. Even knowing just this one fact, by all logic you shouldn't worried about 192-bit or even 128-bit bus on a card two tiers down, but noooooo, let's complain instead of thinking a bit first...

Completely agreed on 2 GB VRAM and $250 though: both numbers are ridiculous. I'm still on a 4-year-old 560 Ti 1 GB (love that card, only had to change the fans once) and the only thing that really annoys me for the last 2 years is that I did not invest into a 2 GB version or even a 570 2 GB. And soon, many games will use over 2 GB VRAM easily, especially more demanding ones.. At $50 difference it's a no-brainer, GTX 970 4 GB would be so much better than a 960 2 GB... even if that means a sacrifice on some other component (or not eating for a week, lol). 960 should be closer to $200 and for $250 I expect to see factory-OC'd version of it with 2-4 GB VRAM. Then there's something to think about.

but, but, but......AMD said you SHOULD care for it:

http://www.techpowerup.com/207704/choose-r9-290-series-for-its-512-bit-memory-bus-amd.html

 

[Wisecracker]

but, but, but......AMD said you SHOULD care for it:

http://www.techpowerup.com/207704/choose-r9-290-series-...

I'm not sure what your point is, Capt Oblivious, other than an ignorant drive-by attack on AMD. Pay attention, and you might learn something.

The discussion concerning the amazing efficiencies of Maxwell, VRAM, bandwidth and memory bus was proceeding nicely.

The 'issues' with Maxwell (if you want to call them that) as designed on 28nm are that the cards (and 'specifically' in this case, rumors concerning the GeForce GTX 960 specs) are somewhat bandwidth constrained.

It's why the GTX 980/970s ('Memory Bus Width' -- 256-bit) thump the AMD 290/Xs at 1080p, but largely lose their advantages at 4K and 1440p (or, 'Surround' or 'Eyefinity' resolutions).

 

[renz496]

oh come on. don't get mad with it 😛 . if anything just have fun with AMD marketing. because according to them you should choose radeon instead of nvidia 900 series because AMD is the future of gaming and their 285 is faster than nvidia 760.

 

[CRITICALThinker]

Hats off to people who correctly pointed out that Maxwell 1) utilizes the memory bus more efficiently 2) has an increased L2 cache (2 MB to be specific). Those of you who love to comment on things without understanding them fully: why don't you first gather more knowledge on the topic? Things in tech change fast. A few years ago everyone was fussing over RAM clocks and timings, nowadays no one really cares because the performance impact is minimal. Likewise, with Maxwell, things have changed and even a GTX 980 is happy with 256-bit bus. That card is a monster. Even knowing just this one fact, by all logic you shouldn't worried about 192-bit or even 128-bit bus on a card two tiers down, but noooooo, let's complain instead of thinking a bit first...

Completely agreed on 2 GB VRAM and $250 though: both numbers are ridiculous. I'm still on a 4-year-old 560 Ti 1 GB (love that card, only had to change the fans once) and the only thing that really annoys me for the last 2 years is that I did not invest into a 2 GB version or even a 570 2 GB. And soon, many games will use over 2 GB VRAM easily, especially more demanding ones.. At $50 difference it's a no-brainer, GTX 970 4 GB would be so much better than a 960 2 GB... even if that means a sacrifice on some other component (or not eating for a week, lol). 960 should be closer to $200 and for $250 I expect to see factory-OC'd version of it with 2-4 GB VRAM. Then there's something to think about.

The reason I was commenting (not quite complaining) about the bus size being supposedly 128 bit is because with 4GB I feel it would be a bit oversaturated, and for a mid-tiered card 3GB seems like a good fit on a 192 bit bus. I have seen reviews of cards with ram sizes that don't match the bus sizes well, and it didn't always help. it could just be me yapping though. We are in the same boat for graphics cards though, and it doesn't seem like 1GB is going to last very long.