NVIDIA next-gen GPU details leak out, nothing too exciting

With all the noise NVIDIA's been making lately about slimming down its product line and going after Intel, we were sort of hoping a leak of the company's Summer 2008 roadmap would have some fun surprises in it, but it looks like it's just more of the same. The schedule, obtained by DailyTech, says that we should be expecting two cards based on NVIDIA's upcoming D10U graphics core, currently codenamed the GeForce GTX 280 (D10U-30) and GeForce GTX 260 (D10U-20). The 280 is the full-strength version of the processor, with all 240 "unified stream processors" integrated into the die enabled, while the 260 will only enable 192. The cards both support three-way SLI, and there appears to be integrated PhysX support in the works, but we won't know details until these launch sometime around June 18th. That's great and all, but come on guys -- let's start backing up all that smack talk.

[Jayden @ May 21st 2008 11:18PM]

Just give me something powerful and inexpensive, then i'll be happy.

[Bunson @ May 22nd 2008 12:35AM]

Ever try a male hooker?

[Ruben @ May 21st 2008 11:30PM]

Going from 128 shaders on a single die to 240 seems like a big deal to me. Sli-in-one cards will have 480. Now Sli that! Thats just fucked!

[cherie22984 @ May 22nd 2008 12:21AM]

What???

[Einhanderkiller @ May 22nd 2008 12:22AM]

Especially when the second-gen unified shaders are supposedly 50% faster than their predecessor.

Source: http://www.dailytech.com/Nextgen+NVIDIA+GeForce+Specifications+Unveiled/article11842.htm

[Kakkoii @ May 22nd 2008 5:55AM]

Yeah I know, Someone needs to email Nilay Patel to change the headline of this story...

Nvidia's upcoming GT200 chip is a major break through in performance.

And is going to be breaking the 1Billion transistors barrier for GPU's.
And with a 512bit bus, 240 unified stream processors and 50% faster shaders.

This is SURELY a most exciting card, of which I can't wait to be released and see it's full potential on games.

[cydonia @ May 21st 2008 11:34PM]

I just hope these new chips will just require one 6-pin pci-e connector. i don't really want to swap out my motherboard to a 790a board just for hybrid SLi. Because the 6+8 pci-e cards make me feel bad about the environment.

I wouldn't bet on it though.

however i'm also more interested in chipset data for nahalem! when is that going to be leaked?!

[Wwhat @ May 22nd 2008 12:26PM]

Get green power and you'll be set.

[waiownsyou @ May 21st 2008 11:35PM]

Wait, so is GTX 280 the new marketing name to not make it sound like ATI with the X###?

If it is, the 9 series was pretty short-lived.

[iofthestorm @ May 22nd 2008 1:50AM]

GTX 280 is just a code name.

[cydonia @ May 22nd 2008 1:59AM]

i'm pretty sure the codename was GT200.

GTX 280 and GTX 260 sound like the real name. Which would fall in line with nvidias initiative to simplify its naming scheme.

you could have like GTS 220, GTS 200 for the midrange parts now, and when midrange parts get released a year from now which are roughly as fast as these top end parts, the new parts could be called GTS 280/260 and the newer high end parts would be called GTX 340/320.

Just my speculation. Seems to work out pretty well to me.

[yaddam205 @ May 21st 2008 11:36PM]

Meh.... DDR3 still Nvidia has always been behind on hardware. This is disappointing.

[JLTate @ May 22nd 2008 12:13AM]

GDDR4 is like DDR3: It has a higher latency, costs substantially more, and has only a marginal throughput increase compared to its' predecessor.

GDDR5, on the other hand, is looking to be a substantial improvement over GDDR3. Hopefully nVidia will jump on that bandwagon early with these new chips.

[Einhanderkiller @ May 22nd 2008 12:26AM]

NVIDIA and ATI's next-gen cards should be close to identical in memory bandwidth.

GT200 - GDDR3 + 512-bit bus
RV770 - GDDR5 + 256-bit bus

[Wwhat @ May 22nd 2008 12:29PM]

Since ATI is going for multiple small cores that can access parts of the RAM simultaneously I guess the bandwidth comparison becomes a bit useless anyway huh?
Of course it won't bring what it sounds like it might, since it's ATI and all.

[Peter @ May 21st 2008 11:38PM]

I would really hate it if NVidia completely changed their naming scheme. They should definitely stay with the same scheme. I guess these are what were formerly known as the 9900 cards, but I can't be sure.

[Andy @ May 22nd 2008 12:05AM]

These are internal code names, not official product names.

[Dy Phan @ May 21st 2008 11:43PM]

I did see a screen shot that was leaked at Tom's Hardware with a 9900GTX part in the device manager.

[Ridgecity @ May 21st 2008 11:46PM]

didn't they say PhysX was going to work on their available top of the line cards?? that's why I got a 8800 gt!

[Will @ May 22nd 2008 12:55AM]

I believe it will. They just aren't finished with the Physx to CUDA port yet.

[Ruben @ May 21st 2008 11:49PM]

GDDR3 is perfectly fine as long as its not the bottleneck. GDDR4 didnt help ATI take the performance crown. And neither did their 512 stream processors.

[Bob @ May 21st 2008 11:54PM]

The real question is how much these things will cost.

And responding to the person above asking about the naming convention with the X's. Yes, because people think things with more X's in their game are better

[Yor1001 @ May 22nd 2008 12:05AM]

I read on tgdaily these thing will cost $110 dollars to make which is expensive, so I wont be suprised if it cost 650^.

[saq @ May 22nd 2008 12:18AM]

Maybe $110 in raw materials (chips, pcb, ram, etc) which still seems quite doubtful, but that doesn't cover the 10+ million nvidia probably spends in R&D on each chip.

[LC @ May 22nd 2008 12:26AM]

No more then $600 and I'll be happy.

For once I'd just like to have the best of the best. Just once.....

[Jonathan Worrel @ May 22nd 2008 12:34AM]

"nothing too exciting" ?


NOTHING TOO EXCITING?!

Engadget you have to be OUT OF YOUR FREAKIN MIND!

The GeForce GTX 280 is expected to throroughly CRUSH the lead-performing 9800GX2 at a scale of 100%. Yes that is correct, one-hundred percent.
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=277971
http://we.pcinlife.com/thread-935774-1-1.html

Now how about a comparison between GeForce GTX 280 and the 8800GTX? Beats it by a factor of ALMOST 200%. Yes, ALMOST two-hundred freaking percent. (based on the assertion that 8800GTX SLi yields slightly higher performance than a 9800GX2)

[Bob @ May 22nd 2008 12:35AM]

But will it cost 200% more?

[Wwhat @ May 22nd 2008 12:30PM]

I agree with engadget; talk is cheap.

[Jonathan Worrel @ May 22nd 2008 12:40AM]

I know for a fact it's going to be cheaper than the original $599 price tag placed on the 9800GX2. In my opinion, I would be speculating anywhere between $449 and $549 to place a safe guess. After all, the new chip will still be using the 65nm fabrication process and isn't expected to get down to 55nm for a couple months (which by then the price should drop to around $399)

[pathogen @ May 22nd 2008 12:56AM]

dx 10.1 plz.

[Wwhat @ May 22nd 2008 12:32PM]

No doubt it will be, this is about a new generation isn't it, not a repackaging, chance it'll be dx10.1(or more) is 100% I'd say.

[Marc Brooks @ May 22nd 2008 1:32AM]

Ooooo even faster BSODs. Thanks, but never again will I buy nVidia.

[V3LOCIP3D3 @ May 22nd 2008 1:44AM]

Rarely do you see a newspaper title that reads "nothing too exciting." I'm glad engadget's honest to us, otherwise people might read the article, thinking it's exciting and be dismayed

this saves me the heartbreak.

[loosely_coupled @ May 22nd 2008 5:54AM]

"nothing too exciting" --- hows that for the ATI fanboy writer.


Yea, nothing too exciting except for 240 shaders that are 50% faster than generation one unified shaders. In other words, this card will be equivalent to 360 shaders, and who knows what else they have done to it. I'm not a big gamer, but this thing will kick ass for GPGPU and simulations..

[Wwhat @ May 22nd 2008 12:36PM]

Yeah yeah, on paper ATI's r580 is still faster than this g200, on paper...
Point being that you can't trust rumours and gossip.

[stephen @ May 22nd 2008 11:28AM]

Yeeeah, so i like how these companies go from one complex naming scheme to another different, but still complex naming scheme.

Here Nvidia, i wont even charge you for this. In the future, you should name your cards using the following format

Good xxx xxxx
Better xxx xxxx
Best xxx xxxx

Where "xxx" is the 3 letter month (ie Feb, Jun, Sep, etc) and the xxxx is the year that the card came.

So for example, it sounds like the next release would/should have the names...

Better Jun 2008
Best Jun 2008

This one's on me, no charge.

[Casper42 @ May 22nd 2008 2:40PM]

So the 280 has 240 and the 260 has 192

No not confusing AT ALL.

But I guess the GTX 192 didn't pass the marketing muster.

[Jonathan Worrel @ May 22nd 2008 9:59PM]

NVIDIA documentation claims these second-generation unified shaders perform 50 percent better than the shaders found on the D9 cards released earlier this year.

To put the power of the SP's in perspective: It would take a chip with 360 SP's of the G92 architecture to stand up to the new GT 200.