So with the announcement confirming the release of Nvidia's next series of cards due on the 20th August (we hope), let's see what we know, or think we know about what team green's been up to these 2 1/2 years since the 1080 was released. First up the name. I think everyone was pretty set on 11xx, but recent rumbles have maybe suggested it will be the 20xx. I'd say 20xx seems more plausible as both Nvidia and ATi/amd have typically gone up in 1000's from series to series when using 4 digits. It's probably much clearer from a marketing/consumer standpoint that "it begins with a 2, so you know it's brand new". Specs are rumoured to be not dissimilar to the Titan XP (big PEEEE):  (sic) Promising a 50% bump in performance on paper and twice the memory, it should be a nice healthly whack for all you folk with 3 gargantuan 10,000k screens to run. Quick snapshot of supposed PCB Looks like it will have some beefy power circuitry and we all know what that means... So, anyone know something I've missed? Y'all excited for some new hardware? I'm quite possibly going to grab a '70, but really it depends what the blocks from Watercool and Aquacomputer are like. I was hoping they'd be carrying over the old PCB so existing blocks would work, as I've a serious hardon for that copper heatkiller Mega sploosh.
I'm still amazed at how well the GTX 1080 has held up, and reckon Nvidia will have a hard time generally convincing people to upgrade from Pascal cards - even a GTX 1060 can still plough through any game at 1080p. Sure, those very few guys who want a 4K 144Hz HDR monitor will want something new and shiny to power it, but considering this will be another green team release with zero competition, I fully expect an eye watering premium...
Not sure if you're laughing at the 'guessed at' floppy performance, or if you know something we don't you had your fingers crossed when signing the nda, no?
It's one of those rare moments in time where I can actually afford to buy the flagship card at launch. Thing is, I don't want one. Maybe I'll feel different once the reviews are out, but I'm just not feeling it.
The only issue with my 970 is the 'lack' of memory. I had most settings maxed out on FC5 and it coped fine most of the time, till I started blowing everything up at once and it hit it's head on the 4gb. Will go back and see what division is like with the tweaked bios and weigh up if 2 will cripple it, bit will probably upgrade anyway.
I have no need to upgrade - My 1080 Ti maxes everything out in VR and 4K - So not sure what the point is, unless game developers start producing unoptimised games to make us believe we need to upgrade (Looking at you Crysis!)
I don't think Crysis was poorly optimized - it was just way ahead of it's time. A testament to that is how good it still looks even 10 years on.
I don't actually sign NDAs for some reason. But every time i mention unreleased hardware a black van pulls up outside the office.
Everything you play, perfectly possible, everything thats out there? Not a chance. Take Deus Ex MD for example, you'll be lucky to hit 40FPS and thats just average... to get min FPS up to what most 4K monitors can handle you'd need almost a 100% increase in performance over the 1080 TI.
nvlink connector... what looks like no provision for DVI... imo either that's a Quadro/Tesla PCB, or they're doing what the did with the titan V and selling a nerfed quadro/tesla as a consumer card.
I thought it was odd there are those bits of additional board along the edges, but figured they're there to grab on to during the manufacturing process and removed later. Does look like A LOT of vrms for the base card too, it's normally aftermarket overclocked cards that have wall to wall voltage regulation.
That is a correct assumption. Also note the second set of pads inside the lowest output connector. I believe those are for an optional USB-C socket - possibly to the new "VirtualLink" standard for VR headsets.
Anything above 25fps min is playable - Meaning you can max that game out. Most of the games I play run at 60fps+ (Lets not forget that you don't even need AA at 4K, but I use FXAA anyhow).
DVI was dropped with the 1080Ti*, and the 'NVLink' connector is reversed from the NVLink on existing Quadro and Tesla cards. Possibly re-using the same signal routing and verification but not using the same protocol (so flipped to prevent mutual incompatibility while still being able to use the same bridges). The 'mini' connector dual-occupying the lowermost DP location could be for VirtualLink, but there are not enough pins for the full-feature Type C port required (unless they add some sort of riser board to pull in the 'missing' DP lanes from the DP connector pad, or have custom Type C sockets made for them).. Doing a quick A/B with the 1080Ti PCB the new chip package is noticeably smaller than the GPxxx series packages with tighter memory placement, though the latter is expected due to GDDR6's tighter timing requirements. With supposed RTX (& DXR) support, it would be really interesting to see what a raytraced engine for VR can achieve once the need for a lens distortion pass is removed (just trace the rays in the correct position to begin with). I'm tempted to pick one up, but it'd need to have some performance uplift vs. the 1080Ti or I'd be better set just to wait for the inevitable '1180Ti' instead. * About damn time too. HDMI need to get the hell off of the back of the card too, DP++ can act electrically as a HDMI output without wasting a proper connector on something that should not be seen outside an AV stack (but sadly gets abused for desktop monitors anyway).
New rumours around that the founders edition will have a twin fan cooler. Might offer better cooling but I bet sff peeps will be a bit disappointed if it's not a blower, especially as the 'titan' blower of the last couple of gens is pretty well regarded.
The NVTTM design is the only decent blower anyone produces. It's be a real shame to have the only option left be the abysmally awful blowers AIBs crap out.