NVIDIA Kepler speculation thread

[silent_guy]

People may not care about the number of so-called CUDA cores, but perf/W, number of supported displays, video decoding/encoding engines do matter.

You finally convinced me: because *all* pre-rebranding members of the 8xxx family had the exactly the same features wrt video decoders, perf/W, number of ports etc. Right?

Here's a shocker:
Nobody who buys a GT620 or whatever cares about perf/W, except HTPC geeks who care about fan-less operation, but they will need to (and do) research this stuff in depth anyway, so it doesn't matter.

As for ports: I'm pretty sure a GTX580 has different ports than a GT520, yet it is silicon of the same family. So what kind of consistency are you talking about? That fact that a hypothetical Kepler based GT610 may support Surround + extra monitor? Now there's a huge population to intentionally deceive! Don't different board vendors have different port configurations anyway? That makes the argument even more irrelevant.

I couldn't tell what kind of video decoders (and, a fortiori, encoders) any GPU has. Haven't they all supported some form of H264 since like forever? If not, I'm pretty sure that the feature differences cross silicon family lines anyway, so this also doesn't matter either.

Edit: from the GeForce 8 series wiki pages, on G84:

NVIDIA introduced 2nd-generation PureVideo with this series. As the first major update to PureVideo since the GeForce 6's launch, 2nd-gen PureVideo offered much improved hardware-decoding for H264 and VC-1 video.

Terrible, terrible, how different g8x chips had different video decoder features.

 

[Alexko]

You finally convinced me: because *all* pre-rebranding members of the 8xxx family had the exactly the same features wrt video decoders, perf/W, number of ports etc. Right?

Here's a shocker:
Nobody who buys a GT620 or whatever cares about perf/W, except HTPC geeks who care about fan-less operation, but they will need to (and do) research this stuff in depth anyway, so it doesn't matter.

As for ports: I'm pretty sure a GTX580 has different ports than a GT520, yet it is silicon of the same family. So what kind of consistency are you talking about? That fact that a hypothetical Kepler based GT610 may support Surround + extra monitor? Now there's a huge population to intentionally deceive! Don't different board vendors have different port configurations anyway? That makes the argument even more irrelevant.

I couldn't tell what kind of video decoders (and, a fortiori, encoders) any GPU has. Haven't they all supported some form of H264 since like forever? If not, I'm pretty sure that the feature differences cross silicon family lines anyway, so this also doesn't matter either.

Edit: from the GeForce 8 series wiki pages, on G84:

Terrible, terrible, how different g8x chips had different video decoder features.

OK, here's a concrete example, this time with AMD, just to be fair. Our vaguely tech-aware friend John Smith reads a review of the HD 7970. Or rather, like the vast majority of readers (according to website owners) he just skips to the conclusion and reads the following:

"AMD's new generation of GPUs brings a slew of improvements. Performance per watt goes up a lot thanks to the use of a new manufacturing process, computing performance skyrockets due to the new architecture, something you'll be able to make use of in applications like Adobe's Creative Suite 6 or the latest version of WinZip, and you even get a hardware video decoding/encoding engine, ideal for quick, power-efficient encoding. But these improvements come with a steep price: $549."

John Smith thinks: "Wow, that's cool. But it's far too expensive for me, and I don't play that many games anyway." A couple of months later, our friend is nonchalantly walking through the aisles of his local Best Buy, taking a look at a few PCs. He notices one with an HD 7670, and figures: "Cool, it's a little HD 7970! They've finally brought it down to the mainstream market. Now that's a machine I can afford. Hey, Dear Mr. Salesman, is the graphics card in this computer good?— Why, yes it is, it really is! It's an HD 7000, you know, brand new and shiny!— Great, I'll get it then!"

Except our friend John gets neither the improved performance per watt, the good compute performance in WinZip/CS 6, or the video encoding engine, because last-generation GPUs from AMD only support decoding.

So it's not the end of the world, I'm pretty sure John will survive, but I consider this to be misleading.

 

[UniversalTruth]

But misleading? On the contrary. Unethical? BS. Digging their own grave? <redacted>

Yes, "digging their own grave", I am forced to repeat it- it means that they will go bankrupt. Or their size, the size of the company itself will be rapidly shrinking. Why? Because they don't innovate but instead sleep while their competitor works really hard with offering new and faster products. Their market is shrinking and different products will take this niche. Is it so difficult to discuss this instead of putting sarcasm everywhere you don't agree?

It's extremely consumer friendly.

The truth is that no one cares about customers, they care only about themselves and how to screw customers more- to give less for more money.

 

[CarstenS]

Except our friend John gets neither the improved performance per watt, the good compute performance in WinZip/CS 6, or the video encoding engine, because last-generation GPUs from AMD only support decoding.

Winzip 16.5 won't actually care, what kind of AMD GPU is in there as long as it's from the DX11 generation. Heck, even performance doesn't vary greatly from HD 7970 down to HD 5770 (yes, no typo here). Just wanted to say...

 

[Alexko]

Winzip 16.5 won't actually care, what kind of AMD GPU is in there as long as it's from the DX11 generation. Heck, even performance doesn't vary greatly from HD 7970 down to HD 5770 (yes, no typo here). Just wanted to say...

Thanks, duly noted.

 

[trinibwoy]

A couple of months later, our friend is nonchalantly walking through the aisles of his local Best Buy, taking a look at a few PCs. He notices one with an HD 7670, and figures: "Cool, it's a little HD 7970!

Then John is an idiot. Nobody assumes a cheaper entry in the same product line has all the same features as the flagship. That goes for cars, tvs, receivers, phones or pretty much any consumer electronics product.

 

[leoneazzurro]

And what about the mobile mess?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5784/...-oem-desktop-lineup-adds-gt-645-gt-640-gt-630
three cards with the same name, different performances (and performance will not be consistent among the two different architectures used) and different features, too!

 

[Alexko]

Then John is an idiot. Nobody assumes a cheaper entry in the same product line has all the same features as the flagship. That goes for cars, tvs, receivers, phones or pretty much any consumer electronics product.

And yet it's pretty much true from the 7970 to the 7750, which is hardly a flagship; or better yet, from the 5970 to the 5450, which is about as far from a flagship as you can get.

And it used to be true for CPUs. On AMD's side, it still is. It's usually true for PSUs (Fortron's Aurum line-up goes from about 450W to something like 1000W, and all models are 80 Plus Gold), it's usually true for SSDs and HDDs, which tend to share common features under a common brand, though capacity and performance will often scale, etc.

 

[trinibwoy]

And yet it's pretty much true from the 7970 to the 7750, which is hardly a flagship; or better yet, from the 5970 to the 5450, which is about as far from a flagship as you can get.

I'm not sure how one or two anecdotes affect the conclusion. People simply do not make the assumption of equivalent features that you claim they do.

 

[Alexko]

I'm not sure how one or two anecdotes affect the conclusion. People simply do not make the assumption of equivalent features that you claim they do.

It seems more like a general trend in consumer computing than a couple of anecdotes to me. I don't know how many people make that assumption, I'm not in everyone's mind, but I've seen people make it and I wouldn't be surprised if there were many more.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

SB, I assume you meant to quote Alexko and not me.

Yup, oops.

It's fixed now. Probably makes more sense.

Regards,
SB

 

[xDxD]

http://translate.google.com/transla...5445-geforce-gtx-660-slapps-under-sensommaren

 

[Andrew]

Then John is an idiot. Nobody assumes a cheaper entry in the same product line has all the same features as the flagship. That goes for cars, tvs, receivers, phones or pretty much any consumer electronics product.

Incorrect. Most goods that are marketed as part of a product family share a set of standard features common across each of them. Cars are a perfect example of this. For example, all you have to do is open an Audi brochure and see the the standard features all shared by the A4, S4, and RS4. They're all built on the same B8 Chassis yet are vastly different cars in terms of their unique features and huge performance variations.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

For example, all you have to do is open an Audi brochure and see the the standard features all shared by the A4, S4, and RS4. They're all built on the same B8 Chassis yet are vastly different cars in terms of their unique features and huge performance variations.

This is getting a bit ridiculous, but imo your example is better suited for cards such as EVGA regular 580 model vs 580 Superclocked and the 580 Classified.

The difference between 680 and 620 would be be more like Audi A6 vs A1 as Neither of those are even remotely built into similar chassis.

 

[Rootax]

Ok, well done, I want a new car now.

 

[trinibwoy]

Incorrect. Most goods that are marketed as part of a product family share a set of standard features common across each of them. Cars are a perfect example of this. For example, all you have to do is open an Audi brochure and see the the standard features all shared by the A4, S4, and RS4. They're all built on the same B8 Chassis yet are vastly different cars in terms of their unique features and huge performance variations.

Do those Audi models represent the full range of their offerings?

 

[DSC]

http://en.expreview.com/2012/05/28/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-coming-in-july-or-august/23322.html

 

[sethk]

http://en.expreview.com/2012/05/28/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-coming-in-july-or-august/23322.html

Going from 1344 "CUDA cores" to 768? But still prices within $100? Seems like a big drop.

 

[Homeles]

Going from 1344 "CUDA cores" to 768? But still prices within $100? Seems like a big drop.

Yeah, the pricing is way out of whack. 768 cores is not going to cut it against a 7870 unless it's clocked quite aggressively. It'll be good competition, but the 7870 should be ahead. Pitcairn has even higher pixel fillrate than Tahiti... it's got quite a punch given the size of the silicon. Some may think that the 7900 family is a disappointment, but the 7800 and 7700 series are quite awesome cards... they just need competition.

 

[Andrew]

Do those Audi models represent the full range of their offerings?

For that particular product line, yes. All share same B8 chassis, safety features, AWD drivetrain (everything past transfer case), and most interior, body panels, etc. The different first letter of the model name (A4, S4, RS4) is based on the performance level of the car and associated model specific features.
A4 = Standard sport sedan (2.0T-fsi engine) 211/258 hp/tq
S4 = Performance Sport Sedan (Supercharged 3.0L V6) w/upgraded suspension, interior, minor exterior. 325/333 hp/tq
RS4 = Max Performance Sport Sedan (4.2L V8 engine) 450/315 hp/tq. upgraded suspension, interior, bumpers/fenders/etc, recaro seats, etc.

The number on all audi products represents the product line or family. A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, and R8. And each of those families has multiple models as described earlier.

The difference between 680 and 620 would be be more like Audi A6 vs A1 as Neither of those are even remotely built into similar chassis.

You missed the point. It's not the letter in an Audi models name that represents the chassis.... it's the NUMBER. A4, S4, RS4.... A5, S5, RS5.... etc.