NVIDIA will in about a week launch its first 28nm GPU in the form of GK104. First will be the graphics card GeForce GTX 680, which now has been detailed further through the reference card, where we see stacked powe connectors.
GeForce GTX 680 that is rumored to give AMD’s top model Radeon HD 7970 a match in performance – including in Battlefield 3 – will still consume relatively little power at 190W TDP. This can be compared to AMD Radeon HD 7970 and its 250 watt.
NVIDIA has equiped its GK104 graphics circuit with 1536 CUDA cores and 256-bit memory interface, connected to record-fast GDDR5 memory at 6000 MHz. The cooler is pretty similar to the one found on reference cards from both AMD and NVIDIA with a big plastic cover for leading the hot air out the front of the card with help from the radial fan at the back.
The pictures also show that NVIDIA is sticking to the stacked power connectors that in turn ended up two 6-pin PCIe power connector. We also count two SLI connectors for 4-way SLI and HDMI, DisplayPort and dual DVI display ports.
NVIDIA will launch GeForce GTX 680 with its Kepler architecture on March 22nd. If the card can deliver as promised it will be a very exciting solution where a price tag at 549 dollar indicates what NVIDIA is trying to achieve in the performance segment.
Source: ChipHell via TechPowerUp
Given that a 190W GK104 will trade blows with a 250W TDP HD7970, this bodes well for the future GTX685 flagship.
I am waiting until a 250W+ TDP GTX685 with 2304 SPs, 384-bit memory bus.
Important to consider:
AMD tdp is based on maximum load. It is very conservative given actual games do not load a card 100% in all areas at any given time. Actual normal use tdp is 20-30% lower than quoted on most cards.
nVIDIA tdp is based on a normal use, and while perhaps technically probably more accurate to what people will actually see as nobody plays furmark, is kind of misleading when compared to AMD.
I would bet actual power consumption of 7970 and 680 are actually very close.
HD7970 consumes at least as much power as HD6970, and most reviews show that it consumes more. Both have identical TDP of 250W. AMD hasn’t improved the power consumption at all.
GK104 will have no problem beating this in terms of performance/watt.
Forget about Furmark, the average power consumption of HD7970 is still high.
Techspot – Crysis:
http://www.techspot.com/review/481-amd-radeon-7970/page11.html
Bit-Tech – Unigine Heaven:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/12/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review/8
Xbitlabs – Metro 2033:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/radeon-hd-7970_4.html#sect1
AnandTech – Metro 2033:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/27
Also HD7970 has 6+8 pin vs. 6+6 pin of GK104. Nvidia will have a more efficient architecture this round.