Monday, July 16th 2012
GeForce GTX 660 Arrives Mid-August: Report
NVIDIA's newest product designed to strike the price-performance "sweetspot," the GeForce GTX 660, is set for a mid-August market launch, according to a SweClockers report. The new chip could roll out some time between August 13 and 19. Given that other Kepler-based SKUs have been launched on Tuesdays or Thursdays, it's likely that the launch date could be either the 14th, or the 16th. The GTX 660 will be based on the 28 nm "GK104" GPU. It will feature 1,344 or 1,152 CUDA cores, and a 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 1.5 GB of memory, according to the report. The new GPU could capture a crucial sub-$300 price-point.
Sources:
SweClockers, VideoCardz
78 Comments on GeForce GTX 660 Arrives Mid-August: Report
The fact that there is no GK100 but a GK110 suggests that it is meant for the GTX700 series from the beginning ;)
That or it is simply a matter of fact that the 28nm process is simply not ready for a GK100 so they scraped it.
Regardless the GK104 is the highest end Kepler nVidia has right now and that is a fact.
And I hope your comment about die size was not related to my post, because I didn't say such a thing. I said quite the opposite in fact. The thing is GK104 cards are way cheaper to produce based on everything, simpler PCB, less memory modules, simpler PWM, components... especially the 670. And of course die size. Whoever thinks that a sub-300 mm^2 chip (15% smaller than GF104!!!), in a cheap 256 bit card, was Nvidia's biggest contender this round, is completely deluded.
im afraid crushing the die if i use aftermarket cooler
What I am trying to get at, is that, even with a higher memory clock providing more bandwidth, my frame rate didn't show much of an improvement - as I'm sure bandwidth ain't everything (well, at least it isn't for me, at 1920x1080). And as for the VRAM capacity, 1.5GB should satisfy the card just fine. My 1280MB does just fine, and I can run pretty much every game maxed out.
I am eager to learn how it shapes up against the 7800 series.
I'm starting to believe that the 660 might be based on GK106 after all, but it's not what everyone thought it was. That or GK106 was scrapped altogether which makes very little sense to me.
My little new theory is that GK106 took longer because it was slightly redesigned when GK100 was scrapped and GK104 took the high-end card position, in order to be able to compete in the performance class*. Early rumors speculated about GK106 being a 768 SP card, basically 2 clusters where GK104 has 4, with 2 SMX each. And it was always rumored to be a 192 bit part. Basically folowing the tradition set with fermi cards, fair enough, it made sense.
But now I think that GK106 might use the same clusters as GK110, with 3 SMX each for a total of 6, which would turn it into a 1152 SP, 192 bit chip. Exactly what rumors say for GTX660.
Like I said the alternative is that GK106 won't be released and that makes no sense to me. But with GK107 + GDDR5 taking the GTS650 name, it looks very very unlikely for it to exist if GTX660 is based on GK104 too. Yeah non Ti 660 being GK106, but only 1 SKu based on the chip is unlikely too: the non-ti 660 theory has always been supported by harvested GK106 being the 650.
Well at least August will be interesting I guess.
* You just cannot compete if your mid-range/performace GPU is half the size of your high-end. It's been half a decade since the second chip offers at least 2/3 the performance, often time 3/4. Going straight to 1/2 is suicide. Of course GK104 was THAT chip, just like GF104 and G94 senved that purpose, but since GK104 became the one to go in high-end cards a new such chip is required. IMO a 6 SMX GK106 would be it. It's good balanced, it doen't require a lot of reworking because the 3 SMX designed was already tested for GK100/110 and packing them in just 2 clusters saves a lot of space. Only "sacrifice" is geometry/tesselation compared to GK104, but that's irrelevant for mid-range because of this:
It would still beat a GTX580 on pure tesselation.
EDIT: Wait i thought the GTX 660ti is going to release in the mid-august not the GTX 660+
Well i think the GTX 660 is better then HD 7850 and the GTX 660ti is better then hd 7870 and some where below the hd 7950
Maybe Nvidia is going to wait till they drop prices of the 680 and 670 before they come out with the 660 so they can lessen the gap in the price range and sell the 660 at a 200-250 price range because a 560ti still cost $200+ they might drop price of 560 ti and replace the 560ti price range with the 660 and that opens a gapp to slap a 660ti in for 50-100 dollars more. Just a theory
Did you even look at that graph??
How in the hell am I expected to believe a 7870 has better tessellation than a 7970??:wtf:
Kinda calls the rest of that graphs accuracy into question...