NVIDIA GT300 rumours float around

The rumour mill re-opens for business.

We've caught wind of NVIDIA's next wave of graphics cores from a very unlikely source, but that doesn't necessarily negate their truth (nor remove the possibility of falsehood).

Claiming that the cards will simply be a redesigned GT200 chip, the only thing that seems to have been changed is the memory interface and naming structure, something that NVIDIA have been incredibly guilty of in the past.

GDDR5 seems to be the flavour of the new cards, with the rest of the card surmisably similar to the already-existing GT200 series-based cards in terms of core speeds and stream processors - though a clockspeed increase might not even be coming:

Pair this with the fact that Nvidia partners are reporting shortages of 2xx chips, and you have all the makings for hilarity. No parts, but if you make them slower, you can call them new, and pretend they are faster, even if you can't ship them to your customers.

Charlie Demerjian hasn't always been the most even-handed when it comes to anything NVIDIA-related, so take this news with a large pinch of salt, but it does seem to support the fact that NVIDIA are having problems.

Whether or not those problems can be solved is another thing entirely, but with news of ATI's 5-series cards slowly filtering through to Atomic already NVIDIA will need to get something out soon or lose the busiest tech time of year.

Head over to SemiAccurate for more on the rumoured GT300 products, and post below with if you think GDDR5 and a clockspeed drop even makes sense.

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18 Comments

index680i Sep 1, 2009 11:46 AM	I heard the GT300 will have more memory, GDDR 5 and DX11 support.
nesquick Sep 1, 2009 11:55 AM	I think we established that a while ago index.
NobodyIsHere Sep 1, 2009 12:09 PM	sounds like nvidia might use the gt200 core + a rejigged gddr3 memory controller to build its low end 300 series parts? and could possiably actually use the planned gt300 core for its mid to high end range? (thinking along the lines of how nvidia used the g92 core for the gts250 while using the gt200core for the 260/275/280/295 cards). either way its going to be interesting to see just what nvidia will do with the upcoming gt300 series of cards.
philo-sofa Sep 1, 2009 12:25 PM	With the low-yields and high cost of the GT200 cores (selling GTX 260's @ a loss for the... erm, loss), it wouldn't seem to make all that much sense for Nvidia to plan its next gen around a revision of the GT200 core. I'd assume they'd be working furiously on a replacement - whilst Jen-Hsun Huang is undoubtedly full of hot-air and ridiculously rosy predictions in public, there's no doubt the man has a firm grasp on reality in private; he would have seen the writing on the wall long ago and been accordingly kicking his engineers asses upside their heads to get a new design out. With the low-yields and high cost of the GT200 cores (selling GTX 260's @ a loss for the... erm, loss), it would seem to make near zero sense for Nvidia to plan its next gen around a revision of the GT200 core. It's fair to say they'll be working furiously on a replacement - whilst Jen-Hsun Huang is undoubtedly full of hot-air and ridiculously rosy predictions in public, there's no doubt the man has a firm grasp on reality in private; he would have seen the writing on the wall long ago, and been kicking his engineers asses upside their heads to get a new design out. That having been said.... it does make some sense to adopt GDDR5 and punch out a (die shrunk) revision to the GT200 if the true successor is looking like alonger term proposal (rumored to be the case due to issues with taping out the chips at 40nm - which also gives credence to the idea of shrinking an existing design to give TSMC experience with your chips on that process). Overall it seems quite plausible that we'll have a rehash as the 'GT300' a-la the Nvidia '9000 series' and then a true successor later, firmly separated from the previous chips in both design and numbering. Plausible logic aside, as noted by the author, Mr Demerjian likely has likely had his office plants painted red to avoid offending his anti-Nvidia tendencies, so everything that passes through his desk viz Nvidia is probably best taken on board with a shaker or two of salt.
somemadcaaant Sep 1, 2009 3:23 PM	I'll buy an Nvidia DirectX 11 card when I can replace the onboard one in my trusty PS3, nurse scalpel! .oOo.
nesquick Sep 1, 2009 4:07 PM	The one in the PS3 is starting to get dangerously outdated if you ask me, something based on the 7 series? no thanks, you could say the same for ATI's xenos chip to.
RaRaDawg Sep 1, 2009 4:25 PM	The PS3 uses a revolutionised 7800GTX called the RSX. Yes. It is getting far behind.
nesquick Sep 1, 2009 5:45 PM	by revolutionised 7800gtx do you mean tweaked?
saikouguy Sep 1, 2009 5:56 PM	"by revolutionised 7800gtx do you mean tweaked?" - nesquick I think you mean 'cut-down' instead of 'tweaked' "by revolutionised 7800gtx do you mean cut-down?" - Now fixed
cheozuka Sep 1, 2009 6:28 PM	Hmm might mean a positive for current 2 series owners in that the cards wont devalue too much, at least until nvidia release 50 different revisions of the 3xx series. :\
codecreeper Sep 1, 2009 8:00 PM	Look more like Nvidia is back stepping a lot lately. Maybe they are pushing cards out too fast and realise that hardware is not what its supposed to be. Now they go back and fix all the problems and rebadge the old cards as new cards.
tunksy Sep 1, 2009 9:03 PM	Or they are just using this tactic to keep up with the release scheduel of AMD/Ati's HD58** series? Seems to make alot more sense, to me at least.
TheFrunj Sep 1, 2009 9:38 PM	I'd just like to pipe in and say that I've personally heard an unofficial (but I'm tempted to believe it) rumour that Larrabee is supposedly going to hit 30% higher performance - than the highest performing card at the time Larrabee releases. Expect massive shakeup things in the GPU wars in the very near future. -JR
mudjimba Sep 1, 2009 11:31 PM	Hopefully the prices are competitive.
nesquick Sep 2, 2009 7:38 AM	FRunj is that 30% overall? on GPGPU apps? or games?
TheFrunj Sep 2, 2009 8:23 AM	I was told it was for games, I imagine GPGPU would be a similar increase (raw computing power, etc). Can't guess that until the architecture is nailed down completely.
Phallas Sep 3, 2009 10:45 AM	can any one justify buying a gt300? i mean only crysis will benefit from that card, otherwise its buissness as usual. the only good point about this is that 295's will reduce in price.
DarkForceMage Sep 3, 2009 10:51 AM	As a single GPU solution if the card's memory is big enough, there is another game that would benefit that is harder to run than crysis at the moment(mainly due to view distance,, Youtube Arma 2.

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