GK110 historical analysis are you content?

Are you content with the GK110 launching with the 700 Series, not the 600 Series?

  • Yes

    Votes: 18 34.6%

  • No

    Votes: 21 40.4%

  • See below

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • No Opinion

    Votes: 12 23.1%
  • Total voters
    52
L

Liger88

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Messages
2,657
tl;dr Are you pleased the GK110 came with the 700 Series and not the 600 Series (if that was not originally the intention).

When we do a flashback from the 600 series and the talked about assumption (partially from historical POV), it was hotly debated as to whether or not the GK110 should have been the GTX 680 or whether it was ever intended to be. Production problems and performance of the GK104 muddied the waters a bit and caused a rift in the community.

All that aside. The performance gained seen from the GK104 were definitely admirable and now that we've finally seen the full power of the GK110 in all its glory I guess the question would be today, do you think Nvidia made the right decision pushing it to a more interesting "refresh" than what might have otherwise not been? The gains we've seen from the 780 over the 680, stacked further with the Titan and now the 780 Ti version are pretty impressive even if the GK110 was intended to be the full fledged GTX 680 part. I can definitely see why Nvidia held off on it if that is in fact what they purposely did.

I've since changed my tune. I was one of those who thought it was a slap in the face (pricing wise that can be debatable with the 780 Ti, original Titan, and even retail price of the 780), but the performance gains are there and they are solid. Besides the pricing being the main rift now with the GK110, I think it was the right decision in the long run and am quite pleased we had some entertainment before the next process node. Usually these refreshes are kinda dull.

How do you feel?
 
In a perfect world the 7970 would have been as fast as the 290X when it launched.

This would have given us the GK110 last year.

I mean you can't complain about the GK104. The 680 launched faster and cheaper than the 7970 all while being low on heat/noise/power/etc.

AMD dropped the ball and NVIDIA used that as an opportunity to reap massive profit from what would have been a mid-range part and it allowed them to gain even more money by focusing the GK110 entirely on the professional market last year.

Then again with most people playing games @ 1080p and nearly every game not needing much power to run at that resolution...it's more disappointing on the software side these days.
 
Gk110? What happened to the gk100? If the gk100 would have worked out that would have been the 680.
 
I voted no. I wish it had arrived earlier so I wouldn't have purchased a GTX 680, which just wasn't powerful enough in the end at 2560 x 1600.

I don't know how they did it, but this Kepler generation I bought way too many Nvidia cards. One 650 Ti, two 660, one 680, two 780, and even my laptop has a 650. You're welcome Nvidia stockholders.
 
No, they sold us their budget card as their top end card and laughed all the way to the bank. Can't say I blame them, but it was a bit of a dick move. We could have had another 9700 pro on our hands, but instead, we got an incremental upgrade. I bought it though, so I can't really bitch too much about it. I'm a sucker for shiny new silicon.
 
GK100 had a lot of issues with its process... I thought they would've learned to play things safer after 40nm, but nope...
 
B2BigAl said:
No, they sold us their budget card as their top end card and laughed all the way to the bank. Can't say I blame them, but it was a bit of a dick move. We could have had another 9700 pro on our hands, but instead, we got an incremental upgrade. I bought it though, so I can't really bitch too much about it. I'm a sucker for shiny new silicon.
Click to expand...

Well, overclocking everything, GTX 680 is about 40% better than GTX 580. And Titan is about 40-50% better than GTX 680. So that means the full GK110 is sometimes over 100% better in performance than GF110. GTX 680 wasn't good enough to be the successor to GTX 580, and GTX Titan was too good. But either way, the upgrades weren't minimal. I went GTX 480 to GTX 680 to GTX Titan and both times the upgrade was very noticeable.

Kepler also has the best feature set Nvidia has ever offered by a mile. And it will be made even better with the introduction of G-Sync.
 
All depends on what the business plan was. Also depends if there were enough GK110 yields when the 7970 was released.

When the 680 was finally released, the performance/efficiency/price was at least on par with the 7970, so I wasn't that displeased when the 700 series came out.


The following is completely assumption and speculation, but hey, its fun ;)

If nvidia did expect more from the 7970 & surprised at the performance (if they internally thought it was actually sub-par compared to their yet to be released GK110), the GK104 parts may have been bumped up as their top-tier part and sold at a premium rather than a mid-range GPU (more profit from a low cost part) & actually given them time to gain better GK110 yields and revise the design itself.

Essentially, the 7970 may have been a boon for nvidia in the form of time to get their shit together whilst making more money.

If they had expected/received R290X performance from the 7970, the perception would have been that nvidia were scrambling to get the GK110 ready and were behind AMD in their road-map. Maybe they were. Maybe they weren't.

Of course, all of this could be shot down by past release trends from nvidia - release new architecture for gen 1, then refresh and sell again for gen 2. (Kepler over 2 GPU cycles 600/700 series & Fermi 400/500 series)

From a consumer perspective, I would have loved 780 performance at the beginning from the 680 ( who wouldn't! ) but at the time, the 680 was great. The Tesla K20 GK110 parts came out around eight months after the GK104 parts, so it may have been that it was meant to be for the 700 series anyway.

From a business perspective, the roadmap made sense, the Kepler + Kepler refresh. If it did turn out that GK104 got bumped, then all the better for their business.

Either way, for me, its Maxwell or bust!
 
Last edited:
Y do I always feel like nvidia and AMD are secretly in a back room like spy vs spy sitting at a poker table using mankind as their chips. Obviously this is what happened. Flagship card with 2gb of 256 bit. Youd be stupid to believe that they meant to do that. Woops our chips too fast guess we'll hold off a generation and pocket millions off these suckers.
 
HOODedDutchman said:
Y do I always feel like nvidia and AMD are secretly in a back room like spy vs spy sitting at a poker table using mankind as their chips. Obviously this is what happened. Flagship card with 2gb of 256 bit. Youd be stupid to believe that they meant to do that. Woops our chips too fast guess we'll hold off a generation and pocket millions off these suckers.
Click to expand...


covert corporate espionage! GPU cold war.
 
This is a stupid Poll because the GK110 was never designed to be released with the 600 series. It was always a second generation kepler part.
 
reaper12 said:
This is a stupid Poll because the GK110 was never designed to be released with the 600 series. It was always a second generation kepler part.
Click to expand...

This. GK100 was the first part, didn't work out so we received the GK104.
But it was rumored before the 680 launch, the respun GK100 (now GK110), was going to arrive at some point. And here we are.

Nvidia makes big die gpus thier top end cards. The GK104 was too small and unlike NV to use that as their flagship part.
Now we have three big die cards, 780, 780 Ti and Titan.
 
reaper12 said:
This is a stupid Poll because the GK110 was never designed to be released with the 600 series. It was always a second generation kepler part.
Click to expand...
GTX 680 launched March 22, 2012

Tesla K20X (the first GK110 based card) launched November 12, 2012.

Not much of a gap there for being a whole "generation" apart :p
 
What about past code-names?

GTX 480 = GF100 Fermi
GTX 580 = GF110 Fermi refresh

GTX 680 = GK104 Kepler
GTX 780 = GK110 Kepler refresh

I dunno. maybe? maybe not?
 
Unknown-One said:
GTX 680 launched March 22, 2012

Tesla K20X (the first GK110 based card) launched November 12, 2012.

Not much of a gap there for being a whole "generation" apart :p
Click to expand...

the 580 was a second generation Fermi part, there was only 6 months between that and the 480.
 
reaper12 said:
the 580 was a second generation Fermi part, there was only 6 months between that and the 480.
Click to expand...

I thought it was 8-9 months. Late March for GTX 480 and then early November for the 580. Just about the same as the gap between the 680 and 780. Both 580 and 780 were refresh releases. Nvidia's M.O.
 
Whach said:
I thought it was 8-9 months. Late March for GTX 480 and then early November for the 580. Just about the same as the gap between the 680 and 780. Both 580 and 780 were refresh releases. Nvidia's M.O.
Click to expand...

You are right, It was 8 months for both.
 
reaper12 said:
And what do you think second generation is? This term is used widely. I can't believe you don't understand it.
Click to expand...
II understand it perfectly, but I can't believe you think the GK110 somehow qualifies as "second generation"

The GK110 tapped out and was being sampled for use in the Titan supercomputer before the GTX 680 was even released. It's not a "second gen" GPU just because they held off on selling it to the general public. :rolleyes:

It's pretty clearly just a product refresh, recycling a GPU design they've had on-hand for ages.

Edit: Really, the only second-generation core I see in the entire lineup is the GK208 (found on the GT 630 Rev2). That was released May 29, 2013, and is a legitimately newer core.
 
Last edited:
Unknown-One said:
II understand it perfectly, but I can't believe you think the GK110 somehow qualifies as "second generation"

The GK110 tapped out and was being sampled for use in the Titan supercomputer before the GTX 680 was even released. It's not a "second gen" GPU just because they held off on selling it to the general public. :rolleyes:

It's pretty clearly just a product refresh, recycling a GPU design they've had on-hand for ages.
Click to expand...

No you clearly don't, Second generation = refresh.
 
PRIME1 said:
In a perfect world the 7970 would have been as fast as the 290X when it launched.

This would have given us the GK110 last year.

I mean you can't complain about the GK104. The 680 launched faster and cheaper than the 7970 all while being low on heat/noise/power/etc.

AMD dropped the ball and NVIDIA used that as an opportunity to reap massive profit from what would have been a mid-range part and it allowed them to gain even more money by focusing the GK110 entirely on the professional market last year.

Then again with most people playing games @ 1080p and nearly every game not needing much power to run at that resolution...it's more disappointing on the software side these days.
Click to expand...

If *any* of this is true, wouldn't it have made more sense for Nvidia to release full-on GK110 and shut-out AMD - who happens to be their fucking competition? I mean - think about it. There's no way a $550 Radeon HD-7970 could have ever competed with a $550 GTX-780TI. Their CPU division isn't all that great already, so it seems to me that Nvidia then made the biggest mistake ever by not seizing AMD when they could. Again - if anything of what you're saying is true.

As far as the conspiracy goes. I'll one-up yours. I believe that if there is a conspiracy, that BOTH companies are in on it. They need each other, probably more than we need them to "compete." If it's true that Nvidia purposefully released GTX-680 as a mid-range under the veil of a flagship, then in my opinion - the two companies aren't competing. Companies who are in competition usually try to flush that competition out right? Right.
 
reaper12 said:
No you clearly don't, Second generation = refresh.
Click to expand...
The only thing that looks anything like a refresh is consumer-oriented cards being pitched that way... but the GPU they're based on? Nope.

Sounds to me like you're falling for the marketing. There's nothing "new" or "second gen" going on here aside from the number on the sticker.

I mean come on...It's not a refresh or a second generation in any sense looking at the GK110 itself, which started being produced at pretty much the same time as the rest of the GeForce 600 series. Like I said before, just because they weren't selling it to the general public doesn't mean it's anything truly new.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
If *any* of this is true, wouldn't it have made more sense for Nvidia to release full-on GK110 and shut-out AMD - who happens to be their fucking competition? I mean - think about it. There's no way a $550 Radeon HD-7970 could have ever competed with a $550 GTX-780TI. Their CPU division isn't all that great already, so it seems to me that Nvidia then made the biggest mistake ever by not seizing AMD when they could. Again - if anything of what you're saying is true.

As far as the conspiracy goes. I'll one-up yours. I believe that if there is a conspiracy, that BOTH companies are in on it. They need each other, probably more than we need them to "compete." If it's true that Nvidia purposefully released GTX-680 as a mid-range under the veil of a flagship, then in my opinion - the two companies aren't competing. Companies who are in competition usually try to flush that competition out right? Right.
Click to expand...

If they sold half the amount of gpu by holding off gk110 cards for the 700 series they saved all the money it would cost to engineer a new chip and still sold tons of cards by undercutting 7970s price at time of 670/680 release. Its all about profit margins now crushing the competition. Wed have a lot bigger gaps between generations if that was the point.
 
Unknown-One said:
The only thing that looks anything like a refresh is consumer-oriented cards being pitched that way... but the GPU they're based on? Nope.

Sounds to me like you're falling for the marketing. There's nothing "new" or "second gen" going on here aside from the number on the sticker.

I mean come on...It's not a refresh or a second generation in any sense looking at the GK110 itself, which started being produced at pretty much the same time as the rest of the GeForce 600 series. Like I said before, just because they weren't selling it to the general public doesn't mean it's anything truly new.
Click to expand...


Can you show me physical proof that the the GK110 was ready and available and been tested before the 680 was released. It wasn't been produced at all, that's why you won't find that evidence.

There was nothing much different between the 580 and the 480, but it's still second generation Fermi, it's just a refresh. The Gk110 is a refresh of the Kepler, it's not completely new, but, it is an evolution of the first cards. Whereas Maxwell GPU's are next generation
 
Last edited:
HOODedDutchman said:
If they sold half the amount of gpu by holding off gk110 cards for the 700 series they saved all the money it would cost to engineer a new chip and still sold tons of cards by undercutting 7970s price at time of 670/680 release. Its all about profit margins now crushing the competition. Wed have a lot bigger gaps between generations if that was the point.
Click to expand...

Exactly. They were able to sell their $300 cards for $500 and look like heroes doing it. The GK110 was then dedicated to the professional market where they sell for $1000's.
 
I'm still in shock there are people who belive that the 680 was ever intened to be the top end part.

it was obviously a mid range part that performed better than AMD's top end part, and as captialism demands, it became the mid range part that got sold at high end prices.
 
Am I "content" with GK110 having launched when it did? I suppose so, yes. I bought a GTX 680 and followed it with a 780.

Would I have preferred that GK110 had launched when GK104 did? Absolutely. Who wouldn't have wanted that?
 
HOODedDutchman said:
If they sold half the amount of gpu by holding off gk110 cards for the 700 series they saved all the money it would cost to engineer a new chip and still sold tons of cards by undercutting 7970s price at time of 670/680 release. Its all about profit margins now crushing the competition. Wed have a lot bigger gaps between generations if that was the point.
Click to expand...

No offense, but can you clean up your grammar? When I read your sentences, I read what could be two or three different things you're trying to say. The point I'm trying to make is that if anything that PRIME1 said is true, that means that Nvidia could have been making 780-like cards all along, and they chose not to. You say the reason is because of profit margins versus shutting out the competition. But really - that makes no sense. If you shut out your competition, then you have no competitors. Then you can charge whatever the hell you want (until the inevitable government regulation - not likely on entertainment products, but who knows?). How would this not lead to big profit margins? So this still leaves us at a few possibilities:

1. Nvidia just fumbled the ball. (Not likely)
2. Nvidia and AMD are working together to set the market price for graphics cards (in the past, they've already been caught doing this - so this could be a probable scenario)
3. The fact that GTX-680 (in its market form) was really supposed to be a mid-range part is bullshit.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
The point I'm trying to make is that if anything that PRIME1 said is true, that means that Nvidia could have been making 780-like cards all along, and they chose not to.
Click to expand...

Shutting AMD out of the high end video card market would not put AMD out of business. AMD only has about a third of the video card market over the last year or so. Judging by the steam survey very little of that is their high end cards.

Also, NVIDIA actually did make 780 cards all along, they just sold them to the professional market.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
No offense, but can you clean up your grammar? When I read your sentences, I read what could be two or three different things you're trying to say. The point I'm trying to make is that if anything that PRIME1 said is true, that means that Nvidia could have been making 780-like cards all along, and they chose not to. You say the reason is because of profit margins versus shutting out the competition. But really - that makes no sense. If you shut out your competition, then you have no competitors. Then you can charge whatever the hell you want (until the inevitable government regulation - not likely on entertainment products, but who knows?). How would this not lead to big profit margins? So this still leaves us at a few possibilities:

1. Nvidia just fumbled the ball. (Not likely)
2. Nvidia and AMD are working together to set the market price for graphics cards (in the past, they've already been caught doing this - so this could be a probable scenario)
3. The fact that GTX-680 (in its market form) was really supposed to be a mid-range part is bullshit.
Click to expand...

I was on my phone. Not like I'm at work its a forum. My post is completely understandable. I'm sorry but some of the members have shit that stink and don't care about grammar if nobody who actually matters in their life is gonna see it. Aparently you are not one of those members. You must save a lot of money on febreze.

680/670 was clearly supposed to be 660/660ti . IF that wasn't the case and the chip was supposed to be the flagship gpu. Than it is likely nvidia put 256 bit 2gb of memory on it to hinder the chip and increase profit margins. Thus still beating AMD 7970 and making a bigger gap to sell titans at $1000 and 780s at $750 when they released. You are correct tho, most likely thing is they just plan it together.
 
Last edited:
reaper12 said:
Can you show me physical proof that the the GK110 was ready and available and been tested before the 680 was released. It wasn't been produced at all, that's why you won't find that evidence.
Click to expand...
Wont find proof? You're kidding, right? The Titan supercomputer (the supercomputer that the GTX Titan is named after) is proof.

The release of 600-series cards spans from March of 2012 to February 2013.

Beginning on September 13, 2012, Nvidia K20X GPUs were fitted to all of Jaguar's XK7 compute blades. Nvidia stockpiled and shipped 18,688 GK110 GPU cores for the project over the previous months. Upon completion of this upgrade, the Jaguar supercomputer was officially renamed Titan.

Nvidia signed on for that project in 2009, and the final hardware specs were done in 2010. They had the GK110 penciled-in for aaaaaaages. Would have been ready sooner (under the name GK100) if they hadn't run into issues causing them to revise the design for higher yield.
 
Last edited:
blade52x said:
Well, overclocking everything, GTX 680 is about 40% better than GTX 580. And Titan is about 40-50% better than GTX 680. So that means the full GK110 is sometimes over 100% better in performance than GF110. GTX 680 wasn't good enough to be the successor to GTX 580, and GTX Titan was too good. But either way, the upgrades weren't minimal. I went GTX 480 to GTX 680 to GTX Titan and both times the upgrade was very noticeable.

Kepler also has the best feature set Nvidia has ever offered by a mile. And it will be made even better with the introduction of G-Sync.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but you are exaggerating the gains. I have GTX 680 SLI and I considered upgrading to the Titan and all sites claimed a 20-30% increase over one 680
 
Kyle has said REPEATEDLY that the 680 was NOT a mid-range card. His contacts told him that was the highest level tech Nvidia had at the time. Damn, I had hoped the "Nvidia held back" rumors had died.
 
Whach said:
I thought it was 8-9 months. Late March for GTX 480 and then early November for the 580. Just about the same as the gap between the 680 and 780. Both 580 and 780 were refresh releases. Nvidia's M.O.
Click to expand...

It's really similar to Intel's CPU tick-tock strategy.

At least it's better than the days when NVIDIA simply rebadged their cards:
8800GTX, 9800GTX, 9800GTX+, GTS250... they were all the same damn thing, except for maybe a die-shrink on the GTX250 and different memory buses.

Good times! :p
 
HOODedDutchman said:
I was on my phone. Not like I'm at work its a forum. My post is completely understandable. I'm sorry but some of the members have shit that stink and don't care about grammar if nobody who actually matters in their life is gonna see it. Aparently you are not one of those members. You must save a lot of money on febreze.
Click to expand...

Actually I wasn't trying to make a huge stink of it. I had trouble reading it is all. Sorry man. Next time, I'll try to not make it sound so asshole-ish. But since you've responded, I can understand the first post easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top