Report describes a mid-range ‘GM206’ GPU with 2GB GDDR5 and 128-bit memory bus, to be shown off at to press at CES in the new year.
Report describes a mid-range ‘GM206’ GPU with 2GB GDDR5 and 128-bit memory bus, to be shown off at to press at CES in the new year.
Swedish technology site Sweclockers are reporting information presented to vBulliten Solutions stating that NVIDIA’s upcoming GM206 AKA GTX 960 will be revealed to press at CES 2015 in Las Vegas next month. In contrast to the release of the GTX 980 and GTX 970 however there won’t be simultaneous market availability; the public will apparently be getting their hands on the cards a few weeks later.
A cut-down GPU based on the GM204, the GM206 is expected to show performance roughly on a par with the GTX 770. Initial reaction to the relatively narrow 128-bit memory bus should be tempered by the knowledge that NVIDIA have worked hard on improving texture compression algorithms in the newer Maxwell parts, allowing the GTX 970 and 980 to be relatively unencumbered by their 256-bit bus width. Also noteworthy is NVIDIA’s possibly use of 7GHz-effective GDDR5 RAM, as seen in the previous generation 700-series Kepler parts.
Pegging performance at close to the GTX 770 opens a yawning performance step up in their range to the GTX 970, and could indicate room for an anticipated GTX 960Ti. Such a card would likely include both more CUDA cores than the GTX 960 and lower memory bandwidth than the GTX 970. More will likely be known on that score after the press event, when details of the GM206 are released.
Following previous pricing patterns, the GTX 960 would be expected to retail at ~$200 MSRP (excl. V.A.T.), placing it squarely in the mid-range mainstreaming gaming bracket.
Source: Sweclockers (translated)
