The midrange NVidia GTX960s have started paper launching even though the date was supposed to be the 22nd. This card features the GM206, rather than the GM204 from the 980/970. This is the first time we see the GM206. Like the GTX660 was to the GTX680, this 960 also has less cores/smus but also a cut down bus. The 660 was cut to 192bit, but the 960 is playing some tricks to get away with a 128bit bus. Indeed NVidia is using compression to get away with the narrower bus. The VRAM stays at 2GB from the 660, even though the 980 jumped to 4GB from the 680’s 2GB. It’s worth mentioning that the GTX965M has the same number of cores and memory bus as the GTX960.
Of course with a clock speed in the 1100’s there is expected to be plenty of overclocking headroom given how high most 970/980’s are clocking. In fact even NVidia are supposedly marketing the GPU as great for overclocking. Kinda shitty behavior for a company that’s worked hard to limit users overclocking with power throttling and the infamous “green light” program.
The Titan X of course is still a rumor, but it has been seen (and photographed) so it must be close to launch now. This update to the Titan line up uses the very capable GM200 chip and is rumored to see a 384 bit bus and 12GB of VRAM. Unlike the original Kepler based Titans, there will be no boost to double precision due to the Maxwell architecture.
In fact if double precision is your thing, then the older Titan black edition will most likely remain your best option. GM200’s advantage over the original Titan will lie not only in the faster architecture for everything else but also in it’s incredible power efficiency and larger VRAM.
We expect prices to be extremely high because it is ostensibly for compute like the original Titan. Compute cards typically run thousands, so while this will be expensive as a gaming card, it will be a budget choice for the compute crowd. However this will milk those impatient to wait for the full GM200 for gaming. We wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the $1500 region even though the card will most likely be overshadowed 6 months later by a fully enabled GM200 specifically for gaming with less VRAM.
We’re excited for the Titan X even if it means NVidia making us call them daddy again. After all it’s really for those with issues. If you’re sane then wait for the 980TI/1080/??? or buy the AMD’s R9-390x when it launches soon after (most likely).
