Rumor: Radeon R9 290 to cost $449, GeForce GTX 780 Ti to be a faster Titan

[Scorpus]

Following the launch of the AMD Radeon R9 290X last week, the rumor mills have started up once again in regards to a couple of other product launches we're expecting in the coming weeks. Beginning with the Radeon R9 290, the little brother to the R9 290X, reports have begun to appear relating to its alleged launch price.

With the R9 290X priced at $549, it's believed the R9 290 will be available for $449, featuring the same Hawaii core with a few disabled compute units. Going on leaked specifications, the graphics card comes with 2560 stream processors, a base core clock of 900 MHz with a boost of 946 MHz, and 4 GB of 5 GHz (effective) video memory on a 512-bit bus.

In the Nvidia camp, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti is being readied as a serious competitor to the R9 290X. Rumor has it the GPU will essentially be a faster version of the GTX Titan, clocking the core and memory higher rather than unlocking the final SMX unit on the GK110's die.

Supposed 3DMark benchmark scores from the GeForce GTX 780 Ti indicate the card is marginally faster than both the Titan and the R9 290X. Nvidia is expected to launch the card at $649: $100 more than the 290X, with the company betting on its faster performance to make it seem attractive to prospective buyers.

Both the Radeon R9 290 and GeForce GTX 780 Ti will reportedly launch very shortly, just in time for the holiday gaming period. If you're thinking of picking up a new GPU for your system, it may be worth waiting a few weeks to see how these new cards turn out.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/54483-rumor-radeon-r9-290-to-cost-449-geforce-gtx-780-ti-to-be-a-faster-titan.html

 

[spydercanopus]

So nvidia is fabricating an extra chip but locking it out?

 

[misor]

Wow, faster gpus at lower price points...healthy result from a healthy competition.

 

[wastedkill]

Wouldn't unlocking that final smx Make it faster and cheaper than just over clocking a few stuff? Plus it seems a waste to leave that final smx locked.

 

[MrBungle]

Wouldn't unlocking that final smx Make it faster and cheaper than just over clocking a few stuff? Plus it seems a waste to leave that final smx locked.

The "locked" SMX units on most Titan/780 cards are likely dis-functional. Offering parts with the units turned off gives nVidia the opportunity to make some money off the units with defects.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"it may be worth waiting a few weeks to see how these new cards turn out".
I'd like to see how these cards turn out but unfortunately my wallet has other ideas.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well this is going to be interesting...

So nvidia is fabricating an extra chip but locking it out?

No, they are essentially unlocking more on the GK110 chip inside the 780, that's really all it is along with some clock bumps.

Wouldn't unlocking that final smx Make it faster and cheaper than just over clocking a few stuff? Plus it seems a waste to leave that final smx locked.

That's called the GTX Titan, if they unlocked more on the 780, it would just be a titan.

I'm kind of anxious to see all this, its going to be interesting seeing where the prices fall into place.

 

[amstech]

Even though the 7970 didn't clearly & definitively beat the 680 one on one (heck SLi 670's could beat out CrossfireX 7970's) you could tell it never sat well with Nvidia, not having the fastest single GPU. I figured they wouldn't let the R9 be the single GPU king for long, but its still a great GPU if you don't mind some noise & average Radeon heat.

 

[Guest]

Faster performance, technologies and their reputation, could make it worth it for enthusiasts.
ie: G-Sync, PhysX, GeForce Experience, ShadowPlay, etc.

I can't wait for reviews.

 

[DJMIKE25]

Thats great I guess, unless you purchased a titan. haha.

 

[dividebyzero]

That's called the GTX Titan, if they unlocked more on the 780, it would just be a titan.

Not necessarily.
Titan is 14SMX (of 15 on die) comprising 2688 shader cores
The GTX 780 is 12SMX comprising 2304 shader cores

The other obvious "not-a-Titan" configurations would then be:
13SMX (2496 shader cores)
14SMX (2688 shader cores) + 3GB GDDR5 (as opposed to Titans 6GB) + 1:24 rate FP64 (as opposed to Titans 1:3)
Lowering the FP64 rate and VRAM lower the input power requirement of the board at the same given clocks.

BTW: Nvidia just announced price cuts to the GTX 780 (now $499), and GTX 770 (now $329) effective tomorrow, although Newegg and UK suppliers are starting to show the new pricing as of now.

 

[GhostRyder]

Not necessarily.
Titan is 14SMX (of 15 on die) comprising 2688 shader cores
The GTX 780 is 12SMX comprising 2304 shader cores

The other obvious "not-a-Titan" configurations would then be:
13SMX (2496 shader cores)

Well from the leaks so far its rated to have 2496 Cuda Cores, but if they unlocked more than that, it would just be a titan with bumped core clocks and less vram. Right now, it sounds like Nvidia is trying to make it more powerful than a titan while using less cuda cores which I see as putting the final words on the titans gravestone if it turns to be true.

I mis-phrased the comment above, I meant that with the 780ti, if they unlocked beyond that, it would pretty much be a titan.

 

[Jad Chaar]

The 780Ti will be a beast. But for $700, it will be a niche card.

 

[dividebyzero]

The 780Ti will be a beast. But for $700, it will be a niche card.

A beast would be a full 2880 core B1 step GK110 with a decent power delivery (something like MSI's 16+3+1 phase) two 8-pin connections and relaxed voltage control. The 780 Ti seems more like a binning exercise. The worst part of the whole deal is that Nvidia will leave more options in the cupboard for when AMD invariably refresh the 290X.

 

[GhostRyder]

A beast would be a full 2880 core B1 step GK110 with a decent power delivery (something like MSI's 16+3+1 phase) two 8-pin connections and relaxed voltage control. The 780 Ti seems more like a binning exercise. The worst part of the whole deal is that Nvidia will leave more options in the cupboard for when AMD invariably refresh the 290X.

You can guarantee if that ever got released, unless NVidia drops the price of the current titan down significantly a price point of 1200 bucks. Though, that would be an awesome beast of a card, but thats also a dream that I doubt would come true.

The 780Ti will be a beast. But for $700, it will be a niche card.

Its really going to come down to the area this card falls into honestly.

 

[dividebyzero]

You can guarantee if that ever got released, unless NVidia drops the price of the current titan down significantly a price point of 1200 bucks. Though, that would be an awesome beast of a card, but thats also a dream that I doubt would come true.

Likely that a full 2880 core GeForce card ONLY arrives once Maxwell shows up. Nvidia will replicate the Kepler launch schedule with Maxwell- mainstream parts (GPU) first, enthusiast will follow later after the HPC (GPU+ARM) contracts have been fulfilled. It stands to reason that the low/mainstream-end Maxwell could co-exist with a maxed out GK110/180 as the top part sufficing for the high-end until GM110 shows up.
That being the case then I doubt that a 2880 core GeForce would be significantly more expensive than the current cards since Nvidia's only other need for GK110 would be warranty replacements for HPC deployed Tesla's.

 

[DDG4005]

Damn, the R290X and GTX 780 Ti are seriously priced to sell. Considering the parts will retail for $549 and $649 respectively, and given their performance, I'd say this as good a time as any to replace an old or aging graphics card.

Fortunately, I replaced my GTX 670s with 4GB GTX 770s so I'm done for quite awhile regarding video iron but it's always good to see new hardware coming from Nvidia and AMD.