Nvidia could tease next-gen 7nm Ampere at GTC 2019

[DPennington]

Something to look forward to: According to rumors, Nvidia may tease its next-gen Ampere GPU at GTC 2019. Ampere is believed to be Nvidia's first foray onto the 7nm manufacturing process, which would likely bring less power-hungry cards with higher clock speeds. AMD has already launched a card on the same manufacturing process, the Radeon VII.

With AMD beating Nvidia to the 7nm punch with the Radeon VII, the 2019 GPU Technology Conference (GTC) seems like the perfect time for Nvidia to tease Ampere, their next generation GPU. According to Tweak Town, there is speculation that Nvidia is preparing to do just that.

For years, Team Green has had the upper hand on AMD, especially in the high-end space, with their continuous architecture improvements on previous manufacturing nodes outpacing anything Team Red has offered. That changed somewhat last month, when AMD released its first GPU on the 7nm process, the Radeon VII.

With AMD's full line of 7nm GPUs, codenamed Navi, on the horizon, Nvidia is seemingly at risk of falling behind. While AMD hasn't had much of an answer for the RTX series of cards from Nvidia, the hype around Navi suggests that it may significantly change the competitive landscape.

For now, Nvidia has used the Ampere name for their future 7nm GPUs. If that's the case, the Ampere GPUs would bring power efficiency improvements, higher clock rates, and perhaps higher memory bandwidth. Now would be a good time for Nvidia to make a big announcement, considering the company just had one of the worst fiscal quarters its ever had. Consumer and investor faith in the company is slipping, especially since the adoption of RTX technology has been much slower than expected. A push from the company to generate excitement now, before AMD pulls ahead, would be a prudent move.

GTC 2019 starts on March 17 and runs through March 21 in San Jose.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79214-nvidia-could-tease-next-gen-7nm-ampere-gtc.html

 

[Vulcanproject]

AMD took a Vega 64, shrunk it down, and added 30 percent more performance for Radeon 7. They barely touched it. They actually managed that much gain even by disabling 4 CUs that were previously enabled on Vega 64, presumably for yields. A 7nm Vega 60 if you will. Ok, a good amount might have to do with the additional memory bandwidth but still the gains were nice.

It's bad news for AMD even if Nvidia likewise only do a lazy shrink for existing Turing cards. But they won't. They will obviously tweak the architecture as well and find a little bit more performance. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia can find 40 percent across the range on a 7nm shrink.

That would put a shrunken RTX2070 well ahead of the Radeon 7, let alone anything better Nvidia manage to shrink on 7nm.

AMD Navi is critical. It has to massively improve performance per watt, otherwise it's still all Nvidia above the midrange for another 2-3 years....

 

[Evernessince]

AMD took a Vega 64, shrunk it down, and added 30 percent more performance for Radeon 7. They barely touched it. They actually managed that much gain even by disabling 4 CUs that were previously enabled on Vega 64, presumably for yields. A 7nm Vega 60 if you will. Ok, a good amount might have to do with the additional memory bandwidth but still the gains were nice.

It's bad news for AMD even if Nvidia likewise only do a lazy shrink for existing Turing cards. But they won't. They will obviously tweak the architecture as well and find a little bit more performance. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia can find 40 percent across the range on a 7nm shrink.

That would put a shrunken RTX2070 well ahead of the Radeon 7, let alone anything better Nvidia manage to shrink on 7nm.

AMD Navi is critical. It has to massively improve performance per watt, otherwise it's still all Nvidia above the midrange for another 2-3 years....

I don't even think AMD was thinking of the gaming market with Vega VII. 16 GB of HBM and a ton of compute power. It's a steal at $700 for those who need that. It's only so-so for gamers.

 

[Vulcanproject]

I don't even think AMD was thinking of the gaming market with Vega VII. 16 GB of HBM and a ton of compute power. It's a steal at $700 for those who need that. It's only so-so for gamers.

For sure it's more about compute with that particular GPU, but it was only really used as an example to demonstrate the performance enhancements that 7nm can bring.

The point was really If AMD can get 30 percent with a virtually untouched, slightly cut down Vega 64, what can Nvidia do if they fiddle Turing a little bit and put it on a more mature 7nm in say 6-12 months?

Nice gains one would imagine.

 

[redgarl]

People tend to forget that Navi was designed as a gaming GPU from the ground at 7nm. Vega was a shrink and basically bad yield from the MI50. Navi was designed for consoles and is going to be used in the PS5 and Xbox 2. What Nvidia is going to do? Putting RTX at 7nm so it could cost more?

Honnestly, Pascal never went into a shrink and I believe Turing is not going to either especially that Nvidia just released their entire stack and it would cost them a lot to redesign the whole lineup. What is the point anyway if you already match or beat your competition?

 

[skline00]

AMD took a Vega 64, shrunk it down, and added 30 percent more performance for Radeon 7. They barely touched it. They actually managed that much gain even by disabling 4 CUs that were previously enabled on Vega 64, presumably for yields. A 7nm Vega 60 if you will. Ok, a good amount might have to do with the additional memory bandwidth but still the gains were nice.

It's bad news for AMD even if Nvidia likewise only do a lazy shrink for existing Turing cards. But they won't. They will obviously tweak the architecture as well and find a little bit more performance. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia can find 40 percent across the range on a 7nm shrink.

That would put a shrunken RTX2070 well ahead of the Radeon 7, let alone anything better Nvidia manage to shrink on 7nm.

AMD Navi is critical. It has to massively improve performance per watt, otherwise it's still all Nvidia above the midrange for another 2-3 years....

I don't even think AMD was thinking of the gaming market with Vega VII. 16 GB of HBM and a ton of compute power. It's a steal at $700 for those who need that. It's only so-so for gamers.

Actually, my Radeon VII has been very good for gaming.

 

[Burty117]

Actually, my Radeon VII has been very good for gaming.

I have a friend who thinks his 1050Ti is great for gaming, then I pointed out to him he paid as much for his 1050Ti as a 570 would have cost, which is leagues ahead in performance.

You are just like my friend, yes, you think it's very good for gaming. But you absolutely, as a matter of fact, could have got better performance for your money with something else on the market (Cough 1080Ti / 2080 Cough).

 

[skline00]

Burty 117, {cough, cough) I already own a GTX1080TI.

 

[Burty117]

Burty 117, {cough, cough) I already own a GTX1080TI.

So you got a lower performing GPU for gaming? Or did you mean:

"Actually, my Radeon VII has been very good for gaming and is great at *insert compute intensive program here*"??

 

[skline00]

Burty117, I have 2 primary gaming rigs. (also have a 3rd rig with a 2600x, 16 g FlareX DDR4-3200 ram, GTX 1080 for my Oculus Rift setup in another room).

One rig has a custom water cooled 5960x OC'd to 4.4 with an EK block coupled with a Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080TI OC with a waterblock.

In addition I have a custom water cooled 2700x (also EK block) that had been coupled with a GTX 1080 with an EK fullblock (now in the 2600x rig).

When the Radeon VII came out, I decided to move the GTX 1080 to another machine and replace it with the Radeon VII. I already had a GTX1080TI and the GTX 2080 did not impress me more of a sideways move from the GTX1080TI.

The GTX 2080TI is a monster, but so is the price.

Thus the Rad VII which I paid $699 for.

I have already ordered a waterblock for it so within a month it will be in the custom loop with the 2700x.

By the tone of your comments you seemed to imply that I was naïve about my purchase.

Trust me, I've been in the computer "game" a long time. I'm hardly wet behind the ears.

The Rad VII is a solid card.

Do you own one?

 

[skline00]

BTW, Burty 117, the Radeon VII really closed the gap between my GTX1080 and my GTX1080TI.

 

[Evernessince]

Burty117, I have 2 primary gaming rigs. (also have a 3rd rig with a 2600x, 16 g FlareX DDR4-3200 ram, GTX 1080 for my Oculus Rift setup in another room).

One rig has a custom water cooled 5960x OC'd to 4.4 with an EK block coupled with a Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080TI OC with a waterblock.

In addition I have a custom water cooled 2700x (also EK block) that had been coupled with a GTX 1080 with an EK fullblock (now in the 2600x rig).

When the Radeon VII came out, I decided to move the GTX 1080 to another machine and replace it with the Radeon VII. I already had a GTX1080TI and the GTX 2080 did not impress me more of a sideways move from the GTX1080TI.

The GTX 2080TI is a monster, but so is the price.

Thus the Rad VII which I paid $699 for.

I have already ordered a waterblock for it so within a month it will be in the custom loop with the 2700x.

By the tone of your comments you seemed to imply that I was naïve about my purchase.

Trust me, I've been in the computer "game" a long time. I'm hardly wet behind the ears.

The Rad VII is a solid card.

Do you own one?

No one is saying the VII isn't good at gaming. We are saying price to performance wise it's only so-so. The 2080 is just as bad in that regard and the 2080 Ti is by far worse.

 

[Burty117]

By the tone of your comments you seemed to imply that I was naïve about my purchase.

Nope, I was merely questioning why you would spend the same amount of money for a slower Gaming card if Gaming was your primary focus.

The Rad VII is a solid card.

Never disputed that, in fact, I even went to the effort to say they are great compute cards.

Do you own one?

No, because I wouldn't swap my 1080Ti for a slower card for Gaming when I primarily Game on my PC.

BTW, Burty 117, the Radeon VII really closed the gap between my GTX1080 and my GTX1080TI.

Yes but it's still no faster than a card that's been out two years and is cheaper.

All my comment was asking was why you'd pick the slower card for the same money if all you use it for is Gaming and I expected you to come back and tell me you use it for some crazy program that needs all the compute power in the world but instead, you replaced a 1080 for a small performance bump, This is the bit that makes you seem a bit sus:

I already had a GTX1080TI and the GTX 2080 did not impress me more of a sideways move from the GTX1080TI.

But you weren't replacing the 1080Ti, you were replacing the 1080 which the 2080 destroy's and is also faster than the Radeon VII for the same money (here in the UK you can actually find 2080's cheaper than the VII).

 

[skline00]

Suffice it to say I wanted a Rad VII to have an all AMD rig. The Rad VII is also significantly faster than a GTX 1080. The GTX 2080 is faster than the Rad VII in most games but the gap is close. In some tests the Rad VII is slightly faster.

The GTX 2080 has DDR6 ram but only 8gigs while the Rad VII has HBM2 ram and 16gigs. The GTX 2080 has RT cores and the Rad VII does not. We will see how that plays out (the Crytek demo may mollify Nvidia's advantage there).

I suspect the Rad VII will even close the gap closer with the GTX 2080 where the GTX2080 is ahead as the AMD drivers mature.

I fully knew what I was looking for when I purchased the AMD Radeon VII.

 

[skline00]

No one is saying the VII isn't good at gaming. We are saying price to performance wise it's only so-so. The 2080 is just as bad in that regard and the 2080 Ti is by far worse.

Agreed.

 

[hahahanoobs]

"Now would be a good time for an announcement to avoid falling further behind AMD's manufacturing process"

Lmao! WHAT?!
AMD has ONE rebranded GPU at 7nm.
NVIDIA consistently beats AMD with less. Never forget.

 

[Burty117]

Suffice it to say I wanted a Rad VII to have an all AMD rig.

Had you just said that from the start, I'd have completely understood

Even though I have an Intel and Nvidia rig, I've been heavily promoting all AMD rigs to friends and family when they're on a budget and don't want those last extra frames that cost a fortune.

I just pray Navi is good, because god knows Nvidia needs the competition. It does feel like we've been saying "wait until you see Navi" in the Techspot Comment Section for years now though.

 

[skline00]

Had you just said that from the start, I'd have completely understood

Even though I have an Intel and Nvidia rig, I've been heavily promoting all AMD rigs to friends and family when they're on a budget and don't want those last extra frames that cost a fortune.

I just pray Navi is good, because god knows Nvidia needs the competition. It does feel like we've been saying "wait until you see Navi" in the Techspot Comment Section for years now though.

Burty117, I agree.
Unfortunately for AMD, I doubt that they will have a high end Navi card to effective compete with the Radeon VII for quite awhile based upon what I read about Navi.

As to budget, I fortunately have a very good job that allows me to "dabble" in the likes of custom water cooling. Now that is generally NOT for budget minded people.
Heck, when I bought my Intel 5960x plus Asus Rampage mb it was over $1300 US.


The target now appears to be the amazing GTX1660TI and it's little brother the 1660. If Nvidia readies a 7nm Ampere, AMD is in for a hard slog.