[rumor] GTX660ti in August, basically a gimped GTX670

[f1sherman]

Thing is... if in october (2 and a half months from now) a 8xxx series card is out,
that doesnt really leave the 660 a long time to sell against the 7850/7870.

Like 7000 was supposed to be out June 2011
Remember that 7800 become available 4 months ago, and AMD is not on 6 months cycle.

Sea Island + HSA is set in to come out 2013.

 

[Arkadrel]

@F1sherman

Remember that 7800 become available 4 months ago, and AMD is not on 6 months cycle.

Radeon HD 7970 & Radeon HD 7950 where launched Jan 31, 2012.
Already had 6months.

Radeon HD 7750 & Radeon HD 7770 where launched Feb 15, 2012.
Already had 5months.

is it to far fetched to think that 2months from now, there would be 8970/50 and 8870/50 ?


You have remember they d have to also give the 8xxx some time on the shelf
before the 9xxx series comes out on 20nm around mid2013 or so.

Also how often do Roadmaps hold true?
That picture is more than 6months old, maybe things changed since then.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Cycle is about a year. You have to bridge the gap between Q1 2012 (28nm) and Q1 2014 (20nm) - if it is not larger and 20nm comes later than beginning of 2014. HD8000 will come Q4 2012 at the earliest though I suspect it will be Q1 2013.

 

[f1sherman]

They've just announced 7970 GE. It's not even out yet.
Neither is 7990.

There is around... zero chance of 2012 Sea Island

 

[aayjaay]

Ahh the 8000 series. Even if it was released in 2013, when would the mid range cards come out? Don't they come out after the high end cards?

 

[AtenRa]

I dont see the HD8xxx coming before January 2013.

 

[Phynaz]

is it to far fetched to think that 2months from now, there would be 8970/50 and 8870/50 ?

Yes.

 

[RussianSensation]

actually it has 2GB

Do you have a source for that?

Most rumors I have read point to GTX660 series being based on GK104, which will have 1152 or 1344 CUDA cores (with lower clocks), along with 1.5 GB of GDDR5 memory.
http://videocardz.com/33859/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-to-be-released-on-august-16th

You have remember they d have to also give the 8xxx some time on the shelf before the 9xxx series comes out on 20nm around mid2013 or so.

Also how often do Roadmaps hold true?
That picture is more than 6months old, maybe things changed since then.

Roadmaps rarely get pushed forward. If anything they get delayed. If AMD has HD8000 series for 2013, that's probably the best case scenario. Considering HD7990 and GE cards aren't even out yet.

20nm isn't going to be ready by mid-2013. 28nm node has just been in production for 6 months on the mainstream level. Look how difficult the move to 28nm has been. You think 20nm will be easier? If anything, it'll be even harder. I am pretty sure Maxwell and HD9000 series will use 20nm but that's 2 years away. Next round will be built on 28nm.

 

[Durvelle27]

Do you have a source for that?

Most rumors I have read point to GTX660 series being based on GK104, which will have 1152 or 1344 CUDA cores (with lower clocks), along with 1.5 GB of GDDR5 memory.
http://videocardz.com/33859/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-to-be-released-on-august-16th



Roadmaps rarely get pushed forward. If anything they get delayed. If AMD has HD8000 series for 2013, that's probably the best case scenario. Considering HD7990 and GE cards aren't even out yet.

20nm isn't going to be ready by mid-2013. 28nm node has just been in production for 6 months on the mainstream level. Look how difficult the move to 28nm has been. You think 20nm will be easier? If anything, it'll be even harder. I am pretty sure Maxwell and HD9000 series will use 20nm but that's 2 years away. Next round will be built on 28nm.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?gid=874&graphics=GeForce GTX 660 Ti

 

[Silverforce11]

196bit bus, 1.5gb vram. not worth it NOW even for 1080p, forget about it by next year with new games pushing towards 2gb usage.

but if its priced low and crippled enough, i guess one don't buy it with the expectation of maxing out games, so thus 1.5gb vram will be FINE. All depends on the pricing.

 

[SirPauly]

is it to far fetched to think that 2months from now, there would be 8970/50 and 8870/50

Yes! The HD 7970 GE edition may of been the 6 month refresh from AMD -- with the 7990 not out yet -- and you believe in 2 months AMD is going to launch the 8XXX series?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

196bit bus, 1.5gb vram. not worth it NOW even for 1080p, forget about it by next year with new games pushing towards 2gb usage.

but if its priced low and crippled enough, i guess one don't buy it with the expectation of maxing out games, so thus 1.5gb vram will be FINE. All depends on the pricing.

1.5GB sounds nice right now. Im using a 1GB gtx 460. Im really not into cutting edge PC stuff anymore. You have to realize something like this is a huge upgrade for the majority of gamers. On this forum sure it pales in comparison to 6GB 7970's or whatever.

 

[JTsyo]

1.5GB sounds nice right now. Im using a 1GB gtx 460. Im really not into cutting edge PC stuff anymore. You have to realize something like this is a huge upgrade for the majority of gamers. On this forum sure it pales in comparison to 6GB 7970's or whatever.

Yea, this would be a big jump from my 260. Though I'm still going to hold off since nothing I'm playing is taxing the 260 yet. Sure I can't run BF3 on high but I get good FPS on medium. I hoping for the 670s to drop down to $350 but if I need a card before then, 660Ti seems to be the one.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Yea, this would be a big jump from my 260. Though I'm still going to hold off since nothing I'm playing is taxing the 260 yet. Sure I can't run BF3 on high but I get good FPS on medium. I hoping for the 670s to drop down to $350 but if I need a card before then, 660Ti seems to be the one.

You must be at a low resolution. I couldn't get my 260 past low settings at 1080p and even then it was kinda choppy. The 460 is the sweet spot for me. I can play bf3 on high settings and it cost me under a hundred bucks. I had a gtx 670 briefly but couldn't justify the cost so I returned it. It is an amazing card though.

 

[poohbear]

You must be at a low resolution. I couldn't get my 260 past low settings at 1080p and even then it was kinda choppy. The 460 is the sweet spot for me. I can play bf3 on high settings and it cost me under a hundred bucks. I had a gtx 670 briefly but couldn't justify the cost so I returned it. It is an amazing card though.

for me i justify the cost by saying its a 3 year investment. i will NOT be upgrading for 3 years, which is how long i had my 5870 for. i find if i buy a high end card that it lasts me 3 years with the current pace of video game development. i got a gigabyte windforce gtx 670 this week @ $425 shipped with taxes ($385 without taxes), thats $141/yr. i sometimes spend $150 on ONE weekend drinking & eating out. so its actually not that expensive at all for me.

 

[BlockheadBrown]

Honestly, it's likely better to just wait a year. You could say that for every year, but the overall price/performance improvement in the sub $200 realm isn't really there this time around. You can get a 560 (non SE) for under $140 (I was able to get one for $100 and another for $130 - shipped off ebay). It'll perform slightly under a 560 Ti. It's definitely a good value and a fine enough placeholder card for a year. After that, you may only get $80-$100 for the same card (based off what 460s can go for on the cheap side), but that's not a bad hit considering what you paid for it.

NOTE: These are for two different computers and are not in SLi on the same rig.

 

[Rvenger]

You must be at a low resolution. I couldn't get my 260 past low settings at 1080p and even then it was kinda choppy. The 460 is the sweet spot for me. I can play bf3 on high settings and it cost me under a hundred bucks. I had a gtx 670 briefly but couldn't justify the cost so I returned it. It is an amazing card though.

That 460 is no slouch because its an older revision with the 256bit bus

 

[JTsyo]

You must be at a low resolution. I couldn't get my 260 past low settings at 1080p and even then it was kinda choppy. The 460 is the sweet spot for me. I can play bf3 on high settings and it cost me under a hundred bucks. I had a gtx 670 briefly but couldn't justify the cost so I returned it. It is an amazing card though.

Running at 1680 X 1050, which the the native res for my monitor.

 

[StrangerGuy]

For 1080p if you don't play GPU hogs like BF3 there is little reason to buy/upgrade from a card like 6870 @ $150. Even things that can't be comfortably maxed out like Skyrim can be made more playable by dropping some ultra settings to high and the IQ difference is so minimal that you can't notice it in a blind test anyway.

 

[tviceman]

196bit bus, 1.5gb vram. not worth it NOW even for 1080p, forget about it by next year with new games pushing towards 2gb usage.

but if its priced low and crippled enough, i guess one don't buy it with the expectation of maxing out games, so thus 1.5gb vram will be FINE. All depends on the pricing.

Why do you keep saying ridiculous stuff like this? The other day it was GK104 has crap yields, now it's this garbage. Please show me game examples where 1.5gb vram at 1080p is not enough in real-world examples. PLEASE.

 

[RussianSensation]

for me i justify the cost by saying its a 3 year investment. i will NOT be upgrading for 3 years, which is how long i had my 5870 for. i find if i buy a high end card that it lasts me 3 years with the current pace of video game development. i got a gigabyte windforce gtx 670 this week @ $425 shipped with taxes ($385 without taxes), thats $141/yr. i sometimes spend $150 on ONE weekend drinking & eating out. so its actually not that expensive at all for me.

:thumbsup:

The next step is realizing that it's better to resell your $400-500 card every 12 months and lose $100-150 / year on it and reinvest the resale value into a new card. That way you have a very fast card over those 3 years instead of a card that's too slow for anything in 3 years and has a resale value of $100. Future proofing isn't a very good long-term strategy.

 

[RussianSensation]

Why do you keep saying ridiculous stuff like this? The other day it was GK104 has crap yields, now it's this garbage. Please show me game examples where 1.5gb vram at 1080p is not enough in real-world examples. PLEASE.

I think he is right though.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33700970&postcount=71

Max Payne 3 with MSAA
Shogun 2 with MSAA
BF3 with MSAA
Medal of Honor Warfighter
GTAIV

It's also not about today's games but games in 6 months from now. Do you really want to recommend someone to spend $200-250 on a card with 1.5GB of VRAM in August 2012? Next wave of games will be pretty intensive: Crysis 3, Watch Dogs, GTA V, Metro Last Light, Tomb Raider, etc.

Also, after seeing what happened to HD4870 512mb vs. 1GB, 8800GTS 320 vs. 640mb, 8800GT 256 vs. 512mb, I am never going to recommend anyone to get a card that's barely adequate for today's games when there is a competing card for ~ $300 or so with double the VRAM and massive overclocking headroom that matches a stock 680!

Seriously anyone who wants to spend $300 on a fast GPU and is still waiting for a GTX660/660Ti is an NV fanboy imo. Even if it has 2GB of VRAM, the chances that it will beat an overclocked 7950 is pretty much 0. IIRC, the only time when NV had a mid-range card that could come close to the flagship through overclocking was GeForce 4 Ti 4200. I can't recall any other time. I doubt NV is about to release a $250-300 card that can match a GTX680 with overclocking. That would pretty much cannibalize their entire 670/680 line of very profitable $400-500 cards.

I am not even sure GTX660Ti will be a $300 card. Maybe NV is aiming to launch GTX660 at $199 against a 7850 and $249 GTX660Ti against an HD7870? Maybe they'll drop the price of GTX670 to $350 and GTX680 to $450 and release some voltage unlocked 680 Extreme Edition to retake the single-GPU performance crown? It's hard to tell but $300 card with 1.5GB of VRAM is a flop to me.

 

[toyota]

1.5 gb would be okay for now unless you run mods but may be an issue before you plan to upgrade. if its 300 bucks then that is a lot to pay for a card where vram could potentially be an issue in the next year or so though. considering how fast the 7950 and 7970 cards are dropping into $350 range then a gtx660 ti 1.5gb is looking a little weak for $300.

 

[f1sherman]

Why do you keep saying ridiculous stuff like this? The other day it was GK104 has crap yields, now it's this garbage. Please show me game examples where 1.5gb vram at 1080p is not enough in real-world examples. PLEASE.

Proof that 1.5GB is not enough even at 1680x1050:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33700970&postcount=71

:sneaky:

 

[poohbear]

:thumbsup:

The next step is realizing that it's better to resell your $400-500 card every 12 months and lose $100-150 / year on it and reinvest the resale value into a new card. That way you have a very fast card over those 3 years instead of a card that's too slow for anything in 3 years and has a resale value of $100. Future proofing isn't a very good long-term strategy.

lol that's too much of a headache, i have my tech binges in spurts, once every year or so and even then it'd be a different part of my system (i.e CPU/mobo, ssd/hdd, soundcard, etc). Doing a video card upgrade every year, while fun for some, isnt for me. Unless the 2gb VRAM became an issue, otherwise i wouldn't bother.

I bought the GTX 670 july 2012, so i expect it to play everything maxed out until july 2014, after that it might be a challenged a bit and i hafta cut back on AA, but it'll last fine until July 2015 (this was the experience with my $350 5870 over the past 3 years, which i'm selling for $150 now). This all might change depending on the hardware of the next gen consoles and the video games that come along with it, but from all i've read & seen the next gen consoles are'nt gonna have cutting edge hardware.

If Frostbite 2.0, Cryengine 3, and Unreal engine 4 are the game engines of the next 2-3 years, my GTX 670 will be totally fine.

anyways back to the discussion, yes a 660ti with 1.5gb of VRAM would be a mess, i'm having trouble believing Nvidia plans on doing that. back in the Radeon 5xxx series when all cards were being released with 1gb (even the lowly 5770), no one would release a video card with 750mb Vram, it just wouldn't make any sense. Games NOW are in the neighborhood of 1.5gb of Vram with mods and AA, so it'd be very hard to accept a new card w/ only 1.5gb Vram. I'm worried the main thing holding back my GTX 670 over the next 2-3 years is the measly 2gb it came with (whereas the 79XX radeons have 3gb >< ).