So... when are the 20nm Nvidia video cards coming out?

[SeanJ76]

I read is that TSMC is not ready yet, so Nvidia will have to wait......I sure hope Nvidia's next single card is at able to surpass my 770 SC ACX sli......I was really looking forward to going single gpu with the 980GTX, but looks like I'll keep my 770 SC Sli for a little longer, at least till the 980ti comes out!

 

[alcoholbob]

According to TSMC their high power 16nm FinFET process is 40% faster than 28nm on the same power envelope. In other words the progress they make from 28nm -> 16nm will be less than the gains from the GTX 980 -> Titan II.

40% improvement is the architectural efficiency improvement of Maxwell shaders versus Kepler.

 

[SoulWager]

Nvidia will switch to a smaller node when the price per transistor is cheaper on a smaller node, or when Nvidia needs a smaller node in order to have the thermal headroom to keep pushing performance.

 

[Denithor]

Nvidia will switch to a smaller node when the price per transistor is cheaper on a smaller node, or when Nvidia needs a smaller node in order to have the thermal headroom to keep pushing performance.

Exactly correct. There has to be a financial incentive to make a change, either your new product will cost less to produce (including spreading out the cost of designing the new layout over X number of chips) or when you can no longer compete with other manufacturers due to thermal properties of larger node (hopefully they make the change before they are outclassed).

 

[Qwertilot]

Which does all, of course, apply to compute competition as well as AMD in the main stream graphics card sector.

Which is why there's maybe a chance of the eventual bigger maxwell card being on 20nm. Plenty of margins/huge prices to absorb any extra costs there and with Intel also involved they'll want everything they can sensibly get.