14 DAY TRIAL // Until recently, we couldn't be sure if the next high-end graphics processing unit from NVIDIA would be called GM200 or GM210, but now we know for certain what we're in for on the top-tier market.
The next-generation high-end graphics processing unit designed on the Maxwell micro-architecture has still not been detailed, but we should not have to wait too long for that.
The GM200 is supposed to power the next Titan graphics card, the so-called Titan X, which will replace the Titan and Titan Black.
With two Titan video boards having been revealed in February of consecutive years, there is reason to believe that the X will make its debut in February as well. That puts its ETA (estimated time of arrival) in two to six weeks from now.
The GM200 graphics processing unit
Some pictures of the chip have made it to the Internet, courtesy of Baidu. We may not be looking at the Titan X though, but at a Quadro M6000. The same one submitted to the GPU-Z database in December 2014.
The new pictures show a square processor somewhat smaller than we had feared. The processor is called GM200-5400 and should have 3,072 CUDA cores.
The leak does not specify the technical details, but the specs were reportedly exposed a couple of weeks ago, so we have a foundation for our assumption.
Speaking of which, the clock is 988 MHz and the memory interface is of 384 bits. And thus, we reach the uncertain part: memory.
When we covered the Quadro M6000, there were 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM clocked at 6.6 GHz. The new board leaked by Baidu, however, apparently has 7 GHz memory. The bandwidth will be of 317.4 GB/s.
This is the only obvious clue that we are, indeed, looking at the next Titan rather than an NVIDIA professional video adapter.
The other unusual thing about the prototype card is that it lacks DVI support, having Three DisplayPorts and one HDMI 2.0. Perhaps it's an early, unfinished model, though at this stage it's very unlikely.
Availability and pricing
If the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X (or Ultra, or II or whatever it's called) gets released next month (February 2015), its price will likely be of around $1,200 / €1,200, like for the Titan Black.
