It is stronger than the strongest of adapters, astonishingly enough

Apr 22, 2013 06:21 GMT  ·  By

We thought that the GeForce GTX Titan LE graphics card was the only superpowered single-GPU graphics card that NVIDIA was still preparing, not counting the supposed GTX 780 presumably set for launch by June.

Then again, it is possible for the latter's name to be no more than hearsay, and for it to be really called GeForce GTX Titan Ultra.

GeForce GTX Titan Ultra, or Titan II, is the moniker applied to a video card that 3DCenter.org and PCGamesHardware believe might debut sooner rather than later.

This is all speculation, mind, based on nothing but the random possibility that NVIDIA may not, in fact, intend for Titan to stay as the strongest product for long.

The only reason we ascribe any sort of probability to these rumors is, as we have said, recent murmurs about a new GeForce 7 adapter.

NVIDIA may very well be working on a Titan, rather than something bearing the GeForce GTX 780 name.

Since NVIDIA Titan already costs $1,000 / 1,000 EUR, the Titan Ultra / Titan II would sell for quite a bit more, and would need to possess significantly better specifications.

That means 2880 CUDA cores, versus the Titan's 2,688 and the Titan LE's 2,496. It also means a 384-bit memory interface (vs. 384/320), 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (6/5 GB Titan/LE), GPU base/boost speeds of 900/950 MHz (vs. 837/876 MHz), 48 ROPs (48 Titan, 40 Titan LE) and 256 texture mapping units (48/40 TMUs).

The power consumption would be of around 225W, more than the 206W of the original and 185W of the expected LE.

Should NVIDIA actually make a Titan Ultra, it would release it in the fourth quarter of 2013 most likely. Nevertheless, as we have said before, these are speculations based on rumors and hopes.

The price will play a big role here. Since dual-GK110 boards are too unprofitable (unlike AMD's Radeon HD 7990 Malta), NVIDIA needs to make sure its single-chip cards at least try to strike a balance between performance and cost. We'll have to wait and see how it all goes.