14 DAY TRIAL // It has been quite a while since California-based chip designer Nvidia has introduced the new Kepler architecture on the market.
Kepler is a very efficient design and the most important thing about it is the ability to achieve good performance while using a modest number of transistors and thus a smaller amount of power.
We’ve first expected to see a head-on assault of the mobile world as the Fermi mobile GPUs are very hot and they do consume quite a significant amount of power.
In fact, Nvidia itself has been touting over “300 design wins” in the notebook world and, while there are numerous notebooks selling right now with an Nvidia chip inside, many of those are not Kepler but Fermi GPUs.
The modest GK107 was the first Kepler to enter the mobile world and now the company is silently introducing the GK104 and the new GK106.
The GTX670MX will be replacing the GTX670M and this new implementation is a GK106 chip with the full complement of 960 CUDA cores using a 192-bit memory BUS. The GPU is clocked at a modest 600 MHz while the GDD5 memory runs at 2800 MHz effective frequency.
The more powerful GTX675MX is a GK104 variant that has only 960 CUDA cores active, but it sits in a better position than the GK106 inside the GTX670MX.
The GTX675MX enjoys a full 256-bit memory BUS and the GDDR5 memory is clocked higher at 3600 MHz effective.
Last on the list is the Quadro K3000M and this is a handicapped GK106 GPU that has just 576 CUDA cores active, but only works with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on a tight 128-bit BUS.