We've learned that Nvidia plans two chips for its high end
roadmap of 2009. The first one is 40nm GT200 derived chip and the big rumour surrounding
it is that this chip will be sort of an optical shrink of the existing GT200.
This would
mean that the spec would not change, but that the transistors would get smaller,
and so would the TDP and the chip itself, but at the same time 40nm is not an optical
shrink process. Nvidia has to develop the chip for it, not just optically
shrink it, which dramatically complicates things.
We expect that the new GT200 derived 40nm product will have
at least a few more clusters, shaders, TMUs and ROPs, naturally all at higher clocks.
The second chip that should be with us in late 2009 is a
DirectX 11 part. Nvidia needs it more than ATI, as it decided to skip DirectX
10.1 and all of its advantages. This chip is rumoured to be based on a new
architecture that some call GT300, and we decide to call it Geforce 11, but we
have only a few sketchy details about it, DirectX 11 support being the major one.
Published in
Graphics
Nvidia to have two high end chips in 09
CES 2009:
DirectX 10, 40nm and DX11