A sign that Nvida's Maxwell version is coming real soon?

I was looking at the new Envy 15 HP manual. I was looking at the list of GPU's, and I saw this GPU listed, N15S-GT GeForce 840M with 2048 MB of dedicated video memory (256 MBx16 DDR3 960 MHz x 4 pcs, 1 GHz bridge to 960 MHz) Support for HD decode, DX11, and HDMI

Is that the new Nvidia GPU Maxwell version or something? So are the rumors true about Maxwell being released Q1 2014? Did HP just release specs to a GPU before Nvida made the announcement? Or is this just an HP misprint? http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03943414.pdf

 

What makes you think the 840M is a new core?

Why would Nvidia waste their time? It would be far cheaper to just shrink the core, rebadge a kepler at 22nm.

 

My vote goes to a rebrand, as Zymphad has stated above.

 

22nm isn't coming until end of 2014 anyhow, so no they aren't shrinking the core. AFAIK they plan on running Maxwell in 28nm, same as Kepler, and that should be out Q1 2014 from what I've read. I was excited about 20nm/22nm but that was when it was coming out H1 2014, now we'll be lucky to see it before end of 2014.

http://videocardz.com/45417/why-maxwell-will-probably-launch-on-28nm-process

" If Maxwell is to be hard-launched before 2H2014 it will have to be on 28nm. Nvidia is likely to launch at least a few Maxwell chips before this to compete against new GCN 2.0 chips, coming in October."

" According to VC sources, Maxwell will not be as drastic a jump as Tesla to Fermi was, or as Fermi to Kepler was. Mostly it would be updating technology and adding new ways for data to be managed, such as hUMA. Nvidia almost may just improve the CUDA cores in the SMXs, or add more too each SMX. There will be no chip like the GK110 coming on the 28nm node, the Maxwell Refresh onto 20nm will bring the monster chip people are waiting for."


http://videocardz.com/45403/nvidia-to-launch-more-cards-this-year-maxwell-in-q1-2014

" Just as I told you in my previous posts, NVIDIA will launch next series sooner than expected. I was told by one of the manufacturers that NVIDIA will release Maxwell series in early 2014. It is expected that GeForce 800 series will arrive in the first quarter of 2014, somewhere between February and March. What it basically means is that the chances for 20nm process are low. Of course NVIDIA could already have first 20nm samples sooner than that, but TSMC will not be ready for mass production till June 2014. Thus, unless my source is wrong the first Maxwell GPUs will not be made in 20nm fabrication process, but if they are expect huge graphics cards shortage and more paper-launches."

 

It's not gonna be a new core, a simple kepler refresh as ever..

 

This is really interesting. +rep for the find. :thumbsup:

There are several things here that cought my attention:

A) The codename for the GPU is N15S-GT.
The very first 600M series card was GT 635M. It was just a rebadged GT 555M. What those two had in common was the codename "N13E-GE2" (635M) and "N12E-GE" (555M). You can see from the suffix that N12 means 500M series and N13 means 600M series. "GE" and "GE2" seems to mean that its the same card.
Searching for "N14S" bring no results.

B) The way they describe the memory interface is also a bit interesting.

Nvidia`s Maxwell is said to be able to access system RAM. Maybe that 1GHz bridge is exactly that, a bridge between VRAM and system memory...?

 

Thank you to everyone for your feed back. I was just wondering what that was.

 

Thank you for the detailed information.