Brace yourself: NEW MAXWELL CARDS INCOMING!

GM200 is not coming to notebooks. A fully enabled GM204 yes. Not in the near future however as they have to dispatch all the GM204 GPUs fabricated. GM200 does have more OpenCL and floating point performance than current cards (I'm told) and "probably" be the basis for new Quadro GPUs

 

You're right, I got the base and Boost clocks mixed up. My bad.

Looks like Guru3D's MSI 970 is another overclocker good for 1500/8000. Same noise but 8C hotter than the Gigabyte card with a 50 MHz lower factory OC. Or another way to look at it, Gigabyte card is quieter with same temps. So I stand by what I said about Gigabyte being the best performing card overall.

Since you're gonna be doing SLI, I think cooling should be the first priority, especially for the top card which will naturally run hotter. So I don't think being an inch or two longer is a knock on the WindForce if it performs that well. Get a bigger case or remove drive cages.

 

Get a bigger case dude that's much easier said than done, plus extra money out of the pocket.

I have about 33cm of clearance from the GPU bracket to the 120mm fan mounted in front the HDD cage (35cm if you count the protruding bracket tip), so the Gigabyte card will just squeeze in. However I dislike the idea of having the entire bottom half of my case cordoned off. Yes I could dismount the 120mm fan and gain an extra 2-3cm of clearance but that's kind of self-defeating, since the 120mm fans mounted on each of the two HDD cages are precisely for blowing cool air directly over the cards.

Just saw a review on Bit Tech saying the Strix 970 may have some fan issues to content with when OC'd. Since I'm in no rush to buy I'll wait another 2-3 weeks for more reviews to come in before making any decisions.

 

Most full towers should be able to fit the Gigabyte with a little room to spare, and I personally wouldn't build a multi-GPU system in anything smaller.

What about side panel fans?

 

If I was hellbent on that Gigabyte card it would still fit with just a bit over an inch of clearance to spare, not ideal but could be made to work for someone who deems it worthwhile. But for what amounts to at best 5-7% potential performance gain that isn't guaranteed, no thanks for me.

 

So much desktop discussion in this thread, and not in a theorycrafting related way..

 

What isn't worthwhile about potentially higher performance/lower temperates/less noise? Cosmetic reasons or build restrictions? Just curious.

Yeah too bad, blame Nvidia, desktop Maxwell is the only thing worth talking about ATM.

 

I am curious too, considering I have read the gigabyte being near "golden sample" everywhere haha.

 

Gigabyte is mainly known for its coolers. I think every brand puts its top-tier binned GPU's into a premium product. For example, Gigabyte has its GHz Edition cards, MSI has Lightning, etc. Seeing how high Maxwell overclocks, maybe there needs to be a 1.5 GHz Edition now?

 

Because with only 3 cm of clearance between the end of the card and the 120mm fan, and with 2 of those monsters in SLI, it effectively blocks most of the airflow to the upper half of the case. Dismounting the fan improves that clearance to about 5.5cm, but then case airflow is greatly diminished because I'd be sacrificing 2x120mm fans.

Another aspect that's overlooked is cable management. <del>The Gigabyte card will run 2 cables each to the PSU, so that's 2 extra cables to manage over a 225W card with 6+6 or a single 8 pin connector.</del> This may not sound like much but when I already have 30+ cables to deal with the less cables the merrier. EDIT: Right it's 6+8, not 8+8, so might still be ok on a single rail PSU.

In terms of thermals the Asus 970 runs hot because apparently the default fan profile locks fans to 42% max regardless of temps. Manually cranking it to 50% helps with thermals while still keeping a reasonable noise level. For a 225W card DirectCU II is plenty enough; WindForce is overkill but makes more sense on a 300W card.

Finally to put everything in perspective, even with the Asus 970 at out of box speed vs the Gigabyte OC'd to 1500+ MHz on the core, the difference in Bioshock Infinite is still only about 12% at 1440p. That's not enough of a performance lead to be either making sacrifices, doing a major overhaul of my build, or buying a new case altogether. Now if this was big Max GM200/210 and it performed up to expectations, then yes it would be worth the effort (and money) to get it to work.

Case is Phanteks Enthoo Luxe btw.

 

Seems like a pretty roomy case. I assume removing drive cages isn't an option for you?

Is the MSI 6+8 power connectors? That might be the card to get then.

 

It's funny because just earlier this week I had both HDD cages out and 2x120mm intake fans on the bottom, but after removing one bottom 120mm fan and putting both cages back each with a 120mm fan installed, my 4930K seemed to run about 2-3C cooler under load. Makes sense because while one intake fan is sacrificed, horizontal airflow is greatly increased compared to the old setup with just a 200mm fan that's very blocked in front. Although the HDD cages further restrict airflow, now there's a push-pull thing going on from the 200mm front fan to the 2x120mm cage fans, each reinforces the other I guess?

Plus the intake fan I sacrificed was blowing up into the 5.25" bays anyway, so really don't think it was doing much.

 

What are you using for CPU cooling?

Here's a thought. <del>Ditch front 200m intake, replace with 1x120mm, remove 1 drive cage, leave 1x120mm intake on bottom.</del> Actually that's dumb and wasteful. Move your 2x120mm to bottom as intake and remove 1 drive cage and keep everything else intact.

Or get a couple MSI Gaming cards and stop listening to my bad advice.

 

i assume laptop mobile GPU follows in a few weeks?

 

Cloudfire has assured they will be available in October
Notebook check just put up a oct 1 anouncement date for them (no clue if accurate)

Many OEMs have laptops posting benchmarks using the 970m/980m.

They ARE COMING SOON

Also right before that game 24 there were leaked press slides, and they not only included ones used in the game24 for the 970/980 release, but they also included slides for the mobile 970m/980m. Those did not get used, but it shows they are completely ready to release them.

 

Good, hopefully a wide range of laptops with the new gpus should be in stock in respective retailers hopefully before the end of November.

 

I just noticed that GTX 980 is basically equivalent to GTX 660Ti in the kepler generation by looking at TDP and Core clocks for each
My guess is, even GTX 980 is not a full GM204 core. Not sure how they will name the next series lol

GG nvidia

 

660ti = 3.54b transistors, 294mm^2 die
980 = 5.2b transistors, 398mm^2 die

both 28nm process, don't see why you would think they aren't using the full chip?

 

Someone needs to find some more leaks on the 970M/980M!! I can't take it much longer!

*Looks at P35Wv2*

 

I think the fact that we have scores and leaks from Sager, Asus, and some even from MSI, points to a very soon release schedule. Even the models carrying the new GPUs are circling around!

 

I would never buy from a company that voids your warranty if you so much as dare to do a repaste. Plus they kinda screwed up the design with the Twin Frozr on the 970 by cutting off the top left corner. Yeah I know it's for the SLI connectors, but MSI should just take a page from Asus and Gigabyte on how to design a proper shroud that doesn't need to have one corner cut.

Finally decided to take advantage of Phanteks' unique design and relocated both SSDs to the rear brackets. Both HDD cages are now out, and I stuck in an extra 120mm fan on top for exhaust. CPU is cooled by H110 with 2 Noctua NF-A14 iPPC fans. The evils of AIO aside, the H110 does a pretty good job for what it is so I've no complaints. There's also an Antec SpotCool 80 blowing air over the VRMs so I got that covered as well. Now it's just down to playing the waiting game and for more reviews...

 

LOL that's the first thing I would've suggested had I known you had no HDD's.

So I guess now it's down to ASUS vs. EVGA?

 

If your case has a window, Asus easily. Those new ACX 2.0 coolers are hideous. Absolutely hideous. ACX 1.0 > 2.0. And what's with the blue coloring? Good luck matching that with your custom builds.



VS

 

Not to mention reviews show the ASUS 970 has a better cooler* on it.

*Still not as good as Gigabyte's

 

You sacrifice HDD storage capability and limited yourself to 2 SSDs and 2TB worth of storage that will cost you big for the luxury, so it's not a small sacrifice. The original config could've been totally fine and I could just be paranoid and worried for nothing so who knows. Apparently removing the HDD cages improves GPU cooling by exactly 1C rofl. But can't say I'm too surprised as they didn't add any extra fans and that front 200mm fan can only do so much when its intake is 80% blocked.

In any case I doubt this case will have trouble with 2 sub-250W cards, especially since the CPU won't be dumping any of its heat into the case. If big Max proves too hot to handle, push comes to shove I could always upgrade to the Enthoo Primo lol. (yes I love Phanteks)

EVGA is out since ACX 2.0 runs too loud and I'm noise sensitive. It's pretty much the Asus at this point since for only $10 more than a reference 970 and Asus quality it's a complete steal, unless future reviews point out glaring issues. Need to wait for stock anyways so might as well wait a while, plus it's always good to see how cards out in the wild perform as opposed to review samples to make sure they weren't cherry picked. I remember reading EVGA doing a bait-and-switch on the vRAM for a certain card once it had been reviewed, and the end result is poor OC headroom on the retail cards.

EDIT: Ah okay, so it was the 780 Classified that EVGA did a vRAM switch on.

 

Didn't love Phanteks enough to get a PH-TC14PE.

I was checking out the Enthoo line the other day and I thought it looked pretty "meh" just like every other plain black/white box out there. The only case that really catches my eye is the NZXT Phantom. I like the Cosmos II as well but it's expensive and frankly way too massive/unwieldy and wasteful for my purposes. Probably pair the Phantom with a Kraken X61 and Haswell-E, if only big Maxwell or AMD's next-gen would release sooner.

 

Ha I made a point to avoid massive tower coolers because of their bulk, plus dumping 130+W of 4930K heat into the case didn't sound very attractive to me. Yes there are issues with AIOs but for what they do they suit my purposes fine.

I actually picked the Enthoo Luxe over Primo because lights Although in terms of function the Primo is by far the superior. Since I didn't want to get super towers like the 900D or Cosmos II there were a lot of choices, but in the end I settled on the Enthoo line for 3 things:

1) Velcro strips: this should really be standard in every case, much easier to use than ziplines and more effective too. Makes cable management that much less painful.
2) PWM fan hub: being able to link up to 11 case fans (with Y splitters) on a single fan header is just awesome. The fan hub has a SATA port for extra juice so you don't blow up the header.
3) Versatility: Less applicable to the Luxe but more for the Enthoo Primo, the amount of customization is truly jaw dropping.
4) SSD brackets: being able to dump all HDD cages and still be able to fit 2 SSDs is very welcomed (as I have just experienced firsthand), or viewed differently more storage capacity in a non-supersized full tower

Also, I like how the Primo places the PSU on the same side of the motherboard tray, which makes cable management a bit easier and leaves room for more fans or radiators on the other side. Oh and did I mention the Primo has enough room for TWO 140mm exhaust fans on the back? Neither the 900D nor the Cosmos II can manage this (although they offer more side fans)

In terms of looks the Enthoo line definitely takes a backseat, but it's pretty clear Phanteks was going for function over form.

 

Yeah I hear ya about giant air coolers and stress on the mobo. Some of the same reasons I'm getting the X61 this time around. It's best-in-class performance and especially 6-year warranty are also nice.

LOL most of those "features" you mention are pretty standard among full towers in this price bracket. Cases are boring. There's really not much differentiation in the market feature-wise, at least not within the same form factor, so I just do the eyeball test--go with whatever looks best to me. And man, the gunmetal finish Phantom looks amazing.

 

Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I couldn't find any other case that came with Velcro strips (the 900D had latches) and the PWM fan hub. The Velcro strips was what sealed the deal for me though.

I think fans play a huge role in how AIOs perform, which is why the stock H110 fans went straight to the trash. Those industrial grade Noctua fans are worth every penny, even with the 4930K at 1.4V temps max out at 75C when running Prime, and fans were only at 85% too. They're also pleasantly quiet below 60%.

 

Yeah, I swapped out the stock H80i fans for some absolutely superb (and next to impossible to find too) Swiftech Helix units. These are almost as good as the legendary Gentle Typhoons, the Helix fan blades are every bit as efficient but the bearing noise is nowhere near as silent as the GT.

 

Here you go, fellas.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/off-topic/639238-desktop-computer-discussion-lounge.html

 

Mobile Maxwell will be awesome.

There.

 

we have a desktop discussion thread on notebookreview without linking to desktopreview?

 

Yes it will. Ready to buy a 980m the second available. Assuming there isn't assine markup.

 

It'll probably come out around $900-$1000 like the previous mobile flagships.

 

Because the ultimate limit of the vendors (NVIDIA and AMD) is the TDP
whatever they do with processes, die size, number of transistors in the end still have to follow the TDP
which has traits (and never been broken)

GX104/204 = 150-195 Watt --> GTX 460, 560, 560Ti, 660, 660Ti, 670, 680, 770, Etc
GX100/200 = 225-250 Watt --> GTX 465, 470, 480, 570, 580, 780, 780Ti, etc

GTX 980 = 165 watt, how did they do the magic then?

 

Have a read of this page:
Power Consumption In Detail - Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 And 980 Review: Maximum Maxwell

It's only during gaming loads that this low TDP is met, due to very precise and quick voltage fluctuation & regulation lowering average TDP with very high & very low spikes when measured at the micro second level. Compute loads however negate any efficiency of the architecture & Kepler'esk levels of efficiency are seen (higher current consumption) - due to allowing no 'micro downtime' (a term I made up - where voltage levels can be lowered for a microsecond). The underlined bit of my answer is how they did the magic you speak of - at least that's how I understood the Tom's Hardware article.

(Based on this idea, I'm thinking that svl7's style of unlocked vBIOS where voltage is 'locked' at boost level could make it difficult to create such a modified vBIOS for Maxwell while still retaining the thermal & current efficiencies of Maxwell. This may only make sense to those who know of his vBIOS's, and is just conjecture on my part).

 

Time will tell. Never underestimate the vbios wizard that SVL7 is!

 

I actually thought that might happen for Maxwell, when using compute-style power from the GPUs. It might also boost the consumption greatly when using Shadowplay as that uses the CUDA rendering blocks that are inactive while gaming for the most part. In Kepler they're turned on and idle, but in Maxwell they'll be off until turned on for use... maxwell may not be the jesus chips for people who do many different things other than gaming (especially for laptops)

 

Have we got a date of release yet? my laptops gone back because of throttling issues AGAIN!! 4 month of ownership 1 day of usage!!!

 

Nvidia's first 20nm product is a mobile SoC

Finally some news on 20nm. My prediction would be that NVD will move on from 20nm to 16nm finfet by 2016. So the next node move would probably end up in 2016-2017 timeframe if Pascal is not delayed again due to TSMC issues. I don't see any advantages for NVD to release it in 2015, when they can refresh Maxwell with higher clocks.

 

Very interesting.

But sadly it cant be transfered to desktop/mobile GPUs.
The current 20nm process is SOC optimized which is why current Maxwell GPUs are 28nm. They gained too little using 20nm process, and the HP process they use for high performance chips was useless hence why they stayed at the SOC process. So its mostly for ARM chips with embedded graphics, A8 CPUs from Apple with a graphic part. And probably AMDs APUs.

 

It seems like Maxwell might be highly optimized for gaming, but when it comes to compute it's just as power hungry as Kepler:

I wonder what the implications are for the Titan II and its compute abilities...

==================================================================================================

Also, VERY OT WARNING

Man I just can't decide on a desktop 970, each of the 3 big players has their own quirks and issues:

Asus:
- 6+1 phase, quality components for core, nothing special for memory
- all 8 memory chips in front so nothing left to roast on back, but no direct contact with heatsink
- no active cooling for VRM controller or memory mosfets

Gigabyte:
- best cooler of all 3 (albeit noisier)
- 5+1 phase, quality of components unknown
- memory chips on front make contact with heatsink
- no active cooling for VRM controller or memory mosfets

MSI:
- 6+2 phase, both using quality components
- active cooling for VRM controller AND memory mosfets
- no backplate, memory chips on back left to roast
- warranty sticker placed on screw, thus a simple repaste voids warranty

So basically, Asus cheaped out on memory power delivery, Gigabyte cheaped out on both core AND memory power delivery, while MSI has the most robust power delivery. But MSI has no backplate and put in that retarded warranty sticker on a screw. Gigabyte has the best cooling and the best OC potential but I fear for the VRMs. Asus will be power limited since only single 8 pin instead of 8+6 pins like the other two. Boy I'm just about ready to shoot myself.

inb4 firstworldproblems

 

n=1 have you looked at EVGA?

 

They're the worst by far sadly, 4+2 phase, loud ACX cooler with off-center die that doesn't contact the third heatpipe, so yeah they were the first to drop off my list.

 

He doesn't like EVGA lol.

And those new acx coolers are indeed atrocious and that's coming from a huge EVGA fan.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

When the fan bashes the product, you know it's time to back away and find someone else

 

lol Ethrem you're confusing me with octiceps

I don't care much for brands (except for mobos, where I buy Asus every single time). Usually there's a brand that will have everything or close to everything and that's what I'd go with, but in this case it seems like I may have to settle for the least of the evils. Hmm....

 

It's always a "least of the evils" these days. So rare anymore that there's just something that's "perfect", even if you just had to flat out pay some more for it.

 

Well Alienware used to be close to perfect, but even they have started dropping the ball it seems.

I really don't mind paying a premium for premium hardware, but I can't justify paying more for less. But as you said, these days it's all about cutting corners and bottom lines, so the "least of the evils" approach is the only one to take.