Nvidia Pascal Mobile GPUs

Hello, I am planning to buy a new gaming laptop soon, probbaly the MSI Dominator Pro with Nvidia maxwell 980M (28nm architecture):

1) Shall i wait for the Pascal iteration of Nvidia mobile GPUs due in 2016? It is based on the 16nm architecture and delivers exponential performance compared to the current maxwell. Nvidia Pascal is scheduled for 2016, any rough estimate when will the mobile Pascal follow and get adopted by manufacturers like MSI? Key Indicators I am asking about here: (i) time to announce the mobile version after announcing the desktop version, (ii) time for laptop manufacturers to launch new products with the announced mobile GPU.

2) Any idea if there will be a refresh of the current maxwell 980M (or other?). An overclocked version or a higher build, sub-iteration... Will the current model remain Nvidia's flagship all the way until Nvidia announces Pascal GPUs next year?

Thanks
Ron

 

There is no guarantee as to release dates of anything unreleased.

 

Nobody knows

 

I agree. Though I am not asking about release dates, but the general trend of the period between announcing new desktop GPUs by Nvidia and releasing their mobile counterparts in laptops...think 880GTX and 880M, 980GTX and 980M etc...

is it 2-3 months?

the second question is, any news on refresh builds of the current models? the maxwell 980M version 2?

 

If we are to trust roadmaps, maxwell was somewhat delayed on their prospective timeline, this coincides with the fact that nvidia was unable to shrink the die for maxwell, meaning that because of this delay future tech such as pascal may be delayed until further notice.

 

As a responce to your second question about 980m version 2.
if you buy a 980m now and overclock it you will probably already have version 2 minus a few tweaks hear and there.

 

Not gonna lie, the maxwell mobile chips are beasts for overclocking, a 970m can overclock past desktop 780 performance, pretty amazing feat in itself.

 

To further discuss my second (2) question, and based on your comments:

2a. Didn't Nvidia prevent OC'ing the 980M with their newly released drivers?

2b. Player2, I understand you have some insight on the 980M version 2? what is your source and what do you know about it? Or are you just speculating?

My first (1) question on whether the MSI GT72 dom pro can actually handle an upgrade to a 16nm GPU remains pending...

 

To put things in perspective MSI is the only manufacturer to guarantee any kind of future upgrades at all. You can always wait for new tech and end up never buying anything.

 

Just speculation.
Sorry I should of said that in my post.

 

We can safely assume that there will be a refresh of the mobile Maxwell lineup this year (I'm just calling it the GTX 1000M series for now). There has been a new mobile lineup refresh from team green every single year for the past decade without fail. Whether a new flagship chip with more unlocked GM204 cores is released this year is anyone's guess really - only NVIDIA know what they're planning at this early stage. It could just as easily be a higher clocked re-branded 980M (à la 880M), though previous patterns in NVIDIA's mobile strategy has me doubting this possibility. I think it's more likely that a new flagship GM204-based GPU, with anywhere from 1664 to 2048 cores will form the top end of this year's lineup. Just a hunch, I have no reliable sources to back up anything I say. It just seems logical to me that we will see a jump mimicking the one found between the 680M and 780M. Next year will then be Pascal's time to shine, eliminating the need for a further rebranded effort in the same vein as the 880M.

 

However, there IS a difference between waiting for a relevant change in technology that would yield far better gains in performance and efficiency compared to say a simple refresh cycle.
That is of course if the relevant change in technology is not too far away in the future...
I was hoping to wait until AMD at least released their HBM on mobile, but it would seem that this is not going to happen this year.

 

Yes there is, and we just had it with the 980M, you will be waiting most a full cycle now.

 

Aye, there's the rub. In this case, it's not so much fact that it is too far in the future, but that we don't know when it is.

In response to the original question, a bit of history is in order. The first 28nm GPUs came out almost exactly 3 years ago, in early 2012. Since then, there have been multiple rumors of GPU die shrinks, but so far, no GPUs except Intel's integrated graphics have gone below 28nm. Obviously, the 20nm process has turned out to be more challenging than TSMC anticipated. Now, Nvidia is promising that they will somehow go from 28nm in 2015 to 16nm in 2016. It's not impossible, but I would not rely on it. There is a reason every semiconductor company does die shrinks in steps rather than going down by an entire order of magnitude at once: each node gives them more information and prepares them for the next one. It may be that they've learned enough from their unsuccessful attempts at making a 20nm GPU and will indeed have a 16nm one in 2016, but if you decide to wait for it, keep in mind that you may be waiting for a long time.

 

Before all the delays, we had a pretty good idea on when new architectures and transitions would bring higher performance leaps and all... sadly, with all the recent delays, it would seem that 2015 and quite possibly most of 2016 will not be terribly interesting.

AMD will actually have desktop HBM out for desktop by summer... and for mobile, we 'may' be looking into late 2015, or early 2016 for HBM on laptops.
Zen however (K12) won't apparently show up for desktops in 2016... at best, we are looking at servers in late 2016 (which is definitely too far away)... and Intel doesn't appear to be releasing anything interesting performance wise in the meantime either.

It 'might' be worth the wait for Broadwell due to it being 14nm with potentially better thermals etc... but I doubt the gains would be great.

 

Well technically we do have a 20nm GPU. The Maxwell-based Tegra X1 in the new Shield console is made on 20nm TSMC.

 

This is true and in fact if you are including this variety, there are quite a few of them: the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, Apple A8 and probably some others also feature 20nm GPUs. However, all of these are low power, low performance, system-on-a-chip type GPUs usually found in phones and tablets. They're nearly 2 orders of magnitude off from the 980M in terms of power consumption.

 

If Nvidia is to release a refresh of the 980M maxwell this year, and based on historical trends, what will the changes include and when can we expect a 980M v2 ?

 

Well, Nvidia won't be transitioning to 20nm for a Maxwell refresh since it was stated that both AMD and Nvidia will be skipping 20nm process due to it (apparently) being unsuitable.
Other than that, I think we might be looking at more cores in a refresh with a slight overclock. Maxwell seems to be quite robust in terms of OC-ing.

AMD on the other hand might have a chance here if they release a new mobile HBM gpu on a 28nm.

 

As Deks notes above, I too think that it's most likely to be another GM204 chip, just with more cores enabled (between 1664 and 2048). Timing? Mmmm... I think it depends on AMD's schedule. If AMD launch their mobile lineup around the same time as their desktop lineup (which has been confirmed for late spring) then I would bet on a late summer release for refreshed mobile Maxwell parts from NVIDIA.

 

AMD Fiji HBM limited to 4GB stacked memory

 

Old news.

Also wrong thread. This one is about Nvidia Pascal.

 

Upgrade or not it all depand on what is in your hand right now,
Technology never stop

My personnal Style in upgrad desktop/laptops I don't wait for the upcoming tech,
I messure what I have then upgrade based on scale of 80-100 % perfomance increase in GPU ( as I'm a gamer )

for example my current Clevo laptop with SLI 880m my ex laptop with GTX680 m and the one before was GTX 480m
So for what I have now I'm sure I will wait and go for pasical

but let's assume you currntly own something like GTX 460m-680m I belive it worth going for current avilable top line model

hope this helps
( sorry for my english )

Wish all the best laptops

 

I say if you have a decent enough rig no harm in waiting a couple of months to see what may be brewing. I know people that bought 880m laptops a couple of months before the 900m's and heck yea they regretted it. If you have a quadcore @2.4 0r better with a 680m or above you can wait a bit it wont kill ya and you wont regret it either way.

 

880M to 980M was an architecture change though. We won't see another architecture change til Pascal and I'm still betting that as long as AMD can't compete in the mobile sector, we will probably see two Maxwell rebrands before the first Pascal cards get released. Maxwell is enough of a performance increase to warrant an upgrade, even from Kepler, which can't always handle all of the recent games maxed out.

 

Yeah, it will be a good 16-18 months before we see the light of day of Pascal in our mobile machines. All depends on if you're up for Intel Skylake, USB 3.1, Thunderbolt 3, NVMe, and DDR4, which will likely grace the next generation of laptops come end of this year. All with a Maxwell refresh.

 

Sounds good to me.

Then again, anything would, I'm a self-confessed upgrade addict

 

You are correct and I totally get your point pal, the 900s were a bigger change and pascal may not be released anytime soon however in a year design improvements can still be made and even if its a "refresh" of maxwell it can still be beneficial to wait since information will be made available and a sizable comparison can be made between the current chip and the newer chip that's on the way.

 

The problem with waiting before making a decision though is that, as I learned with the 880M, if you wait til the cards are released the old cards are hard to find and nobody knows what will happen with the new cards until they actually get out there.

Also, signs are pointing to the end of overclocking for nVidia cards on mobile entirely, they've even been messing with desktop overclocking lately. It is quite possible the rebrand will be slower than the overclocked last generation and be totally unable to be overclocked, blocked by the vbios, the drivers, and even the system BIOS.

 

The point is the only way we will know for sure is by waiting for the truth anything before that is all speculation and assumptions.

 

Since nVidia has already released these blocks, I think it is safe to assume that we will be looking at them going into future products but I agree that anything else is speculation.

 

Sorry to bring this back from the almost dead but any news on the pascal? I am close to buying my first gaming pc. Thinking clevo laptop with desktop i7-6700k and desktop 980 but dont want to buy if something way better id a few months around the corner?

 

Id say Pascal will arrive Q1 2016 sometime. Thats January - March sometime. Since Nvidia have already taped Pascal out (June I think), OpenCL entries and specific chip names have been added to drivers, mass production of 16nm have come a long way, Nvidia will be using GDDR5X which is also available, I think Q1 is reasonable to expect. Wether these first Pascal chips are mobile or not, that remains to be seen but I personably absolutely think they are since Nvidia is doing mobile first now and notebooks are very important to them. Not to mention that mobile Maxwell have been here for a very long time now so its time for something new. In addition, the new architectures are almost always a couple of months behind the refresh of an existing architecture. Examples: GTX 680M months after GTX 675M. GTX 980M months after GTX 880M. Wether its midrange GP107 first or GP104, or both though, nobody knows yet. I know its very difficult to take decisions so close, but personally Id wait til February to see if more leaks arrive. If they do, you can start to pinpoint roughly when they do arrive and which cards it is. There are a lot of unfaithful OEM testers around that recieve notebooks with unreleased hardware that leak stuff on the internet. Mostly from china and they always give us a heads up on release dates and performance. They are the ones responsible of keeping most of our enthusiasts in this forum ahead so we make the best decision of getting the best hardware at the right time.









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What can we expect the price to be? Any clue how do they usually price new gpu

 

Same as current chips probably based on previous releases: $800-$1000 for the top end

Truly RIP mobile gaming material there

 

Sucks i have to wait im ready to buy now. Is it really going to be that much better for laptops?

 

Yes. 16nm vs 28nm. Double performance per watt.

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so some rumours stated it'll be around mid of this yr, possibly see them running on ebay maybe july/august? this time around though im more AMD side with polaris would be much better than nvidia simply because of async compute which nvidia fails to do.

 

The GTX10XXm series GPU on Maxwell platform would be incredibly stupid. Maxwell was present on the 800 series cards! (Eg. the gtx 860m). It'd be irresponsible and foolish to have 3 generations of the exact same architecture. Here is some discussion I wanted to start on the subject:

 

We could contiune this in the big Active thread instead of this old one:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...latest-news-updates-1000m-series-gpus.763032/

 

xxx

 

We had 3 gens on the Kepler architecture: 600/700/800M series. Even though the 800 series had a few maxwell cards, the majority were running on Kepler.

But personally, I think mobile 1000 series will get a "trimmed" Pascal. It will use GDDR5 and not HBM2. Only desktops will get HBM2 and that won't happen until the 1080Ti version in my opinion. But hey, speculation

 

Maxwell are already getting a refresh. Entry level are getting MX versions with faster clocks and GDDR5. Mid range is getting updated 965M with 20% better performance over current 965M.

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