When will the next big GPUs come out? Waiting to buy my next gaming laptop

Hello. I'm looking forward to buying a new laptop, but I want to do it when the time is right. I can wait as long as next summer, so I was thinking the best time would be when the new GPUs come out. When does this typically happen?

I want the best gaming laptop I can get. When's the right time to buy?

Thank you!

 

significant mobile graphics part releases:

June 2008 - Radeon HD 3870
July 2008 - Nvidia 9800M GTX
September 2008 - Radeon HD 3870x2
January 2009 - Radeon HD 4870 / 4870x2
March 2009 - Nvidia GTX 280M
January 2010 - Radeon HD 5870
February 2010 - Nvidia GTX 285M
May 2010 - Nvidia GTX 480M
January 2011 - Radeon HD 6970 / Nvidia GTX 485M
June 2011 - Nvidia GTX 580M
July 2011 - Radeon HD 6990

Moral of the story- there's always new stuff coming out.

 

So when's the "right time" to buy a new one? It looks like there will probably be something new in the first or second quarter of next year, am I right? I just want to be able to play Skyrim and future releases for the next couple years on a decent rig. I know waiting is advised for buying new computers often, but until when?

 

I think Mastercheif is right in part. Its never worth waiting if your 'waiting for the next big thing', as there is always something new round the corner.

It depends on what you have at the moment. Does it do what you need it to? For me, I brought mine last summer. A non-sandy bridge core i7 with AMD 5850. Typically I skip a generation and will be looking at buying next generation (Ivy Bridge and something like an AMD 7 series or Nvidia 6xx). Internet rumours say these should be available for the Summer (though no deifinate dates / release schedule yet). If you can wait for that great, if not then buy now

Boz

 

What does that mean?

It's very dangerous to look into the future as you consider a new PC.

Very dangerous to your wallet indeed

Honestly, just get close to the best for your budget now. You're gonna have to upgrade in a couple years regardless.

 

I would wait for the new ivy bridge and 28nm GPUs personally. I'd expect the new GPUs to be around February-April of 2012. Probably March.

Why would I wait? Rumors are consoles are coming in 2012 meaning if you want to play future games to last a few years, you'll want to get the best you can of 2012. Between now and then, not much is going to change, so if you can game now on your current rig, just keep doing so.

 

Early 2012. AMD could be releasing some from the 7000 series already in december

 

Unless there's something significant about a release in a few months (e.g. people waited out on the ATI 5000 series because it was first to support DX11), it's pointless to wait for it.

 

28nm is very significant. Mid-range cards from AMD on 28nm will only be using 15-25 watts of power. That is way more significant than DX11 IMO.

 

Well, Ivy Bridge has been delayed until late next year, so I don't think waiting until then would be prudent.

If your laptop needs revolve predominantly around gaming, then a decent refresh of Sandy Bridge i7 quad core cpu would be good, coupled with 12GB or 16GB RAM, and a high end mobile GPU such as the AMD 6990M.

If you expect to be doing some work in CAD based programs, then right now, Nvidia would be the better option (the GTX 570M or 580M - latter is of course better/faster than the former, but can also be a bit pricey - though it's comparable to the 6990M).
But if your needs are solely about gaming, then stick with AMD for the gpu.

Bottom line is, the next generation of GPU's won't really be all that different.
Maybe more efficient in power and slightly faster, but that's pretty much it.

You'd be surprised just how long a top notch gaming laptop bought today could last you.

Majority of cpu's and gpu's on the market over the past several years were nothing more than revisions.
True, they experienced a larger bump in speed when they switched over to higher bandwidths, but until something like that happens again, or there's a serious architectural change that brings something worth waiting for, the relatively incremental increases in speeds and efficiency are not worth the wait if you ask me (unless they 'pile up' over a period of say 4 years, in which case THEN it would be prudent to switch).

If I was you, I'd get a decent high end gaming rig now and that's it.
getting a gpu such as the 6990M or 580M will ensure you can play very demanding games for the next several years (and in most cases, it's pointless to go above 'high' settings - 'ultra' etc. are usually nothing more than gimmicks that provide next to nothing in visual difference while impacting the FPS a lot).

 

Doesn't really matter that much if you'll be gaming while plugged into the mains.
Sure, it's more efficient power-wise, but it's the screen that's the MOST power hungry in the end.
Besides, most mid-range laptops still end up with power bricks of roughly 90W or less.
The only difference where the efficiency would be noticed more or less would be on the battery (but again... the screen is the biggest power sucker).

 

I guess you're not using your brain this morning.

If 28nm is that significantly more power efficient, means AMD can provide that much more power for high end. Laptops biggest limiting factor is the power, can't have a 300 watt GPU in a laptop. It also means they can provide a lot more transistors in a die now, than they did before, 28nm is significantly smaller than 40nm. 30% more transistors is a lot when where are now billions of them in an AMD GPU.

For companies like Asus and MSI who don't ship their notebooks with 220 watt PSU like Clevo/Alienware does, this is very significant. There are two top tier GPU from AMD, Wimbledon Pro and Wimbledon XT. The XT has 4GB of DDR5 and Pro has 2GB. The Pro version uses less power than my 2 year old HD5870M. If there is a chance of Asus or MSI featuring a top tier AMD again, it's the 28nm 7xxx series. Even the XT at around 80 watts could still be used, then it will come down to price. So I hope MSI and Asus will be looking at the Wimbledon Pro and say yes and give us customers and option between Nvidia and AMD.

Plus at the AMD Fusion Summit, AMD said there will be a whole new architecture featured from Southern Island. Previously it was thought Southern Island would just be the same as what we see in Cayman (current deskto HD6970). So this is also significant. The VLIW4 architecture in Cayman was not featured in the HD6970M or HD6990M, that was a Cayman only which was the HD6970 desktop. Even if mobile don't get the Graphics Core Next architecture, VLIW4 is good enough for me to wait for the next gen rather than go with HD6970M or HD6990M which uses old tech.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4455/amds-graphics-core-next-preview-amd-architects-for-compute

http://wccftech.com/amds-graphics-c...tailed-liquid-chamber-cooling-gpus-confirmed/

Right now AMD's architecture in the mobile HD5xxx and HD6xxx is very complex. Which means getting games and applications to run on them is difficult. Takes a lot of work on AMD's side with drivers as well. The advantage Nvidia has with their FERMI design is that it's a very generalized computing. Means can run whatever you want on FERMI cores making driver development easy for Nvidia. AMD's design can potentially provide more performance, but that's if the drivers etc are top notch and from developers.
- VLIW4 and GCN architectore is moving AMD's architecture away from old to what Nvidia has. It's becoming more generalized meaning it can be used just as well for computing as it can be for graphics. This to me is exciting it means it may mean better performance and drivers from AMD as it won't be as difficult. GCN is that next step. Leaving behind VLIW architecture for a SIMD architecture like FERMI.

AMD says GCN will only be available on high end 7xxx. But I'm hoping maybe the high end mobile will be delayed til Q2/3 2012 and may feature GCN. But that's just my hope and there is nothing out to affirm or deny my hope right now. Right now looks like desktop are being released first and among them the high end will only feature the GCN. Mobile delayed. I'm hoping maybe a delay on the high end mobile will mean AMD is considering GCN.
- GCN will be a boost for AMD to try and get professional market interested. And in the past for mobile, the high end HD series has been the same as the high end FirePro series. Just the drivers being different. And if AMD is targeting professional on mobile as well, maybe, just maybe high end HD will have GCN.

GCN I think would be more than worth the wait. If AMD has the smarts to feature that, as mobile workstations are outselling desktop workstations right now.
- At the very least we'll get VLIW4 architecture which was only featured on desktop HD6900.

 

Ivy bridge is a minor CPU revision... it's not worth waiting months for.

Graphics cards are always getting updated. You can wait 6 months for the next GPU to get released, but you'll likely be 6 months shy of another GPU release at that point.

 

Ah the ever continuing growth of technology...

 

if you wait, of course there will be something better around the corner, the price? do you think it will be cheaper than the gpus/processors we have now? if yes then good, if not, then wait again. easy, when waiting you just lose time, nothing else lolz.

the bottom line is, grabbing the right moment when offered, in my case, i bought my gpus exactly when they gave a price cut. its not about being sober tech wise, if you want more, then wait, your time. if not, go ahead and buy it.

Money can't buy happiness, it can't buy lost time either.

 

Buying a notebook now is not a smart move imo. Ivy bridge is out march next year. Better IGP, faster speed clock for clock, Quad cores are now 35W (was 45W).
New GPUs from Nvidia atleast will be 28nm, is out perhaps already in January, and will be much faster since it is a whole new architecture. Plus the TDP goes down by a lot.

All of this means faster and cooler notebook. Which again means more quiet designs.

 

No it's not. Nvidia is using the first gen FERMI architecture die shrunked. It's called Kepler which was introduced/shown nearly 2 years ago now.

Nothing wrong with that. The 28nm will allow for the heat and power issues Nvidia first faced with FERMI, so this new 28nm fabrication will allow Nvidia to really show what FERMI can do.

But I'm more excited about AMD's Graphics Core Next. That will be completely different. They are leaving behind the VLIW architecture they have been using for the HD4xxx, HD5xxx, HD6xxx for a SIMD architecture. It's AMD's answer to Nvidia's FERMI.

 

Oh well. I call a die shrink, 40nm down to 28nm a new architecture although it is probably wrong

And you are partly wrong about AMDs next 7000 series. The low and midend will actually be the same architecture as previous series (VLIW) and be more of a rebrand. NGC, the newest architecture, will be introduced later. Those are the ones who are interesting. Its gonna be a interesting year for shure and I am in the marked for a new notebook. Yay

 

I initially thought new technology was released in certain times of the year...

After reading Masterchef's post, I agree with most of you here that if you want to wait, you can wait forever for the next best thing.

 

Yes all true, but new die shrinks doesn`t happen many times per year. CPUs are 1 per year. Last die shrink with GPUs was 2.5 years ago. They (AMD/Nvidia) skipped the 32nm which is why the next GPUs will be very interesting and a very good investment

 

I agree that a die shrink will reduce power consumption, that's obvious, but a simple direct shrink of existing hardware only gets you an incrimental increase in performance. The thing with major releases like a new DX version, or a completely new architecture is that it only happens every few years, meaning that it is something worth waiting out on. Power reductions happen every month or so, so it's not much to get worked up about, as soon as you have your new low power componants there will be something new about to release which can do even better. If the next gen ATI cards are significantly different (like how FERMI was a significant improvement when it came out, not just a mere bump) then maybe you should wait on them, but until we know more about them it's pointless to argue. If it turns out that the majority are just simple die shrinks then you may as well just get something now and enjoy the six months of gaming you would have missed out on otherwise.

 

But if you're willing to wait 4 months, assuming it comes in March, then what's stopping you from waiting the next 4 months? The next CPU revision after ivy bridge will be a bigger change than sandy bridge to ivy bridge. every release brings higher performance and higher performance per watt. There is nothing special about ivy bridge that makes it worth waiting for any more than any other CPU revision.

 

The 660M+ and 79xxM+ GPUs won't be out until at least April of 2012. Probably later.

 

So even if you wait until march to get ivy bridge, you'll have to wait at least another month for the next high end GPUs to come out, possibly another 3-4 months. At that point, you might be 4-5 months shy of a major CPU revision (much bigger than ivy bridge)

 

it's not like new generation cpu's and gpu's are released on a monthly bases. It makes much sense to wait when you are close to the next major release.
If new gpu's are going to be released in April and if I'm in March doesn't make any sense not to wait.

 

Yeah, but this is November...

 

exactly. It's a matter of personal choice the how much are you willing to wait. would you wait if we were in February? January? How many days? 30? 60? 100? Do you need it tomorrow? Do you really need a need a new notebook or just would like to have something better? etc etc

 

You hit the nail on the head. Have to ask do you need it or does your current rig work? If it works, then wait, it's worth the wait. Why get hardware at a premium price when it's a year old now? If you are going to pay premium price on a new laptop, get it when it's hot, not when it's on the way out the door.

 

But it is not 4 months, it is 12 months until Haswell comes out when Ivy is released. Haswell is also 22nm so I don`t think they will lower the power consumption or heat output by much compared to Ivy. And the next hardcore GPUs from AMD and Nvidia will be out like in March or April, exactly when Ivy come out. And the reduction from 40nm to 28nm is huge. I expect to see some very nice performing GPUs that also is less hot and use less power. Important in my book. Again personal reference. Ivy was originally going out in March but is postponed to April because of low demand of Sandy Bridge. And on top of all of this Windows 8 comes out.

1. New CPUs: New die shrink (32 - 22nm), 20% faster performance compared to Sandy Bridge, 60% boost in IGP (important for all Optimus/AMD switchable notebooks), 35W TDP instead of 45W for all mobile Quad cores
2. New GPUs: New die shrink (40 - 28nm), 45% higher clock frequencies, lower power consumption and heat, ++
3. Windows 8

I personally would wait another 4 months. My own opinion of course
.

 

Another thing to consider... new tech is usually expensive and has bugs.

A die-shrink isn't usually too big of a deal bug-wise, but they WILL tack on a nice price premium for the thoeretical "best". (even if its only by a few % points)

New architechtures usually have their share of driver bugs to work out.
This doesn't mean early-adoption is bad... just that it has its downsides too.

There IS something to be said for purchasing tried-and-true tech at a reasonable price. (price cuts are usually how they move stock not sold with the hype)

Honestly, a 570m, 6970m, 6990m, or 580m is quite a lot of horsepower for a laptop right now. Even a ~$1000 560m laptop would handle all but the most demanding games reasonably well.

Until the new consoles ship, most new games are pretty much in a stranglehold as current games already push current consoles to their absolute limits and game companies pretty much limit themselves to console capabilities.

 

that's why there's the problem of upgradability. Everything would be ok if you could just upgrade the components. With that said new ivy bridge cpu's appear to be compatible with the current sandy bridge generation.
Probably you won't be able to upgrade the gpu.
Notebooks have a crippled upgrade path compared to desktops.

I still use the same motherboard since 2008 with a Q6600cpu. I've upgraded the gpu twice as well as SSD's and ram, same case since 2004. It's still future proof because if I want to upgrade to a more modern cpu all I need is the cpu and the motherboard. The gpu and everything will remain compatible.
This kind of upgradability is impossible on a notebook.

I pay special attention to the new thunderbolt interface as we might be able to have external gpu options with about 80% of gpu performance compared to pci-e 2.0 x16. It would partially solve the problem.


Also pricewise is important to see when new technology is going to be released even if we don't need the added performance. previous generations will become instantly cheaper.

 

Honestly external GPU solutions seem silly to me...

-You lose portability and only gain a slight increase of performance over the current gen of gaming laptops.

If you do an external GPU, why not just spend the extra few hundred dollars over the external GPU + laptop and buy a real Desktop case, motherboard, and cpu and a few hundred dollars cheaper laptop and get 100% of the performance of the GPU and a full Desktop processor with full desktop upgradability?

Better yet, you will have more privacy, better data separation when you want it, and better and more complete backup solutions.

The whole point of a gaming laptop is that you can bring it where a desktop dare not go... (on the road in the hotel room, to LAN parties, etc.)

External GPU solutions break the one truly unique advantage gaming laptops bring.

 

external gpu is very silly. buying a cheap laptop and getting a desktop would be a much better solution.

 

Another thing you have to realise about die shrinks is that top end componants will always chew through roughly the same amount of power. Die shrinks make it so that you use less power for the same a mount of performance, however with that it means that more powerful componants can be release which push the boundry back up again. That's just how it is. Top end desktop and laptop CPU's have always chewed through about 100W and 50W respectively.

This is something my dad always brags on about, saying that companies should focus on going mobile and reducing power rather than increasing performance. The fact of the matter is that if you have the option to push a componant harder because it kicks out less heat then some people will. That's why desktops will always be ahead of laptops in terms of performace, because even if they use exactly the same parts you can push them so much harder because of the extra cooling.

 

eGPU are so silly. It's not portable so just buy a really cheap APU 13" notebook and build yourself a proper desktop.

 

The increased clock speed, more cores, faster RAM, all of this result in more heat. And the "more heat" is where die shrinks come in handy. But you are also forgetting that newer core models and a whole new architecture means more efficient design in terms of power consumption than previous generation. The first batch from both Nvidia and AMD will be based on old architecture, Fermi and VLIW, BUT later, in 2012, Nvidia will introduce Kepler and AMD will introduce GCN. The best part is that this new technology is going to be used for the high end GPUs from both. Which means that all in all we will have less hot and more efficient GPUs compared to previous gen (500 series and 6000 series)

And for all mid end users who game now and then, I think they are gonna enjoy a mid end GPU that was previous 40W but is now 20W but is good enough to play old games and newer on mid settings. And they are also the users that will benefit from the IGP of Ivy, so it is a nice combo there for them imo

 

You don't seem to understand my point. With any architecture or die shrink, it's undeniable that per unit of performance it will consume less power. However that in turn means you can get more performance for the same amount of power. Most people looking for a serious gaming notebook aren't so much interested in power draw but rather sheer performace (GPU power draw isn't as much of an issue as it used to be anyway, hybrid graphics and other solutions pretty much negate it).

If I had the option of having a desktop which I could cool with a tiny heatsink, or instead get a computer twice as powerful which requires a better cooling colution then I'd take up the latter option in a pinch.

For mainstream users who aren't concerned with running games, then this isn't so much of an issue and you don't really need to worry about performance. However with games tech constantly evolving and the console refresh looming closer, performance for gamers is the real selling point, not power.

 

Yeah but they don`t release 1 GPU each in the higher segment do they? You get tons of different GPUs with different frequency, bandwith etc so you can pretty much select what you like. Not everyone is interested in picking the badest of the badest. And yes true, both AMD and Nvidia will push Kepler and GCN to the limit. You also need to think about what is "enough" for most future games. If that is lowered with this new architecture, then I say mission accomplished.

 

100W TDP cards were only introduced this generation.

 

Wow, thanks for all the help guys.

What I've decided is that I'm having fun with Fallout 3 right now and it runs fine. Then I'm going to spin Mass Effect (I know, I know, I missed out on some classics). These games both run on my current computer decently. After that's said and done, and if I have the free time and the urges to play Skyrim start becoming unbearable, I will upgrade. Otherwise I will just plan for a March/April upgrade. I don't need to buy a new laptop until July actually, when I move to Japan, so I don't see the point in upgrading right now just yet. It would be overindulgent to be honest, given my busy lifestyle anyway.

Many thanks!

Oh, here's a question: Do you guys recommend XOticPC to buy a new rig? It looks pretty nice. I was thinking Alienware, but they seem overpriced... thoughts? I'm sure there's a ton of info about this already on the site somewhere.

 

XoticPC are awesome. They are in this forum to help you too if you are stuck with something, so their service is top notch. I think everyone at notebookreview can vouch for them

 

I'm been on the sidelines waiting myself. In the end, every time this question comes up, you have the pros and cons go at it and nothing gets resolved. The bottom line is that from your first message, you said you can wait till next Summer. With that alone, and you have a system that can play what you want, it's obvious to me that you should simply wait and you made the right choice above.

On one end of the spectrum, you have people saying you should never wait and just buy so you can enjoy it now. On the other, you have people saying this is coming out, that is coming out so wait...In real life, everyone falls in the middle of that. This depends more on you and how much you can delay gratification and how your machine works now.

I think Cloudfire brings up a lot of concrete points as to why you should wait instead of the usual wait or not with nothing to back it up.

This next 6 month boost isn't just a simple fast upgrade on 1 component. All things windows are getting a huge bump (CPU, Gfx, OS) so to me, it's a no brainer to wait. My wife needed a machine so we ended up buying the M14x right away earlier this year, but I've been looking at the next gen since last November now? Forget already.

Anyhow, I've noticed I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to delayed gratification and have no time anyways to play anything at the moment so I continue to wait.

In regards to XoticPC and Alienware, I think if you have a hard date when you leave for Japan (July), make sure to give yourself enough time to purchase and get the system early with a discount if it's Alienware. All Alienware systems can be bought for 25-30% off all the time so prices aren't as bad as people think. (read the buying forum). There was just a saveology coupon, the farmers offer, geico, all 25%+. With that dell free $75 after a $400 gift card purchase, you can get even a better deal stacking things like DPA, discover card, etc.

Of course, this means you have to be watching it and ready to buy when the deals come.

In terms of timing a buy, when the M17x R3 came out, people who bought really early seemed to have scored some of the best discounts, then a pause, then the discounts have came about every couple of months or so.

Just have to keep an eye out. The next gen Sager's should finally get backlit as well I believe.

In regards to the comment of "All Alienware can be bought for 25-30% off", this is after dell acquired them and recently. In the past, they probably were insanely pricey.

 

xoticpc is one of the best sellers i have encountered, my brother's sager laptop came from them and it was superb

this year is my turn to buy mine, i could've bought a sager np7280-s1 so easily, but their pricing for the 580m's (sick 1.2k usd) turned down the offer to me, so then i ordered to hidevo (m18x) with better deals and pricing and also good service compared to the one i customized in xoticpc sager.

if you are going for a good gaming rig from xoticpc (or even other websites) i recommend sager.

 

I'd probably wait. Seeing as how just the 660M is an overclocked GTX 580M (in raw performance), the 670M and 680M will be something to behold.

 

Nvidia's Upcoming GeForce 600M-Series GPUs Get Detailed ? Report - Softpedia

 

Pretty much what anyone who knows nVidia's history could have guessed.

But honestly I'm in the same boat atm, I think I'm going to buy a cheap used $500 gaming machine off ebay or someone here on the BST soon, then wait til my next big laptop purchase when real high end 28nm chips start shipping.

The thing is, new GPUs may be released every few months based on the same basic design, while die shrinks typically happen every other year, and AMD might actually completely redesign their architecture, so of all the times to hold off in the last year or so, right now is a better time than any to wait for the next generation of video cards. Cpus I can generally care less about since we already have good enough mobile ones that won't bottleneck the GPU in most titles and have decent power saving capabilities. Being that it's a gaming laptop, I'm buying it more for the portability and simply don't have the room for a desktop atm, so it'll be plugged in most of the time anyway, for times when I actually need battery life, that's what my ASUS 1015PN is for.