Will Maxwell be the last of MXM? *** NVLink ***?

I presume Pascal GPUs won't be out till late 2016 but it's never too early to talk about the future

As desktop Pascal GPUs will be 1/3 the size of current gen GPUs + the use of NVLink to replace PCI-E will mobile GPUs also get a size shrink + the adaptation of NVLink?

 

I don't think anyone's knows for sure. One thing is I'm not too worried about Nvidia's timeline as they change it as they see fit anyway.

 

Pascal will be out around the same time Skylake is out, which is now late 2015. And yeah, Pascal will be different and won't be an "upgradeable" GPU.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...w-alienware-s-coming-maxwell.html#post9787719

It looks like companies are introducing low-end GPU's/CPU's earlier now, and high-end stuff later.

 

I doubt Maxwell will only last one year cus that would be strange.

 

Pascal won't be out in 2015. At least not in a meaningful way. Just like Maxwell 20nm never came out last summer like everyone was saying. Even their updated Micky mouse roadmap says 2016.



Nvidia haven't even begun milking their new cash cow

 

I was a big advocate of that as well, but after reading into Skylake and learning that Intel is jumping ahead, I think it would be more weird to have a new generation of CPU's and still be using old GPU's. The other way around makes more sense. Anyway, I'm talking about low-end cards being released earlier. Not the cards we all want to have. It may still be 2016 before we see the cards that really matter.

@TBone: NVIDIA will change that road-map. They've done it twice already.

 

Maxwell is here to stay throughout 2015 for sure.

MXM is also here to stay. NVlink will allow much greater bandwidth, but MXM modules can easily support that increase in memory bus. Today`s 256bit limitations is due to space limitation because VRAM and bus takes space. One of the purpose is getting more bandwidth out of todays space allocations, with the use of stacked memory

 

And both have been to delay it, with the last one completely kicking Volta off the map.

 

I thought nvlink was based on pci express.

 

Oh that's just great. That's exactly what I afraid of. I won't be surprised even Maxwell come out with non-MXM slot. And I was thinking that I will use my GT70 barebone for another five years by adding new GPU when it is not sufficent enough. Pollyanna would have been proud lol...

 

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This is probably a redundant question put to you all here, but is it confirmed that the upcoming 980m will indeed be fully Maxwell or partially?
Also, for those of us with the 880m's, can it be swapped out for the 980m and replaced?
I have heard that it can be, but I am not completely sure my "source" is entirely accurate there.
I know that it will be a costly upgrade to do so, IF it can be, but without knowing enough about the 980m, I wonder if the extra cost will be worth swapping out the 880m?

 

No one can answer any of these questions, outside of the fact that the 980M is clearly a Maxwell 2 part.

 

980M is an MXM card so you would be able to swap out the cards as long as your machine supports vanilla MXM cards and your BIOS isn't tied to the card in some way.

Alienware machines should not be a problem, Clevo updated the SM-A series with a new BIOS for the new cards so they shouldn't be a problem but the other vendors is a big unknown and ASUS is a big hell no because they don't use standard MXM cards and older Clevo machines will need a modded system BIOS to support the new cards.

Keep in mind, these 980M will probably cost 1k a piece on eBay. May just be better to sell old machine and buy a new one.

Leaked specs would seem to say that 980M is cut down GM204, which would be expected from nVidia so they can milk Maxwell for a few generations.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

There will likely be a chassis refresh next year with Clevo, so who knows on compatibility then?

 

That's why I said SM-A will be getting 970M and 980M but all bets are off when Broadwell launches. Then any new cards that come will probably require Prema to make a BIOS mod.

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