Nvidia Kepler GK104 Will Be Available in Two Versions, Says Report

Nvidia’s upcoming GK104 graphics core based on the company’s next-gen Kepler architecture is expected to arrive in two different versions, according to a report that has reached the Web recently.

According to SemiAccurate’s findings, the two graphics cores will be called GK104-400 and GK104-335.

Both of these will actually be based on the same GPU, but the former comes as a fully working GK104, while the latter is partially fused off version of the same chip.

The main difference between the two lies in the number of graphics processing clusters they will include, since the -400 is said to be a “8 group” device compared to the -335 which is described as a “7 group” GPU.

According to the source, Nvidia took this decision because it wanted to make its Kepler GPUs much more flexible than before, as they can now disable smaller “chunks” of the graphics core in order to build lower end parts.

This design should help Nvidia improve yields and allow for virtually endless GPU variations, although it does add a bit to the overall size of the graphics core die.

While the shader count and operating clocks have not been provided, the Thermal Design Power (TDP) of GK104 cards seems to be set at 225W, which is pretty much similar to that of the GTX 570 (219W).

Judging by the designation used by Nvidia for this core, we expect the GK104 to come as a replacement for the graphics cards in the popular GeForce GTX 560 (GF114) and GTX 460 (GF104) product families.

Just like AMD has done for the Radeon HD 7900-series, Nvidia’s Kepler GPUs will also be manufactured using TSMC's high-K metal gate (HKMG) 28nm fabrication process.

Nvidia’s next-gen graphics core is expected to be more flexible in terms of programmability than the current Fermi architecture. The first Kepler parts should arrive in Q2 of this year.

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