Nvidia Kepler GK104 GPU Die Size Exposed – Report

The die size on Nvidia’s highly anticipated GK104 “Kepler” GPU was exposed recently by a Chinese website that apparently entered into the possession of an image depicting the company’s next-gen 28nm graphics core.

The picture, published just earlier today by Expreview, has the GK104 GPU standing next to a G92b graphics processor, which we already know it has a die size of 231 square millimeters.

Since the Kepler GPU pictured looks to be only slightly larger than the G92b, it seems that Nvidia’s new chip will be a great deal smaller than the company’s current Fermi GF110 and GF114 cores.

This also seems to be confirmed by some measurements revealed by Expreview, which state that the Kepler GPU packaging measures 40mm x 40mm, while its die is 17.2mm x 17.2mm, which makes it just 296 square millimeters big.

In comparison, the AMD Tahiti GPU, utilized by the Sunnyvale-based company for the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 graphics cards, measures 365 square millimeters and includes no less than 4.5 billion transistors.

Little is known about the GK104 at this time, but apparently this Kepler GPU will feature a Dynamic Clock Adjustment technology.

According to a previous report, this works similarly to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology to automatically increase the graphics core frequency with 5 to 7 percent when the card works bellow its rated TDP.

The GK104 Kepler core is also expected to feature 256-bit memory bus connected to 2GB of GDDR5 video buffer memory, but later versions will also be available with 4GB of VRAM.

Nvidia’s first GK104-based graphics cards are expected to arrive in late March. Initially, graphics card makers expect Nvidia to ship only limited quantities of GK104 chips, which means that widespread availability isn’t expected before Q2 2012.

Posted in: Hardware, Preview