A few features have finally be put to the blank face that has only been known as the GT300. A few key details of the upcoming NVIDIA generation of video cards have been leaked, the first of which is a name. Codenamed Fermi, after the developer of the first nuclear power reactor, Enrico Fermi, it appears to be quite suiting when looking at the rumoured specs.
Sources say that the card will be build on the 40nm manufacturing process and feature 3 billion transistors, a 384-bit memory interface running on approximately 1.5GB (3GB and 6GB versions also rumoured) of GDDR5 memory. Taking GPU computing in a new direction, NVIDIA is redeveloping ”shader cores” into CUDA cores, of which the card will feature 512. There are 32 of CUDA cores packed into each of the described “Shader Clusters” for a total of 16 clusters. The beauty of this new design is that these clusters are able to operate independently and balance load on calculations.
In another unique approach, they have added 1MB of L1 Cache onto the card, and divided it into 16KB chunks along with 786KB of unified L2 cache. NVIDIA is clearly pushing to embrace the video card as the new power house of the computer, and develop its parallel computing technology in mainstream video cards while still maintaining dominance in the visual graphics.
The icing on the cake is the native language and API support for CUDA (C), C++, Fortran, DirectCompute 11, DirectX 11, OpenGL 3.1, and OpenCL.
NVIDIA’s GTC conference is being held today, and we look forward to updating you later in the day as we hear more. It is rumoured that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will be debuting a working model of the GT300 during his keynote.
For more technical details on the GT300 visit the Bright Side of News
September 30, 2009 10:49 AM
Sounds ridiculous...
September 30, 2009 10:54 AM
3 billion transistors? thats ridiculous..
September 30, 2009 10:54 AM
sad, and we alll thought ATI was going to pull an AMD again. :C
September 30, 2009 11:28 AM
3 billion
and guess what, she can drive your kids out when always giving a awesome performance of gamin in DX11 game. I wont belive before I see! 
maybe are they all 2 GPU card so 1.5+1.5 make 3?
Ask for more.
September 30, 2009 11:32 AM
IMHO, im not sure going for such insane performance is really beneficiary at this point. I mean, unless Nvidia comes out with a counter for the Eyefinity technology which allows far more pixels than a single 30'' to be driven at once, there is almost no need for such power. Think about it for a second: Why do you need 3 Billion transistors at 40nm with 1.5Gb of GDDR5... and you're only running a 24" panel @ 1900x1200? It doesn't make sense, this graphics card would be insane overkill. Now if Nvidia DOES come out with a counter, then it makes more sense. As soon as you start extra more monitors you need bigger boosts in graphics horsepower. We'll see just what Nvidia does here, perhaps there's a big magic white rabbit hidden somewhere in their top hat, hehe.
September 30, 2009 11:34 AM
September 30, 2009 11:38 AM
Eyefinity isn't really much, just glorified multi-monitor. You can use SLI multi-monitor, right? So that's up to 9 displays or so (3 plugs x3 cards?)
September 30, 2009 11:38 AM
come to think of it, this card is probably going to be Extremely expensive...
Unless I'm mistaken, its their first 40nm/GDDR5 graphics card ever, something that AMD has had for many months now (since the 4770). Going to be one hell of a premium to buy "3-billion transistors". hehe
September 30, 2009 11:44 AM
Well it certainly sounds good....
This is pretty much my first time reading prerelease stuff like this so I'm interested to see how much of this is FUD
September 30, 2009 11:50 AM
Keep in mind, to use Eyefinity - you HAVE to have a DisplayPort monitor attached and you CAN'T use an adapter.
I haven't managed to find an instock DP monitor yet, let alone one that isn't ridiculously overpriced compared to a regular input. + You have the chore of finding a cable which runs a good $30+
I can't remember where I read it, but I feel as though this sums it up between the new ATI and NVIDIA cards:
ATI's cards are an EVOLUTION. They have adapted their existing technology to enhance the gaming experience and visuals. NVIDIA is a REVOLUTION. They have overthrown the original way of thinking and the video card, and are seemingly creating a whole new card focusing on parallel computing and GPU based processing along with improved gaming and graphics. NVIDIA envisions, that the graphics card, can be the new major system component capable of running everything.
It has potential to be a wild success.... or an utter failure.
September 30, 2009 12:20 PM
The issue at this point is DisplayPort. Nothing more and nothing less. People have no issue going to the computer recycler or Ebay and picking up a trio of $100 22" monitors. Talk about a DP monitor though and you get a massive price increase. I am sure that the overall price will go down in the coming months but at this point, there is very little reason out there to recommend DisplayPort.
September 30, 2009 12:43 PM
September 30, 2009 12:46 PM
The most intriguing thing to me is the L1 and L2 cache integrated into it....
September 30, 2009 12:49 PM
September 30, 2009 01:12 PM
Very much looking forward to this..!
GTX 380 SLI ....perhaps Jan (after the Christams rush)...3 x GTX 280's For sale ;)
September 30, 2009 02:02 PM
Intel realized several years ago that Monolithic wasnt working. Why havnt ATi/nV?
September 30, 2009 04:01 PM
GTX 380 SLI ....perhaps Jan (after the Christams rush)...3 x GTX 280's For sale ;)
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What he said... 2 gtx 295's for sale soon.
September 30, 2009 04:11 PM
if ati's cards are close to these in performance with the significantly lower number of transistors I'd say that ATI had a nice advantage over nVidia
September 30, 2009 04:19 PM
September 30, 2009 04:52 PM
September 30, 2009 05:00 PM
Here is a cool video.
YouTube - NVIDIA Fermi Architecture Interview - PC Perspective