NVIDIA's next generation Ampere GPU based GeForce graphics cards are going to be much faster and much more efficient than Turing GPUs, as reported by Taipei Times (via Tomshardware). It has been stated that NVIDIA is all set to launch their next-generation Ampere GPU in the second half of 2020, leading to a rebound in demand for gaming and notebook GPUs.
NVIDIA Next-Gen 7nm Ampere GPU Based GeForce Graphics Cards Up To 50% Faster and Twice As Efficient Than Turing - Launching in 2H of 2020, Report Claims
The report claims that NVIDIA's successor to the Turing GPU architecture, codenamed Ampere, will be a major deal for the graphics industry, offering bigger than expected performance leaps in both, general performance and efficiency. The report once again points out to Ampere adopting the 7nm process node.
In a previous interview, NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, had confirmed that the majority of the orders for their next-generation 7nm GPU would be handled by TSMC while a small portion would be sent to Samsung for production. Finally, Jensen was asked about the launch timeframe of their next-generation 7nm GPU but he simply replied that it wasn't a convenient time for them to disclose any date at the moment. We know from a recent interview with NVIDIA's CFO, Colette Kress, that they want to surprise everyone with their own 7nm GPU announcement but they are waiting for the right time to do so.
According to the Taipei Times, NVIDIA's Ampere GPU is going to deliver seriously impressive figures in both performance and efficiency. The overall performance gain is expected to be 50% higher than existing Turing GPUs while offering twice the power efficiency. It is clearly mentioned that Ampere would halve the power consumption compared to existing Turing GPUs. This means that a GPU with a lower TDP figure than the RTX 2060 (125-150W) would be able to outperform the 2080 Ti which is seriously impressive. One can only expect the kind of performance which a high-end GPU based on the Ampere architecture would offer as we can definitely expect true 4K 60 FPS ray-traced gaming from the updated architecture.
The Ampere GPU wouldn't only improve the rasterization and shading performance but also deliver huge uplifts over Turing in ray tracing performance. Since Turing was the 1st generation implementation of ray tracing on NVIDIA graphics cards, Ampere would further optimize and is expected to offer more ray tracing hardware onboard in the form of RT and Tensor cores.
We know that even while NVIDIA is on 12nm FinFET with their Turing GPUs, they offer tremendous power efficiency which is the direct result of their advanced microarchitecture and several hardware level optimizations that have been made over various generations since Kepler, Maxwell and Pascal. The next-generation Ampere GPU will not only be outfitted with a more advanced architecture, but also the new 7nm process node which would bring them on par with AMD's Navi lineup. So, based on this, the 2x power efficiency doesn't sound like a dream talk at all.
It is also stated that all major manufacturers would get a huge increase to their gaming business with MSI's sales expected to cross 60% as most of their sales come from the gaming sector. ASUS and Gigabyte are expected to have their revenue growth projected around 30% with Ampere GPUs and notebook sales would be a key highlight for each company.
We have already seen the first implementation of NVIDIA's next-generation 7nm Ampere GPU in the Orin SOC. Ampere is definitely something we all should get excited about, but 2H 2020 is still a long way to go.
It is possible that NVIDIA could unveil some details of their next-generation GPU at CES 2020 or they can keep it under wraps for a later event, say GTC 2020, Computex 2020 or even E3 2020 if they want a proper GeForce launch. For now, we know that Turing is proving to be a major gainer in terms of market share for NVIDIA with their recent SUPER lineup gaining momentum in the discrete segment.
