Many of the publications are reporting the launch date of the Geforce GTX 960 following a report from Hermitage Akihabara and Sweclockers.com. However, this is something we told you guys about a week ago, the only new information we see in HA and Swe's latest report was that they seem confident about the price point and specs. Something I would mention once again, has not been confirmed via Zauba.
GM206, 128-Bit Bus and 2GB of GDDR5 power the GTX 960 at $210
So far around three sources have confirmed the core of th GTX 960 to be the GM206 core. The thing is however, that taping out a new die isn't a small event. The process involved usually means that it is nearly impossible for the new die to avoid leaving a papertrail. Yet, so far there is absolutely no mention of the GM206 on Zauba or anywhere else for that matter. If I were to disregard the claims of these various sources entirely, logically speaking, the die that should power the GTX 960 is a cut variant of the GM204.
I am by no means claiming for certain that the GTX 960 will be powered by a cut GM204, rather that there is zero authentic evidence on the existence of a GM206 core so far. Infact the GTX 960 prototype that was spotted in Zauba had 4GB of GDDR5 and 256 Bit Bus Width, indicating a cut GM204 core. Therefore, I must admit, that if the GTX 960 turns out to house the GM206 after all, it will surprise me quite a bit. Ofcourse there is one other possibility (scrapers: this is obviously speculation) that Nivdia is prepping a GTX 960 along with a GTX 965 or GTX 960 Ti variant. Here the previous one could house the GM206 core and the latter could house the GM204 core. It is worth pointing out that the Mobility variant, GTX 965, exists already.
Anyways, the price point reported by HA is $200-210, which is the price/performance sweet spot of any GPU lineup. The card will be launching around January 22 and is powered by 1 Six Pin connector which adds to a total of 150W TDP counting the power from the PCI-E slot s well. Ofcourse, AIB variants will probably add more power connectors to bump up the clocks. The less than 150W TDP indicates once again the power efficiency of the Maxwell architecture, and the trend shift of the Industry to greener architecture.
