Nvidia GTX 1080 May Only be GP104 and GDDR5X

With both the Pascal announcement and GeForce launch coming ins the next 2 months, more information is being leaked about the upcoming Nvidia cards. According to the latest rumour, the first GeForce Pascal card to launch, the GTX 1080, will not be as impressive as many had hoped. As expected from Nvidia, they are keeping with their tradition to launch first with the mainstream GP104 die first in order to maximise yields and profits.

Utilizing the GP104 based on the 16nmFF+ process from TSMC, the GTX 1080 may yet be the fastest Nvidia card yet on the market till the bigger GP100 GeForces launches later. Despite the boost in performance, it appears that Nvidia will be sticking to 8GB of plain old GDDR5X, and not using HBM2 as some have suggested. While GDDD5X does have some disadvantages, it is a decent upgrade over GDDR5 and allows for an earlier launch than using HBM2 as production for those chips are still ramping up.

Furthermore, the leak specifies the display outputs as DisplayPort x2, HDMI x1, DVI x1 and the use of only 1 PCIe 8 pin power connector. This limits power to 225W but with the new architecture and use of 16nmFF+, this may still allow the card to dance with the 980Ti. The launch date is reported as May 27th, just before Computex. Big Pascal GP100 is set to launch before that date though so stay tuned!