At the rate things are going, Pascal may end up the most hyped graphics card release in recent memory. So far we’ve been treated to die shots of GP106, the low-end chip used in the Drive PX 2. The GP104, set to release a little over a month from now, has remained hidden from view, till today.
Coming out from Chinese forums, we can finally see what GP104 looks like. The SKU we have before us is the GP104-200, the one that is expected to be used for the GTX 1070, the middle of the pack for GP104. The die size comes in at about 333 mm2 which is remarkably similar to the GM204. Around the die, we are able to see some Samsung 8Gbps 8Gb modules. This is what we have expected for the GTX 1070 and suitable for the GTX 1080 if it doesn’t use GDDRRX.
Overall, the leak today confirms what we already know about Nvidia’s plans. They will start off with the small GXx04 die as the “flagship” and follow it up with the bigger die later on. If the die size is correct, we maybe seeing a decently larger chip than the GM204 due to the die shrink. However, Pascal may bring back some of the compute cut out in Maxwell so it remains to be seen how the chip will truly perform.
