Since we told you about AMD’s Sea Islands yesterday, what’s new on the Nvidia side? Just like AMD, the short answer is not much.

SemiAccurate’s sources have used two names for the ‘big’ gaming GPU, GK114 and GK114-GX. Given how similar the naming is, we wouldn’t count out GX114 either. For the sake of sanity, we will refer to it as GK114 until we get better documentation. Like AMD, it will be late, not much of an advance, and have everything dictated by process limits.

GK114 is currently slated for March “best case”, but given Nvidia’s track record of late that may be very optimistic. Sources who have been briefed on the GPU say that Nvidia is really hedging on mass availability, so April or May is much more likely.

Like AMD, Nvidia is also putting out a minor update to the GK104, not that it is a bad starting point. On the performance side, Nvidia is also power and size bound, but a bit less so than AMD, but the numbers line up pretty closely. They are promising those who have been briefed the same +15% increase that AMD is.

`The one open question is, has Nvidia solved their process woes? The answer to that question is almost assuredly no since Nvidia still has not addressed the core problem causing all of the issues. That said they will likely make a lot of progress, or at least TSMC will and it will benefit Nvidia as well. This will most likely ease capacity problems by having fewer defective dies, but that will be a minor effect.

In the end, GK114 will remain about level with AMD’s Sea Islands. Both are bound by the same process limits, and both are contained by costs. In the end, this round is going to be a yawner, if not the last hurrah for GPUs in general. S|A