Nvidia is preparing its GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card featuring the "big Maxwell" GM200 GPU for introduction this summer. Nvidia has already launched its flagship GTX Titan X graphics card, featuring a 12GB of VRAM and a fully unlocked GM200 GPU with 3072 Maxwell CUDA cores.

Thus it has been speculated for quite some time that Nvidia will follow that launch with a GTX 980 Ti introduction at a lower price point but still based on that same GM200 GPU all be it with a few CUDA cores disabled. However that's not going to happen according to the report by our good friends from Sweden. What is going to happen is actually even better.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti Coming This Summer Featuring 3072 CUDA Cores and 6GB of GDDR5

According to Sweclockers.com the card in question will actually feature the full 3072 CUDA cores and will not use a cut-down GM200 GPU. In addition the card will be clocked 10% higher than the Titan X, so it will in fact be faster. Finally the memory will be halved, down from 12GB to a more reasonable 6GB.

The question of price immediately comes up, how will Nvidia price this product ? because it will offer superior performance to the Titan X based on the alleged specifications all be it with less memory. And because the Maxwell architecture has very poor double precision performance by design. The Titan X cannot be differentiated from the GTX 980 Ti based on double precision performance as was the case with the GTX Titan Black and the 780 Ti. So the main difference will be the size of the frame buffer. How much of a price difference will the 6GB of additional VRAM inflict ? We'll have to wait and see.

Although from a functionality stand point 6GB of VRAM will be enough for the majority of current game titles at 4K. There are a few circumstances where memory usage will actually exceed 6GB and reach up to 7GB according to Nvidia's own testing as well as independent testing. Which might be a downside for potential GTX 980 Ti SLI users at 4K who may very well run into this problem, giving the Titan X an advantage here. Or even allowing AMD to take advantage of this downside with its fabled 8GB R9 390X, which is rumored to go head to head with Nvidia's Titan X in terms of performance.

And apart from the difference in the amount of available VRAM. The Titan X is manufactured directly by Nvidia. Nvidia's add-in-board partners are not allowed to sell any modified versions of the card with a different PCB design or a different cooler out of the box. The case will be very different with the 980 Ti. As Nvidia will allow its AIB's to differentiate themselves with custom PCBs and cooling solutions, a plus for consumers.