My guess is that a GTX 960 (GM206) will turn up towards the end of January.
It looks like it will be 4GB DDR5,256 BIT,993/6008, and I’m expecting 1280 CUDA Cores.
In some respects a 3GB version would make more sense but NVidia will likely fill the GF 900 range out a bit more around March and then again over the summer, so in due course there will be a greater variety.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Count another guess for 192 bit memory bus with 3 GB GDDR5.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I was going by this Zauba shipment,

GRAPHIC CARD GTX 960 4GB DDR5,256 BIT,993/6008 HDCP,DUAL DVI,HDMI,DP P PAKC (PCI,PCB POPULATED,VGA CARD,COMP. ACCESS)

https://www.zauba.com/import-GTX960-hs-code.html
Originally there was speculation of a Sept/Oct 960 release followed by an apparent U-turn due to good 980/970 sales. On reflection that '960' was probably an Engineering Sample, of a GTX970 with 384shaders disabled and is probably only what might have been. I'm not sure that NV were ever going to start shipments by Oct but if they did change their minds (after some sales modelling; if 960's would eat into 970 sales/profits) the specs that appeared once over 3months ago might be a long way from what might appear in a few weeks. Odd that they didn't call it a 965 (akin to the 465). While the above might still see the light of day in the form of a GTX965 or 960Ti, a 1280, 3GB, 192bus GM206 version would make more sense for a scaled down version of a GM204.

In terms of spec speculation just about every realistic combination of bus, memory, ROP, TMU and shader count has been predicted.

I've seen 960 speculations as low as a 128bit bus and 2GB GDDR5, but to me that sounds more like specs from a would be GTX950Ti.

Given the fact that 1280:80:48 mobile versions already exists (970m) I would fully expect something like that to turn up. The 970m comes with 3GB or 6GB GDDR5 and a 192bit bus. The big brother to this is 1536:96:64, with either 4GB GDDR5 or 8GB, but a 256bit bus. Both of these are GM204 but a discrete GM206 model without disabled units could well have 1280shaders. As for memory and bus, it and its lesser siblings (GM207, GM208) could have anywhere from 2GB to 8GB of GDDR5 and anything from a 64bit bus up to 256bit.

As soon as we know the actual 960 specs we should have a realistic idea of performance.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Until we see the actual specifications we can only speculate. A 128bit bus or a boost cap could cripple it as an SP compute card, or it could come with a 256bit bus, 3 or 4GB RAM and boost really well. A dud or a lean mean crunching machine...
If it's got 1280shaders and a decent bus then two GTX960's are likely to outperform a GTX980.
As for pricing, I've seen a ~15% 980 price drop recently for some cards; from £449 to £389 (for new stock).
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

I agree: that Zaube shipment from last fall was probably an egineering sample based on GM204, hence the 4 GB and 256 bit bus. It probably represents the performance nVidia was targeting for GTX960 back then. The unusually low memory clock could well simulate highly clocked GDDR5 on a 192 bit bus.

The performance can be expected approximately in the middle between GTX750 and GTX980, so 2 960 vs. 1 980 is still undecided.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

128 bit is barely enough for GM107 - things are certainly getting interesting! It could also be misinformation of those shops, or speculation on their part. nVidia can implement 192 bit busses with 2 and 4 GB, as they did with GTX660Ti.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Today at CES, Aorus announced a forthcoming (2nd Q) laptop with dual GTX965M GPUs. It comes with a 15.6" 3840*2160 (4k) screen. Basically it's a £2K games console!

http://www.kitguru.net/laptops/anton-shilov/nvidia-geforce-gtx-965m-spotted-in-drivers/

965M Specs:
GM204, 1024 cuda cores, 924 MHz GPU +Boost, 128 Bit, 5GHz, 2 to 4GB GDDR5.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-965M-joins-the-product-portfolio.134107.0.html



It wouldn't surprise me if a GM206 GTX960 turned up with similar specs, followed by a Ti in a couple of months.
With only 1024 shaders it wouldn't suffer as much with a 128bit bus, but it would be well off the performance of a GTX970 - about 2/3rds.
This would be similar to the relative GTX670 and GTX660 performances.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Wow, they're cutting GM204 in half? That's a seriously expensive proposition (for nVidia). I suppose this 965M will transition to GM206 as quickly as possible.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Yes, that would be half the cuda cores and half the bus of a 980, so I expect performance to be around half. The 760 had half the cores of a 780, but used the same bus width.

videocardz.com said of the 960, "The only certain thing is the memory configuration of 2GB GDDR5 and 128-bit interface".
http://videocardz.com/54214/exclusive-msi-geforce-gtx-960-gaming-2g-and-gtx-960-100-million-edition-pictured

They also say the 960 will be GM206-300 and going by pictures of the die size will likely have between 8 and 10 SMMs; 1024-1280 CUDA Cores. So that means 1024, 1152 or 1280.
http://videocardz.com/54201/exclusive-nvidia-maxwell-gm206-pictured
That in itself suggests a would-be 960Ti would not be GM206.

With 1024 cores its performance if it scales might be around that of a GTX 660Ti or a GTX 670 but for 1/3rd less power (or better).

Whatever turns up it will give people something to choose between a 750Ti and a 970, and that's a good thing.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Well, the GTX960 WILL be 2GB, 128bit, 1177 to 1240MHz ref boost GPU, 3500MHz/7GHz GDDR5:

An ASUS OC version has since appeared on a shipping manifest:

STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-2GD5//GTX960,DVI,HDMI,DP 3, 2G,D5 90YV07N0 - M0NA00 ( ASUS ) VGA

One 6-pin power supply (75W) + 75W from the slot provides for up to 150W. An 8-pin model makes no sense; it's only half the size of a 980 which has a 165W TDP. It doesn't need a 'physical' 225W TDP.

My guess is that a reference design version would be somewhere around 95W.
Fully expect these to OC-boost to 1350+ and then some. 1500MHz might well be true but for here we will have to wait and see.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

GTX 960 AMPI EDITION 2GB DDR5 128BIT 1266-1329/7010 HDCP - ZT-90303-10M (PCI,PCB POPULATED,VGA CARD,COMPUTER ACCESS)

Probably an FOC, but if its a base clock, 1266 is 12.4% higher than that of a Ref. GTX980 (1126MHz), and I'm running a 970 at 1350, so that scales (1350*1.124) to >1500MHz.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Full dies always overclock better than a Cut down.

It is a bit of a puzzle why the cut-down chips don't do better. I expect it is because they disable portions of the active circuitry that are not functioning correctly, but leave behind the clock lines. That just maintains the capacitive load without the means to drive it at full speed.

Ah, now I got your point. Power consumption of the clock signal is indeed a serious issue in modern chips. But during recent years there has often been talk about better "clock gating" when new chips were presented. I always understood this as not delivering the clock signal to regions of the chips which are currently not in use, i.e. power gated. If the ycan do this, they can also clock gate deactivated SMMs.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Quickly looking at your results shows the GTX960 card being a bit faster than half the performance of your GTX980 - which is nice, since it's only got half the raw power. But saving only 45 W? Given the TDPs this number is plausible, but is that worth it? You could have simply lowered the power target on the GTX980 or lowered the fan speed, which would have made it boost less while staying at 80°C.

Anyway, I'm sure you got some good money for your GTX980 and if you're happy with the GTX960, so be it :)

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Thanks for the more precise numbers, Dave!

They still look good: your GTX960 has somewhat higher clock speeds and average GPU utilization is generally higher for smaller cards (which explains the remaining performance advantage of the GTX960).

Be careful when judging power draw, though: many cards have power targets set in their BIOs which differ from nVidias recommended values. You can not easily see this, as all you're given are percentages. "MaxwellBiosTweaker" can read it out (and modify it, if one wants to). Your GTX960 should currently draw about 100 W, whereas a typical power target for GTX980 cards is 180 W. A card with blower-style cooler has probably no higher setting than this, but it may still be more than nVidias stock value of 165 W. So I estimate you're saving 60 - 80 W or % now, which is fine considering the performance. Hard measurements would be better, for sure, but you'd need a power meter for this.

Edit: or look into your GPU BIOS, so you know exactly which power draw xx% translates into.

MrS
____________
Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

You appear to be crunching Einstein on your CPU.
Ask yourself a question - Why?

Huh? I did measure power draw.

It went from 320W down to 275W. Approx. -15% compared to my GTX 980. Both with lower power limit.

The power drop from 320W to 275W was simply explained by the GPU TDP/usage drop; 165 to 120 is 45W.
With respect to the GPU's this is a 37.5% drop but to the systems power usage it's a ~15% drop (275/320=0.859).
A 15% reduction in system power usage vs a >40% performance loss isn't good.
____________
FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help