Nvidia GTX 11 series of graphics cards are something that we all have been waiting for but we have heard little to nothing about the upcoming gaming graphics cards that are based on the Nvidia Volta architecture and there might be a good reason behind that. It is possible that Nvidia is not planning on releasing any new gaming graphics cards based on the next generation architecture any time soon.
Why would the company not release the Nvidia GTX 11 series or Nvidia Volta based gaming graphics cards in the near future you ask? Well, there are a number of reasons why this might be the case. Here we are going to look into different theories as to why this could be the case and some recent events that support these theories.
No Nvidia Volta Gaming GPUS In The Near Future
Nvidia Pascal based GTX 10 series came out 2 years ago and it was very successful to start with due to the increased performance and efficiency as compared to the previous generation. The cost of the performance that Pascal had to offer was also lower as compared to older graphics cards so of course gamers wanted the latest and greatest because it was and is great value for money.
No Competitive Motivation
Nvidia has 70% of the gaming market covered which means that every 3 out of 4 gamers have an Nvidia graphics card. That is a very dominant ratio and Nvidia has always been the dominant force in the gaming GPUs market. While AMD Polaris and Vega based GPUs tried to make an impact and take back that market share, the dent that they made was not too big.
AMD is not introducing any new architecture this year when it comes to their lineup of graphics cards and at most, we are expecting that AMD Vega will be moved to the 7nm process. While this shift will enable better performance and efficiency you won’t be getting a major boost and there will be nothing groundbreaking.
Nvidia is already the market leader so the company has little to no motivation to take on the competition and introduce something new into the market. At the end of the day, Nvidia is a company and it is going to maximize its investments. Pascal is an investment and Nvidia is going to try and dish out as many Pascal based graphics cards as possible and we have seen that with the new GTX 1060 as well as the 3 GB variant of the GTX 1050.
Developing an architecture takes some serious research and development not to mention the process that has to be used in order to provide better performance and efficiency with each new graphics architecture. It would not be surprised if Nvidia did not release the Volta based gaming graphics cards this year and dished out a couple of more Pascal based GPUs instead. The company would just be making the most of its investment.
Computex 2018 Launch Seems Unlikely
When the Nvidia Volta based gaming graphics cards were not mentioned at GTC or GDC people anticipated an announcement at Computex 2018 but that seems unlikely keeping in mind that Nvidia likes to create a lot of buzz around the launch beforehand and the company also likes to make such announcements at special events that are dedicated to the launch of such products. Remember the launch of Pascal?
Furthermore, At the JP Morgan Technology, Media and Communications Conference, Ms. Colette Kress, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President at Nvidia mentioned that there would be a special surprise at Computex 2018 but she also added that Pascal is the best right now which could mean that Nvidia is going to stick to Pascal this year and release Nvidia Volta based graphics cards later on.
If I was to take a guess the surprise could be a replacement for the Titan V which is also based on the Volta architecture but is not a gaming graphics card. With the event being just around the corner we will have to wait and see what happens. This is not a confirmation from Nvidia so do take this with a grain of salt.
VRAM Shortage
VRAM shorage has been an issue and it seems that this was due to collusion between different VRAM manufacturers. Whatever the case may be, the prices of VRAM is pretty high and that could be one of the reasons why Nvidia Volta has not come out yet and why the company has not mentioned anything about the release of the gaming graphics cards.
There is a case going on as we speak and the claim that VRAM prices have been artificially inflated due to limiting stock is being investigated. This is illegal and VRAM manufacturers will have to pay a hefty fine is this is indeed what is happening behind the scenes.
Sticking To Pascal
As mentioned, Nvidia seems to be sticking to Pascal with the introduction of the latest GTX 1050 3 GB model. The GPU comes with an additional GB of VRAM as compared to the 2 GB model and also features the same number of CUDA cores as the Ti version. Now there are 3 models to choose from. Before this, we saw 2 versions of the GTX 1060. One version was based on the GP104 GPU and we also saw a mining version that came with 5 GB VRAM.
One can argue that If Nvidia was planning to release the Nvidia Volta based gaming GPUs then these cards should not be coming out 2 years later. Another theory is that Nvidia Volta is on course and Nvidia is just shipping out the yield that it has left but I think that is not the case.
We are going to be looking at Nvidia Volta in the coming days so stay tuned to SegmentNext for more information related to Nvidia Volta based gaming graphics cards.
Let us know what you think about Nvidia Volta gaming GPUs and whether or not you think they will be coming out this year.
