Quote Originally Posted by zerazax View Post
Here's what I think might happen:

We all know that G92 usually has 128SP's, but that 1 of the 8 are de-activated / laser-etched out. Thus, we know that G92 can support 128SP's. It makes little sense for Nvidia to sit around disabling cores that could be at their full potential. Hence, we might see a GTS version with 128SP's (what they really need to do is rename 8800GT to 8900GT, and name the 128SP GTS to 8900GTS). Then we have GTS > GT again.

Afterwards, Nvidia can combine two GT's together and make a new GX2 as they did before. Then marketing can have a field day with the 1GB (2 x 512MB), 224 SP's, etc. Lets just hope its drivers don't suck like the GX2's ended up being.

Or, IIRC, the G80 was touted as having the capability of reaching 160SP's but thermals, cost, and power could not work on the 90nm process. With 65nm, they might see if they can expand the G92 to 160 SP's with new revisions and increase shader clocks as well, and make a new GTX/Ultra. Then we'd be back at GTX>GTS>GT. If you use how Nvidia calculates flops, a GTX with 160 SP's at 2000 Shader Clock is ~1TFp (3 x 160 x 2000 as they calculate it) and voila, you have that magic 1TFp card of ancient lore everyone talks about.

And that way you can release those new high ends at early next year once work is done with them and sway the crowd over until the real new generation architecture (9-series) gets released sometime halfway next year.

A big reason why the 8-series architecture has lived so long with minimal changes is simple: the G80 is one of the most advanced and best designed cores ever made in video card history. Why abandon something so quickly that has been a winner? 9-series work is undoutedly already well under way, but if there is no rush to get that one out, keep working with what you have.

I don't know if there'll be another GX2, I believe the GX2 was more of a desperation move since they were losing against ATi at the time and had to release something for marketing superiority. IE: "we have the fastest single slot solution!"

As for the names, yes it's confusing, but remember how so many of us complained when they were coming out with "GS, GT, GTS, GTX" segment lines, I thought it was insane that they gave us that many choices and segments/niches. But now, said and done, I kind of like it, and I kind of understand their reasoning.

Usually...but not always... they seem to release two top contenders(say.. GTS/GTX), then they release a respin say the GT, then one more last respin that adds value to the product line: GS.

So starts to make some sense now, as chaotic as it is, it's all released in time revisions, but it's extremely confusing to people who try to buy a GPU after all lines have been released and they're out of the loop, one might say, "where do I begin?? Which is better than the other?!?!"