Despite Nvidia keeping a tight lip about what it plans to reveal during the Game Developers Conference later in February, the company’s big surprise was spoiled by its own GeForce website. Right now, the site includes a new splash page sporting a countdown timer targeting its upcoming GeForce GTX Gaming Celebration event during GDC 2017. That event is sold out, but the company will likely stream whatever it plans to debut on the hardware front at 7 p.m. (PT) on Tuesday.
That said, previous reports assumed that the event would be Nvidia’s launchpad for the highly-anticipated GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card. However, thanks to the GeForce website, the card’s reveal is no longer a surprise. Embedded within the splash page’s source are two references to the currently unannounced card:
gdc-2017/GTX1080Ti_Countdown__Hero_1920x1080_h264_2mbps.mp4
gdc-2017/GTX1080Ti_Countdown_WebM_2kbps_variable_vp8.webm
As the file names show, Nvidia’s current countdown timer is unquestionably tied to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card reveal. Obviously, we have no official hardware specs or pricing, but the card will likely cost around $900 given that it will reside between the vanilla Buy Now ($600) and the Buy Now ($1,200) card. Here are the rumored details:
| GTX 1080 | GTX 1080 Ti | Titan X | |
| GPU: | GP104-400 | GP102 | GP102 |
| Process node: | 16nm FinFet | 16nm FinFet | 16nm FinFet |
| CUDA cores | 2,560 | 3,328 | 3,584 |
| Base speed: | 1,607MHz | 1,503MHz | 1,417MHz |
| Boost speed: | 1,733MHz | 1,623MHz | 1,531MHz |
| Performance: | 8.87 TFLOPS | 10.8 TFLOPS | 11 TFLOPS |
| Memory: | 8GB GDDR5X | 10GB GDDR5X | 12GB GDDR5X |
| Memory speed: | 10,000MHz | 10,000MHz | 10,000MHz |
| Memory bus: | 256-bit | 320-bit? | 384-bit |
| Memory bandwidth: | 320GB/s | 480GB/s | 480GB/s |
| TDP: | 180 watts | 250 watts | 250 watts |
| Price: | $600 | $900? | $1,200 |
Recently, the GTX 1080 Ti card was unofficially confirmed by 343 Industries and Microsoft by way of the retail packaging for Halo Wars 2. The game’s “Ultra” requirements include Nvidia’s unannounced card or AMD’s R9 Fury X GPU. Other requirements include a 64-bit copy of Windows 10, an Intel Core i7-6700K processor, or AMD’s FX-9590 CPU.
Nvidia’s upcoming GTX 1080 Ti arrives just before AMD floods the high-end graphics market with its Vega-based graphics cards. Team Red is expected to reveal its new lineup during the upcoming Capsaicin and Cream event during GDC 2017. According to AMD, this event will provide a glimpse into the Summer of Radeon by highlighting “the hottest new graphics and VR technologies propelling the game industry forward.”
As for when Nvidia will actually launch the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, it is expected to hit store shelves between March 20 and March 23. After that, a version for notebooks will likely be next on Nvidia’s roadmap if it’s not already mentioned during the GTX 1080 Ti reveal. After that, Nvidia is expected to move on to the GTX 20-Series based on a refresh of the Pascal graphics chip design.
Here are the rumored GTX 20 Series cards slated for 2017:
| GTX 2080 Ti | GTX 2080 | GTX 2070 | |
| GPU: | GP102 | GP104 | GP104 |
| Memory (GDDR5X): | 12GB | 8GB | 8GB |
| Memory Speed: | 10Gbps | 10Gbps | 10Gbps |
| Memory Interface: | 384-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth: | 480GB/s | 320GB/s | 320GB/s |
