Pictures of the upcoming GeForce GTX 1180 graphics card have supposedly surfaced on Baidu showcasing only the card’s printed circuit board. Based on the certification logos, it’s a final design and presumably a reference board used by Nvidia’s hardware partners to create their own GTX 1180 add-in graphics cards.
Based on the layout, the GTX 1180 will provide six- and eight-pin power connectors. The current GTX 1080 requires only one eight-pin power connector, thus this second six-pin connector may be tied into Nvidia’s rumored GeForce GTX 1180+ card to help power the extra speed. More on that in a second.
The design also reveals eight slots orbiting the GPU chip’s empty seat for the onboard memory. Presumably, Nvidia will use Micron’s new GDDR6 now in mass production to provide 8GB of onboard memory for the GTX 1180. Rumors claim the card will also have 16GB, which is where the GTX 1180+ may come into play. This extra memory, along with higher GPU speeds, could require that second 6-pin connector to handle the additional power needs.
In addition to the memory, the board showcases new SLI “fingers” used to connect two GeForce cards. They’re presumed to include Nvidia’s NVLink technology used in its server-bound products, which provides higher bandwidth between multiple processors. In the case of Nvidia’s GTX 11 Series, NVLink should enable insane super-high details at super-high framerates in games using two cards or more.
Along the side you’ll see four video-out connections, three of which are likely DisplayPort and HDMI. The fourth small connector suggests a possible USB-C port, but that may actually be Nvidia’s proprietary connector for virtual reality headsets. It will supposedly be based on the current HDMI 2.1 specification and support 120Hz refresh rates over a single cable.
Photos of the final printed circuit board design shouldn’t be surprising given Nvidia is getting ready to launch its GeForce GTX 11 Series family. The company now confirms its previously rumored GeForce Gaming Celebration event taking place just before the Gamescom convention in Germany. Nvidia doesn’t specifically state the GTX 11 Series will make its debut but instead touts “spectacular surprises” and “new PC games running on the latest GeForce hardware.”
What’s unclear about Nvidia’s new graphics card portfolio are the names they’ll use. We typically refer to them as the GTX 11 Series family although rumors in the past have referred to the GTX 2080 and GTX 2070.
Also unclear are the names of the actual chips: We presume Nvidia will use GT104 for the 1180 card, but Nvidia already used “GT” part names with its Tesla design. That second letter is typically associated with the chip design’s codename, which would be “Turing” in this case. Given the Tesla chips used GT200-based labels, Nvidia may still be safe using GT100 labels.
A supposed email from one of Nvidia’s hardware partners to a retailer claims the GeForce GTX 1180 will arrive on August 30, 2018, followed by the GTX 1170 and GTX 1180+ on September 30 and the GTX 1160 on October 30. The dates could be bogus or possibly delayed given the current overstock of Nvidia’s current GeForce GTX 10 series.
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