NVIDIA might be getting ready to amp up the graphics processing unit (GPU) market with its upcoming new-generation graphics card, which is rumored to be called Ampere instead of the expected Volta generation.
European website Heise.de has reported that the GPU company giant is poised to unveil its newest gaming/consumer GPU generation at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2018. This new generation, named Ampere after the father of electrodynamics, André-Marie Ampère, will replace the current GTX 10XX-series, otherwise known as the Pascal generation.
It is important to note that these are just rumors, and there is still no official word from NVIDIA regarding the matter. As such, they may still follow the intended and expected plan and make consumer-grade Volta GPUs instead of the so-called Ampere. WCCF Tech has also recalled the original GPU architecture roadmap plan of NVIDIA, which showed Volta replacing Pascal. In fact, there has been no mention of an Ampere architecture prior to the recent speculations.
A lot of the user base from NVIDIA also expected a consumer version of Volta to succeed Pascal instead of getting a whole new architecture altogether. It can be recalled that during the GTC 2017 Volta was unveiled as a cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) GPU, meant to be used as companies' electronic workhorses. So, many have been looking forward to a more compact Volta for daily or personal gaming use.
On the other hand, NVIDIA may follow through on the said Ampere rumors, as it already done so in the past. In any case, Ampere would be better suited for the gaming or cryptocurrency mining market, as the Volta might be too overqualified for those tasks; its strengths lie primarily in deep-learning for AI programs.
Another factor which may tip the scales in favor of the Ampere for the consumer market is that the Volta architecture is apparently too expensive to mass-produce, and with the growing demands of both the gaming and cryptocurrency market, this may pose a supply problem for NVIDIA.
PC gamers or cryptocurrency miners waiting for either the Pascal successor will have to take the rumors with a grain of salt and wait for NVIDIA to make official announcements.
