How big is the Kepler/GK104 die?

Bigger than we thought, smaller than Tahiti

Nvidia world iconThere are a bunch of rumours floating about GK104/Kepler, but nothing concrete on the physical chip. Luckily, a few days ago, some kind soul showed SemiAccurate a die.

Short story, our favourite ruffled valley mole (Indianfoodus betterthaninminneapolus) didn’t have any callipers handy, so we had to eyeball it with a ruler. The chip we saw is roughly 18-19mm * 18-19mm, putting the range from 324-361mm^2. If you assume it is both square and in the middle, 342mm^2 wouldn’t be a bad number to plug in to the spreadsheets.

While this is a lot bigger than we were expecting, it is still smaller than Tahiti by an appreciable margin. If performance ends up about where we have been told, it will be about as efficient as AMD’s current chips at a lot lower power draw. If the price holds up too, GK104 will own the mid-market, aka where the money is.

Net result, if Nvidia can get it to yield, power use stays where it is now, as do clocks, and they don’t get greedy with the price, well, three of four isn’t a bad tally. Seriously though, assuming no major changes, it looks like a decent part, but lets wait to see what comes out, and more importantly, when. Late March is the current best case, assuming there is no A3. More when we get it.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate