Nvidia seems to be making great progress with its next-generation graphics cards based on the Kepler architecture as a recent report to make its appearance on the Web states that the chip maker is planning to announce these GPUs in December of this year.
The DigiTimes report doesn't explain what it understands when it says “announce,†but most probably this means that Nvidia will showcase such a GPU at an event or press conference.
Availability will most probably still remain scheduled for 2012, just as various Nvidia representatives, have said over the time.
Before Kepler arrives the GPU maker is expected to release a series of die shrinks of Fermi built using TSMC's 28nm fabrication process.
The first chips based on the Kepler architecture were taped out by Nvidia at the beginning of September.
Kepler is the code name used by Nvidia to refer to its next-generation graphics processing unit architecture, which, just like AMD's Southern Islands GPUs, will be manufactured using TSMC's 28nm fabrication process.
The new graphics core is expected to be more flexible in terms of programmability than the current Fermi architecture.
In the second half of 2010, Nvidia promised that Kepler, and its successor Maxwell, will include virtual memory space (allowing both the CPU and the GPU to use a unified virtual memory) and pre-emption support, as well as a series of other technologies meant to improve the GPU's ability to process data without the help of the system's processor.
According to previous Nvidia estimates, these changes, combined with the new manufacturing process, should deliver 3 to 4 times the performance per Watt of the Fermi architecture in double-precision 64-bit floating point operations.
In the consumer market, Kepler-based graphics cards will most likely carry the GeForce 600 designation.
