Since the first chips from Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell generation are probably in the final phases of circuit development, rumors about individual GPUs and their configuration are currently emerging again and again. For example, the leaker @kopite7kimi recently announced on X that the second largest gaming GPU GB203 will only have six graphics processing clusters (GPC).
More shaders – but how many?
It is unclear to what extent this statement is supported by the information available to him. However, if one assumes that it is correct, this creates an interesting situation with regard to the previous model. The AD103 GPU has seven GPCs, each of which includes a rasterization engine and six texture units. The individual GPCs at Blackwell are likely to be broader and therefore more performant. In addition, Nvidia will probably install more SMs (Streaming Multiprocessors) per GPC in order to increase the number of shaders and thus the computing power.
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With the current GPUs, Nvidia usually uses 12 SMs per GPC. However, there will probably be more for the Blackwell chips and therefore the RTX 5000 graphics cards so that the newer models can stand out with additional shaders. For the flagship model GB202, for example, a configuration with 16 SMs per GPC was discussed. If you adopt this assumption for the GB203 chip, it would have 20 percent more shaders compared to the AD103 with seven GPCs and 80 SMs. Provided, of course, that the number of shaders per SM remains the same and that Nvidia does not install slightly more or fewer units in individual GPUs.
GPUGPCsSMsShaderGB20212 (?)192 (?)24.576 (?)AD1021214418.432GB2037 (?)112 (?)14.336 (?)AD10368010.240
Last on topic: Geforce RTX 5000: GB20X GPUs with a similar memory interface to the RTX 4000 series?
In this scenario, a huge gap would remain compared to the flagship GPU GB202, which is said to have twice as many GPCs and therefore twice as many shaders. This would increase the current gap of 80 percent slightly. Of course, this is no more certain than the other speculations currently circulating. In addition, performance values can only be determined to a very limited extent from concretely known key data as long as the specific performance of the individual calculation units is not known. As usual, it remains to be seen until more details about the Blackwell-based gaming GPUs emerge. These are likely to become more and more concrete in the near future, as the first finished chips will probably soon roll off the production line at TSMC.
What: 3D Center