A shipping manifest suggest that TSMC has started sending out Pascal GPU samples to Nvidia for testing suggest that the chip is ready for its next phase before entering mass production.

According to 3DCenter.org, which spotted the shipping manifest, the GP100 will be the first Nvidia chip based on Pascal architecture and pack 17 billion transistors. Based on 16nm FinFET manufacturing process, the GP100 GPU will use the second-generation High Bandwidth Memory which could lead to graphics cards with 32GB of on-board memory, although it is expected that the Geforce line will probably pack 16GB.

According to the performance estimates, the GP100 could be anywhere between 60 to 90 percent faster compared to the GM200 GPU, and it appears that TSMC is on track of producing it.

While earlier rumors suggested that both TSMC and Samsung could be making the new GPU for Nvidia, earlier report suggest that the GPU will be made exclusively by TSMC while Nvidia might tap both Samsung and SK Hynix for HBM2 chips.

In any case, it is good to see that the Pascal GPU is doing good and is in its final steps before going to mass production.





Source: 3DCenter.org.