On Wednesday, when Hot Chips officially announced the program and list of talks for the upcoming Hot Chips 2018 conference in August, among them was the tantalizingly named “NVIDIA’s Next Generation Mainstream GPU.” Offering only just a bit of official confirmation over NVIDIA’s successor to their Pascal-based GeForce 10-series products, the existence of this presentation would suggest a formal announcement within the next couple months.

And while none of the presentations had any descriptions, not long after the program was published, references to NVIDIA’s presentation were redacted in the announcement. The timeslot is now listed as “TBD,” with all references to NVIDIA and their next-gen GPU having been scrubbed. Hot Chips hasn't mentioned why the official schedule has changed, but of the two practical theories - that this was an error and NVIDIA isn't presenting, or that NVIDIA's talk was supposed to be kept under wraps for a while longer - the latter is certainly the stronger theory right now.

In the past, NVIDIA has discussed architectures at Hot Chips only after they’ve been revealed, which would imply that NVIDIA intends (or intended) to announce the new architecture before that - perhaps in June or July - as Hot Chips takes place in mid-August. Our colleagues at Toms Hardware Germany noted their own sources as previously discussing a July release date. In any case, as these presentations and talks are submitted and approved well in advance of August, it's difficult to imagine that the original listing was a fluke.

Source: Hot Chips 2018

Comments Locked

18 Comments

View All Comments

  • Nehemoth - Friday, June 1, 2018 - link

    Would like to know if Nvidia would present a follow up chip to the one inside Shield TV /Nintendo Switch
  • Alistair - Friday, June 1, 2018 - link

    I'd like a better than PS4 shield device, but nVidia seems to be acting like Google, build, then give up because consumers didn't respond to their half efforts....
  • aryonoco - Friday, June 1, 2018 - link

    Very true. The Shield TV is an amazing device and has a small by die-hard fan base. It's the perfect thing from which to operate and grow.

    But Nvidia seems to mostly have given up on Tegra outside of cars.

    Which is a pity. Imagine a modern SoC built on a 10-nm class in that device. Perhaps with a slightly higher TDP, it would do wonders.
  • mode_13h - Friday, June 1, 2018 - link

    I recently read about a standalone VR HMD that's using TX2.
  • edzieba - Saturday, June 2, 2018 - link

    Probably because they have effectively no competition, so no need to update the hardware. Even 3 years after release, is there a single Android TV box with even comparable (let alone superior) graphical performance?
  • mode_13h - Sunday, June 3, 2018 - link

    This presumes they could just sit around and wait until some competition appears and then release something overnight. However, the lead time with SoCs is significantly longer than GPUs, because (among other reasons) theirs isn't the only software running on it.

    This is why they actually announce their SoCs well in advance, and they have not announced anything to directly succeed Parker (TX2). So, all signs point to them abandoning this market.

    As for competition, AMD now has some embedded Ryzen + Vega SKUs that should be very competitive.
  • cfenton - Sunday, June 3, 2018 - link

    What's the use case though? The Shield TV already plays 4K video, so until 8K becomes a thing there isn't much room for improvement on that front. Android games are almost all designed to run on three year old phones, so the GPU in the Shield TV is already overkill. It's not like PS4 and Xbox One developers are going to port their new games to ARM so they can run on a tiny tiny percentage of Android devices. So what's the point of putting out something faster?
  • Alistair - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link

    The Shield was supposed to be more than something that plays video. You define it as nothing more than a cheap Android box, then yeah mission accomplished.

    Lots of high end games are coming to Android. PubG and Fortnite are here already. Takes vision. No reason nVidia doesn't release an innovative console than makes the PS4 look bad in comparison. Can develop the new console game economy (not beholden to physical sales).

    No disc drive, new console economy. That's the nut that Microsoft and Sony can't crack with their large legacy user bases and retail partners.
  • cfenton - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link

    PubG and Fortnite will run on a phone though, so the power just isn't needed. Also, I'd hardly consider two games from the same genre strong evidence that lots of high end games are coming to Android.

    There's a good reason Nvidia doesn't release a console. There's no money in it unless you can compete with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Microsoft lost money for years with the Xbox brand. Nvidia can make way more money in AI, cars, and, to a lesser extent, PC hardware. I'm just not sure that many people are interested in Android gaming on a TV.
  • Kvaern1 - Saturday, June 2, 2018 - link

    Considering the amount of updates the Shield has recieved I don't think you can callt it an abandoned product or half effort in any way or shape.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now