NVIDIA, AMD purchase ALL excess capacity at TSMC for next-gen GPU/CPUs

NVIDIA and AMD are both ramping up into the world of 7nm GPUs with the companies buying up the spare capacity of 7nm at TSMC for next-gen GPUs and graphics cards.

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Digitimes is reporting that a "ramp-up in short lead-time orders placed by AMD and NVIDIA will allow TSMC to post relatively strong results compared to other foundries in the first half of 2020, according to industry sources". Yes my fellow nerds and gamers, NVIDIA and AMD are ramping up for next-gen graphics cards.

NVIDIA is expected to unleash its new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card later this year, where a recently-delayed Computex 2020 in September would make sense for Ampere's big reveal for next-gen GeForce.

AMD will have its new next-gen RDNA 2-based Navi 2X / Big Navi-powered graphics cards at the same time, so the big shift to see AMD and NVIDIA buying up whatever 7nm that TSMC has left is a big indicator that later this year is going to be one of the most amazing times in history for gamers, geeks, and enthusiasts alike.

AMD is also making its 7nm chips for both the next-gen Microsoft Xbox Series X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles, as well as their own Ryzen, Threadripper, and EPYC families of CPUs. It's a busy time for 7nm production, and TSMC has just had its excess capacity for 7nm eaten up by NVIDIA and AMD.

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NVIDIA Ampere GPUs

• GA102 - 84 SMs / 5376 CUDA cores / 12GB GDDR6 / 384-bit bus - 40% faster than RTX 2080 Ti
• GA103 - 60 SMs / 3840 CUDA cores / 10GB GDDR6 / 320-bit bus - 10% faster than RTX 2080 Ti
• GA104 - 48 SMs / 3072 CUDA cores / 8GB GDDR6 / 256-bit bus - 5% slower than RTX 2080 Ti

NVIDIA Ampere GA100 Specs

• 8192 CUDA cores @ 2GHz (2.2GHz boost)
• 1024 Tensor Cores
• 130 RT Cores
• 48GB of HBM2e memory @ 1.2GHz
• 300W TDP
• TSMC 7nm+
• 36 TFLOPs peak output

I've already written about rumors that NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU architecture would be up to 75% faster than current-gen GPUs such as the Turing architecture, right after rumors that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing. This is pretty crazy stuff right there.

Not only that, but we've got some rumored specs on the purported GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards, which will both be powered by NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU architecture.

We've already heard that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing, which sent the hairs on my neck standing up. Better yet, you can read about the leaked specs on the purported Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 right here.

GA103 (GeForce RTX 3080)

• 10/20GB GDDR6
• 320-bit memory interface
• 60 SMs
• 3480 CUDA cores

GA104 (GeForce RTX 3070)

• 8/16GB GDDR6
• 256-bit memory interface
• 48 SMs
• 3072 CUDA cores

AMD also just revealed its next-gen RDNA 2 / Navi 2X plans, something we referred to as Big Navi until just recently. Those specs are monstrous, but they pale in comparison to what NVIDIA has planned for its flagship HPC destined Ampere GA100 beast.

AMD RDNA 2 / Navi 2X / Big Navi Specs

• 7nm node (confirmed)
• RDNA 2 architecture (confirmed)
• 80 compute units
• 5120 stream processors
• 17.5 TFLOPs compute performance
• Hardware ray tracing support (confirmed)