517: Chapter 517 The new card actually didn't want to use 14nm.

"Good evening, and welcome to the new era of GeForce."

Leather Jacket Huang's opening remark woke up the audience below, telling them that if they truly had grievances, they could save them until after the press conference...

However, he wasn't in a rush to announce the specifications. Instead, he walked to the screen in the center of the stage and gave it a gentle tap, causing a line chart to appear.

It was a chart showing the performance improvements of GPUs.

It displayed the actual performance improvement percentages of the last five generations of graphics cards, making many in the audience grit their teeth in frustration.

"I have seen your feedback, and I know you are truly dissatisfied with these improvements. That is why, today, Leather Jacket Huang will... personally shatter the shackles that have bound us all."

Many in the audience were confused once again; what was Leather Jacket Huang trying to do today?

"It's not that we are seeking to change the status quo, but as you can all see. Over the past five years, how much has GPU performance actually improved in total?"

After saying this, he picked up two cards and compared their paper specifications. They looked like an improvement of over 50%, but in reality, the net improvement rate was...

"That's right, you didn't misread it. It's just 15%. And power consumption? It only dropped by 5% each year."

He shook his head, his tone filled with a hint of regret, as if he had absolutely nothing to do with these outcomes.

"This is wrong. Gamers are spending more money, yet getting smaller and smaller improvements. The industry is just 'squeezing toothpaste' and standing still, and we don't want to wait any longer."

After saying this, he clenched his fist. At that exact moment, the line chart on the screen shattered instantly, replaced by a diagram of a brand-new architecture.

"Holy sh*t, Leather Jacket Huang is... he's ruthless enough to even insult himself!"

"He still has the nerve to bring this up... didn't AMD learn this from him?"

"To the person above, I won't allow you to insult Leather Jacket Huang. At the very least, until the price is revealed, I won't allow you to insult him [doge]"

"It seems Leather Jacket Huang has realized his mistake for now [doge]"

"Guys, stop trolling. Leather Jacket Huang won't change. Don't you think he's plotting something big with this weird behavior?"

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to greet his family when the time comes!"

After the new architecture appeared, Leather Jacket Huang waited for a moment, letting the audience digest this unusual press conference while also preparing them mentally.

"You should all know from the leaks that this generation of our products will see a price increase across the board. But we are not making black-hearted money. That is why we are bringing you the brand-new Maxwell Pro architecture."

"Pfft! You, Leather Jacket Huang, have the nerve to talk about not making black-hearted money?"

"I can say that, but you, Leather Jacket Huang, absolutely cannot."

"What, a brand-new architecture? I heard about the price hike, so I just bought last year's card, and now you're telling me you're stopping the 'toothpaste squeezing'?"

The chat room's comments instantly began to 'greet' Leather Jacket Huang, as they had a feeling that this performance boost would be massive...

But the so-called price hike was merely to clear out inventory faster.

So, it wasn't just the chat room; many in the audience also began to 'greet' him.

But Leather Jacket Huang remained completely unfazed! After all, this was just the beginning; there would be even more people cursing him later.

"This is a design built from scratch. It includes brand-new stream processor units, a brand-new cache system, and brand-new power control logic."

At this point, Leather Jacket Huang deliberately paused, letting all the competitors who were live-streaming learn a thing or two.

"Most importantly, we have an exclusive advantage! This is the world's first consumer-grade GPU manufactured using the 14nm process."

"This is not like the first-generation process from Intel; our performance delivery is extremely stable."

Upon hearing the confirmation of 14nm, some of the abusive consumers immediately shut their mouths.

After all, the 28nm process was still the mainstream for the entire industry.

Although Intel claimed to have solved the 14nm process, they had been unable to mass-produce it, making it nothing more than a 'PPT process.'

Meanwhile, NVIDIA had already gone straight to mass production, putting them far ahead of the industry.

"Actually, when we were deciding on the process, many people on the team asked me why we wanted to use 14nm. After all, no one else had solved it yet, and it wouldn't have been impossible to wait until next year."

'Until next year' — the audience below seemed to feel that Leather Jacket Huang on stage had changed again, turning back into the Leather Jacket Huang they were familiar with...

This remark was full of his signature 'knife skills' (product segmentation tactics).

"To be honest, I was tempted at first too."

After all, there was no choice; the competitors were too weak. Even if we upgraded a little less, we would still sell well.

But, after I submitted this report to our boss, Shen Fei, he rejected it outright."

"What the hell? I actually saw a look of regret in his eyes."

"You're not the only one, I saw it too."

"It's clear that Leather Jacket Huang really didn't want to use 14nm."

The director's close-up shot broadcast that look of regret across the entire live stream.

"Hey, hey, director, you can't do me like that. It was just a little bit..."

Leather Jacket Huang on stage started joking around, but Zhao Ming below showed an expression of admiration; as expected, when it came to social sophistication, Leather Jacket Huang was still a professional.

Not only did he take all the blame upon himself, but he also made the audience grateful to Shen Fei. This wave of graphics card price hikes should be easy to weather now.

"Of course, the reason I accepted it wholeheartedly wasn't anything major; it's just that we have more production lines for our 14nm process. If we wanted to use the 28nm process... there's no capacity, and even if we wanted to use 22nm, we'd have to wait in line."

After speaking, Leather Jacket Huang put on an invincible expression: "The wafer fab is just too awesome, can't help it."

"Holy sh*t! I used to wonder if Leather Jacket Huang would strike out on his own, but now it seems he finally understands the charm of a full industry chain."

"Who would want to leave when they can enjoy the shade under the big tree of Transsion?"

On stage, Leather Jacket Huang stopped joking, and his attitude became serious again.

"That was just a little interlude. Let me explain to you what the 14nm process has actually brought to this generation of our GPUs."

After saying this, a brand-new slide instantly appeared on the big screen: Performance Doubled! Power Consumption Halved!

"That's right, this is the most dominant power brought by process improvements. A smaller process allows for more transistors to be packed into the same area."

After saying this, a detailed architectural analysis immediately appeared on the screen.

The brand-new Mac45Pro architecture has doubled the execution efficiency of the stream processors, with the same number of stream processors delivering 90% higher performance than the Kepler architecture.

In addition, the brand-new display memory controller has increased video memory bandwidth utilization by 40%...

These multiple improvements, combined with the density increase brought by the 14nm process, allow for more computing units to be accommodated within the same chip area.

After seeing these improvements, the audience in the live stream could no longer hold back and erupted in exclamation.

"Is this toothpaste really squeezed out completely?"

"To the person above, don't speak too soon. After all, with a brand-new process, there will definitely be issues with yield rates! The technologies shown above will probably only be available in the top-tier models to enjoy the full performance!"