After the huge impact of the Maxwell architecture on the market, 2015 was a relatively slow one for graphics. Right now, all eyes are on the rumours that nVidia taped out its Pascal/GP100 chip in June 2015 and shipped 9 engineering samples in September. It could feature four stacks of HBM2 memory, offering gamers 16GB desktop cards and Quadro cards for professionals with up to 32GB. Final yields and pricing will likely be at the mercy of TSMC’s new 16nm FinFET process. We don’t yet know what AMD have planned but HBM V1, showcased by AMD with their Nano and Fury range of cards has paved the way for future innovation in the VRAM segment.
As with last year’s awards, we’ll start with the items closest to the heart of your PC and work our way out to the retailer that you, the reader, voted as the best place to buy technology.
