AMD Radeon HD 7950 in two weeks, NVIDIA Kepler in April?

Word has reached DigiTimes that AMD is planning to unveil its Radeon HD 7950 graphics card by the end of January, while NVIDIA is anticipated to introduce its 28nm Kepler GPU in April, at the latest.

The sources noted that Nvidia wishes to make sure that the power consumption and the manufacturing process of the graphics chip all reach perfection before entering the 28nm generation. Since Nvidia is set to release its 28nm graphics card around the same time as Intel's upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge processor, the sources believe Kepler series GPUs may have a chance to catch up with the demand for Intel's new CPUs.

Nvidia is set to release several 28nm Kepler-based GPUs including GK104, which will replace the existing GeForce GTX 560Ti; GK107, targeting the entry-level PC market; GK106, targeting the mid-range to entry-level market; GK110, which is equipped with two GK104 GPUs; and the highest-end GK112, which may be released in the fourth quarter or 2013.

Over at VR Zone Theo Valich reveals he heard at CES 2012 that Kepler may arrive by late March or early April, and that the launch will be a hard one with sufficient units for the first wave of customers.

Interestingly, VR Zone also picked up a rumor at ChipHell that tells a whole different story. According to the Chinese source, NVIDIA decided to pull the release of the GeForce GTX 680 (aka Kepler) from the original March/April launch to as early as late February.

The rumour claims GTX 680 will offer similar performance to AMD's Radeon HD 7970. Clock speed is 780 MHz - no higher than GTX 580 - while it sports 2GB memory. While this suggests a 512-bit or 256-bit memory bus, NVIDIA has in the past mated 1GB to 192-bit with GTX 550 Ti, so it is possible GTX 680 has a 384-bit memory interface. Little else is revealed about the mysterious GTX 680.