Will NVIDIA Livestream Debut The GeForce GTX 1080 Pascal Video Card?

We knew it was only time for AMD and NVIDIA to roll out their new GPU architectures, but we are excited that we are on the verge of both companies rolling out their largest architecture change in years. Two world-renowned GPU makers going head-to-head with new architectures that involve die shrinks and new memory types (GDDR5X and HBM 2) are what make this one of the most exciting GPU launches of the decade.

AMD has had it rough in recent years, but despite all the turmoil they have managed to stay competitive with NVIDIA and actually show some superiority in DX12 game titles thanks to having solid drivers and asynchronous shader support on the hardware level. It’s not too often we say that AMD has solid drivers, so it just goes to show the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) is still dedicated to gamers. The bad news for AMD is that there aren’t a ton of DX12 game titles out right now and not many people are buying a video card today and basing their purchasing decision off soley DX12 performance. Many gamers and enthusiasts have been waiting for NVIDIA Pascal GPU’s and AMD Polaris GPU’s to upgrade. Without a doubt DX12 performance will be a big deal this time around, but so will Virtual Reality performance. With VR headsets now available to purchase there is going to now be a new performance metric to worry about for the very first time.

The move to VR is going to add another layer to video card reviews and VR performance in general is something that we will have to start covering here on Legit Reviews. Buying a new discrete desktop video card in 2016 and beyond will likely mean that card will see DX12 games in its given lifespan as well as VR. We have some game titles in mind that we need to begin testing with, but it would be great to hear some feedback from the community as to what they want to see. Time are certainly changing in the desktop PC market and the gaming community is the only thriving niche left for desktops.

This week, it is widely believed that NVIDIA started a viral marketing campaign through a third party marketing company for Pascal by sending a puzzle to solve to a handful of sites. The ‘Order of Ten’ marketing material had led many to believe that NVIDIA will be announcing part of or all of the Pascal GPU powered card. Expect to see more information on NVIDIA’s next-generation Pascal GPU architecture on Friday. Why?

NVIDIA just sent invites out for a moment “you wont want to miss.” NVIDIA will be broadcasting a special presentation on its Twitch channel May 6 at 6 PM PST. No further details are provided other than the link to the stream and clues as to what they could be showing off.

Is this the anticipated reveal of the GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 and other consumer versions of Pascal with the GP104 or GP106 GPU’s? Previously, there were hints that Pascal was very close to launch when a presentation at GTC last month laid out some information on the GP100 microarchitecture and related features including the 16nm FinFET manufacturing process and utilization of Chip-On-Wafer-On-Substrate with HBM2 memory.

Now, the NVIDIA main page and the May 6 livestream announcement article both have a picture with what looks an awful lot like a partial view of the purportedly leaked GTX 1080 cooling shroud. Perhaps the more telling clue is the fact the stream announcement is on the GeForce site and the graphic posted there has the NVIDIA GeForce GTX label on the bottom right.

Feel free to share your thoughts below. If you want to catch up on the latest rumors about NVIDIA, you can also check out news about the type of VRAM used and a possible launch date.