Waiting for Fermi - GTX480/470? Don't hold your breath

[Freddie]

No GTX480/470 until Q2/May.

Nvidia Corp. will finally start selling its highly-anticipated GeForce GTX 400-series graphics cards as well as other products based on the code-named Fermi architecture and GF100 (NV60, G300, GT300) graphics processing unit (GPU) in the first quarter of fiscal 2011, it looks like mass availability of appropriate products is only expected in Q2 of FY 2011.

“Q2 [of FY 2011] is going to be the quarter when Fermi is hitting the full stride. It will not just be one Fermi product, there will be a couple of Fermi products to span many different price ranges, but also the Fermi products will span GeForce Quadro and Tesla. So, we are going to be ramping now on Fermi architecture products through Q2 and we are building a lot of it. I am really excited about the upcoming launch of Fermi and I think it will more than offset the seasonality that we usually see in Q2,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia, during the most recent conference call with financial analysts.

Full story

Well there is some good news in their and that being Nvidia might have a larger range of DX11 cards out on the market at first launch and at different price brackets. ATI are planning a spring refresh of it's currant line up so Fermi could be going head to head new cards from ATI.

BTW don't be concerned with the dates in the report report FY 2011 = Q2 2010 so look out for Fermi in May.

This is really annoying as it means AMD doesn't have reason to cut prices on it's currant line up of video cards and I want to build a HTPC in a couple of months times and it would be nice if ATI had to discount the HD5850 or Nvidia had decent alternative. However these are problems you face when you design a video chip from the ground up, leaks, poor yields, power usage problems have plagued Fermi from the get go.

[Edelward]

I was waiting,as many others too,at least to see new Nvidias, but it seems that 5870 is the next objective on my shopping list .It would cost me about 1/3 more then current 4870 ,but DX 11 is too attractive to resist the temptation.

[HansDuet]

Oh shi-

Guess I have to go Radeon then. Or just update Mobo, CPU and ram and patiently wait.

[Freddie]

It's May at the earliest as well so it could be June or July before we see anything but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's May. I believe the problem is with Fermi huge die on TSMC's 40nm which is anything but great, you add the complications of building a larger die on it and yields suffer even more badly I do expect to see Fermi in one shape or the other maybe with only 448SP model coming out to show what it can do with the full range on 28nm latter this year.

[mrcrusty]

Heh, that's great news personally, I had been planning to upgrade my computer around June/July.

[29 days later]

Apparently the GTX480 is only 5% faster then the HD5870 and the fan is running at 70% at idle just to keep the card cool. This is such a shame if this is true (rumour sites so take it with a pinch of salt) as nVidia can't afford to sell the GTX480 at it's reported specs at HD5870 prices as they would make a huge loss per card which means either no price cuts or Fermi generation 1 might go the way of Intel Larrabee and join it in the great vapourware cloud in the sky which means waiting around for Fermi 2 28nm.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Apparently the GTX480 is only 5% faster then the HD5870 and the fan is running at 70% at idle just to keep the card cool. This is such a shame if this is true (rumour sites so take it with a pinch of salt) as nVidia can't afford to sell the GTX480 at it's reported specs at HD5870 prices as they would make a huge loss per card which means either no price cuts or Fermi generation 1 might go the way of Intel Larrabee and join it in the great vapourware cloud in the sky which means waiting around for Fermi 2 28nm.

That's from semi-accurate, he's the one who said that Nvidia was pulling out of the high-end video card market, discontinuing all GTX200 series by last December, he got a lot of site visits off that as he was the only one to report such things, I would expect this is another fabrication of his (partial truth with loads of exaggeration). There has been other rumor benchmarks showing fermi with a solid lead over the current 5800 series.

[29 days later]

That's from semi-accurate, he's the one who said that Nvidia was pulling out of the high-end video card market, discontinuing all GTX200 series by last December, he got a lot of site visits off that as he was the only one to report such things, I would expect this is another fabrication of his (partial truth with loads of exaggeration). There has been other rumor benchmarks showing fermi with a solid lead over the current 5800 series.

That rumour is in the same link, although in currant games the GTX480 apparently is only 5% faster then Cypress when it comes to running DX11 it really does shine as it runs tessellation on the shaders which are in/out order cores so it doesn't effect how the GPU renders the rest of the scene, ATI uses a dedicated tessellation chip.

Charlie Demerjian is more often right then he is wrong and so far everything he has said about Fermi and Nvidia has come true, if for some reason you wanted to buy a high end Geforce card your going to have quick as allocations are hard to come and many of the top board partners have either stopped offering GT200 cards (no BFG, EVGA or Asus) and the ones that are available are more expensive now then they were 6 months ago and their being offered by companies like Sparkle, Galaxy and Point Of View.

[mrmouth]

Speculation put to rest; Nvidia says that launch date is in fact 3/26, and stock should be fairly strong, considering all of what I mentioned previously.

Still a lot of price speculation, but latest 'reliable speculation' is on the GTX470, and is slated to be $299 (5850), and be equal or better than 5870 specs. All while requiring a 550w psu. So given the beefier memory controller, that isn't bad at all. Squeeze out some more FPS at extreme resolutions.

http://www.shanebaxtor.com/2010/02/2...u-requirement/

Charlie Demerjian is more often right then he is wrong and so far everything he has said about Fermi and Nvidia has come true

Much of what he says simply plays on industry trends. It is shotgun speculation. Bound to hit something.

The guys isn't taken seriously for a reason...

[Roman_Man#3]

Speculation put to rest; Nvidia says that launch date is in fact 3/26, and stock should be fairly strong, considering all of what I mentioned previously.

Still a lot of price speculation, but latest 'reliable speculation' is on the GTX470, and is slated to be $299 (5850), and be equal or better than 5870 specs. All while requiring a 550w psu. So given the beefier memory controller, that isn't bad at all. Squeeze out some more FPS at extreme resolutions.

http://www.shanebaxtor.com/2010/02/2...u-requirement/

Quote from a thread on the Anandtech forums discussing this:

I don't see how this website could possibly be correct. $299 for 5870 level performance from a chip that has 50% more transistors and a correspondingly lower yield?

It just doesn't seem fiscally possible. Nvidia would be taking a bloodbath loss on each unit sold.

Thread found here. The pricing seems highly unrealistic, I highly highly doubt it would sell at $299.

As well, from the HardwareCanucks forum, on the launch date:

While the launch is likely to be more of a production sample and paper launch ordeal – with actual products hitting retailer shelves much later – we can expect to be seeing some hard and factual performance numbers at this time and it will spell the mark of the countdown for consumers to get their hands on the highly anticipated cards.

Article found here. It seems many believe March 26th is just going to be a paper launch.

[mrmouth]

This shouldn't really be a surprise. The memory chip market in Taiwan almost collapsed, Chinese new year for 2 weeks that started on the 14th, already low yields from the foundry, etc, etc. I dont think anyone saw a big roll-out considering the environment.

If you desperately want an an early GTX4xx series card you will be able to get one first quarter, but you are going to have to be competitive in the hunt. Aside from that, there really is no rush whatsoever get hop on the DX11 train. Certainly not for AvP, which is just shy of terrible, and crashes for me when trying to run in DX11 anyhow. Dirt2 is beautifully done on DX9.

I only upgraded because I had special circumstances in wanting to get the most out of selling an already obscure GTX280, that was selling for nearly double what I paid at retail. That equated to me getting a years use out of it, for $60. And the 5850 is a hell of a card. But like I keep saying, going back to Nvidia is a priority, unless they wet the bed big time.

[Roman_Man#3]

This is a fun article to read as well. Bear in mind that Charlie does have a grudge against nVidia so he may be over exaggerating somethings, so please take this with a grain of salt. That said, he has been fairly accurate in the past, so you never know.

[GasMask]

This is a fun article to read as well. Bear in mind that Charlie does have a grudge against nVidia so he may be over exaggerating somethings, so please take this with a grain of salt. That said, he has been fairly accurate in the past, so you never know.

Interesting.

[Roman_Man#3]

He's also the one who said that Fermi wouldn't be out 2009, and wouldn't have been out early this year either. He's semi-accurate, a name I find quite fitting.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

He's also the one who said that Fermi wouldn't be out 2009, and wouldn't have been out early this year either. He's semi-accurate, a name I find quite fitting.

Bad link.

[Roman_Man#3]

Sorry, this should work better.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Doesn't bother me much. I'm gonna go strong this year with my nVidia 8800 GTS until next year when I buy a whole new one

[mrmouth]

I doubt Nvidia would go out of their way to try and put the kibosh on rumors and then lay an egg like that.

As far as the price, the guy has a fine history of getting good info. He has a solid base within Nvidia.

Whatever, poo-poo away...

[Freddie]

I doubt Nvidia would go out of their way to try and put the kibosh on rumors and then lay an egg like that.

As far as the price, the guy has a fine history of getting good info. He has a solid base within Nvidia.

Whatever, poo-poo away...

"kibosh" lol are you of Scotish ancestry by any chacne?

I wouldn't put anything past Jen-Hsun Huang after all this was a guy who held up a card claiming it to be 'Fermi' when in fact it was shoddy mock up made from wood screws.

Anyway $299 should mean £199 here in the UK for the GTX470, the speculation has been to put the card at the performance of the Radeon HD5870 but semi-accurate is reporting it's big brother the GTX480 is barely any faster then the 5870 and at a price point of £199 I would expect it to be competing against the Radeon 5850 in terms of performance and if it does match or beat the Radeon HD5870 then happy days as price cuts are on the way!

Edit:

http://www.facebook.com/NVIDIA

Vague but.................

We want to apologize for the confusion around our most recent GF100 update. To clarify, the launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010. This date also coincides with the GeForce LAN event NVIDIA is hosting at PAX 2010. Hope you can attend the show.

Cue Benny Hill music

[29 days later]

Cue Benny Hill music

If your not British I doubt you will understand the dry witty humour behind that remark.

only a month away!!

Nice party can I come? I heard the entry fee was only a mere $700.