Aside from the obvious statement I made, I just hope "Fermi" is not another fiasco like the FX 5800 ultra was. Anyone remember the "Vacuum"?
Anyways, I will let you know I am an ATI fanboy - but I do hope Nvidia does well with "Fermi". Having only 2 -main- add-in graphics cards makers is a real bummer (***n you Intel for making crappy integrated video, and ***n you for cancelling larrabee).
I am quite interested though in the capabilities of this video card - I will be watching for the full review of the cards in the very near future.
I have been using an 8800gt and I am ready for a new card. I cannot wait for Nvidia to finally release there cards. I hope Fermi the best, but like many of you theres no way im paying over 400$ for any graphics card. I cannot wait because it will finally lower the 5870's prices, which is what ive been waiting for all along =). Thanks Nvidia! Please don't disappoint!
I'd say that he was only 60% wrong. While it was a big step up from ATI's fastest card (the 3870) (about 60% faster), it was also about 2-3x the cost. What were the adoption rates of the 280? Good? Bad? Did nvidia make solid profit with the card? I don't know. I do know, however, that it was a large, hot, hungry, powerful card that cost way too much for me to even consider, and I'm not averse to dropping 400-500 dollars on a Video Card (but definitely not 650 dollars).
Given that the 3870 series almost sunk ATi, and the mere mention of the part among cycles inside AMD triggers dormant ulcers... that should pretty much answer your query.
The 3870 also was from a previous generation wrt GTX 280 BTW. The GT200 was also significantly faster than the 60% you quote wrt to the RV600. You are off by an order of magnitude, since most tests the GT200 beat the ATi part by about 400%.
I'm really not sure why the 3870 and 280 are being compared. They were launched 6 months apart, and vastly different in terms of price and power requirements. The 3870 can't ever have been expected to perform anywhere near the same level, and to be honest, you would probably be able to get three similar performing (to the 3870; try finding the 3870 nowadays) ATi cards cheaper than a single 280. I did some checking on the THQ charts and the difference at 1920x1200 goes from 297% at 8x AA to 225% at 0x AA, and that's mainly because of the massive advantage in bus speed and width that the 280 enjoys, along with the way that the 3870 performs AA. The two simply weren't made to compete with each other.
Sorry if it looks like I'm picking on you but I'm just going through the new posts and you seem to have made every single one that I've come to thus far ;)
All the red herring arguments in the world don't make up for the fact that the 3xxx series were the worst possible follow up to the disaster that were the 2xxx series.
Simply because NVIDIA had better offerings at every single performance level during that generation. The G80/92 were far better performers than the cores in the 3xxx. And we're talking 2x speedup.
That little detail was reflected on the huge market share ATI lost in the mid and top ranges during the 3xxx series. So feel free to move the goalposts and make all sorts of hand wavy arguments, which you seem to think of as facts. But reality said a very different story. And yes, the 3xxx series do open a lot of ulcers inside ATI because hadn't it been for the R700 they would be pretty much dead in the water.
Simply impossible given the limit of 300 watt to be PCI-E certified. And the amazing quantities of answer to that 7 line news is that it's the first time Nvidia is late in a schedule that much. They never did that from TNT all the way up to GTX2xx.
Ha! If microchips were made in the us we would still be using ATI Rage 128 cards (and poorly made ones!). There is a reason that most chips come out of Taiwan and it isn't just price.
You do realize most (if not all) the GPUs from NVIDIA, ATi, and Intel are designed in the USA right?
Also the US still leads in silicon output, Intel being the largest IC manufacturer has most of its fabs in the US. As do IBM and in a lesser part Global Foundries.
The chips themselves are not the issue, but the board assembly and the labor required, which is why most of that moved over to Asia. But not due to cost, since they never pass the savings on to the customer, but due to increased profits.
More American corporations should be taken to task for all that stupid outsourcing. But honestly the US has to also understand that basing all our existence on an economic system which follows a sociopathic model of behavior (esp. due to the lack of any sort of national allegiance by capital) while expecting it to act rationally/humanely is supremely naive and stupid.
That's funny, I was only talking about the manufacturing part when they put the boards together. Like the person said below intels fab is in the US and the global found is building one in the US, other big fab is in Germany I think. The biggest chip maker from Taiwan took the tech from Intel.
The manufacturing part is the easy part, the engineers do the design, witch I believe is done in the US. I doubt the guys in China who manufacture the boards have much schooling at all.
Keep sending the jobs overseas and it won't matter if it would cost 100% more, we won't be able to buy them at a 200% discount without a job.
And frankly I think they must have some issues with the card because they take quite some time, and even the date mentioned might be extended, but I also think the cards will be more than 5% faster than the current ATI's, except by that time ATI might indeed have something new and improved to release, not that it matters since they are sitting pretty anyway.
Plus it will obviously be very dependent on the game, with all the FP horsepower the fermi reportedly has I guess it would be very good in OpenCL/directcompute/CUDA and games using that should thus leap ahead.
Anyway I hope they remain competitive enough to put pressure on ATI and make enough to stay in business, because the HD4850/70 were half the price of their 5xxx counterparts, and I can't help feeling it's because of the lack of pressure from the competition.
I'll answer to why the hate, ATI fanboys see Nvidia winning often and every Nvidia fanboy speaking against ATI(while they'Re not bad at all). So 90% of the time Nvidia fanboy has the right to say whatever he wants cauz ''his'' team wins.
Now ATI fanboys are taking a good breath of fresh air even if it's for a little moment. And by the way, a company that when doesn't only try to reach for the top, takes something like physx keeps it for themselves(try to be a little like intel against AMD), I call that being a cheapster. ATI never did that. I'm no fanboy but I feel a little empathy. I personally own a 9800GTX+ and a radeon HD4870. Both runs great and overclock well one for me and the other for the wife and kids.
To be fair, ATI has been "in the lead" since after the 3870 was launched in late 2007, at least for the given market segment. They were also in the lead when the 9700 Pro came out (and for that full generation of cards). They were also in the lead when the X1950 came out, too. The x800 was a bit of a misstep (though not drastic), and the 2900 was not what I'd call successful (at all). So I'd say that in the last 10 years, NVidia has managed to do well enough to come out ahead a bit more than 1/2 of the time (6xxx, 7xxx, 8xxx, gt200), and ATI has done the same (9700, x1950, "3870", 48xx, and now 5xxx). I wouldn't say it's 90% - probably closer to 60-65%?
nvidia still has a bigger share of the mid and high end markets, and intel rules the low end. ATi is exactly in the same position as it was almost 1 decade ago: third.
Whatever "lead" ATi is supposed to have had, has not been reflected in the market share significantly. Plus having the AMD albatross around their necks, gives ATi little room for error in their execution. Which is a shame, because their RV7/8 parts have been outstanding. Hopefully AMD can clean up their act this year, and if ATi can finally move over to GF they may be able to differentiate their products better from nvidia.
ATI had the lead in video card price/performance ratio, not in the market share. And that did reflect if you type market share Q2 2009 ATI you'll find out it did something...
Your argument is a little flawed in that AMD isn't dead, therefore that particular albatross is still flying high :) However, I do agree in that AMD is somewhat of a shackle on ATi. The proposed 4 year lifespan of the STARS architecture and AMD's inability to advertise its products aren't doing it any real favours. The next 18-24 months will say an awful lot for AMD.
AMD is an albatross, because even though they are not dead... their have been running on the red and bleeding cash left and right.
Therefore ATI has to match or beat NVIDIA, while at the same time not having access to the cash reserves that NVIDIA has. They are doing a hell of an execution in the past couple of years. And hopefully AMD is getting their act together after the Intel cash infusion.
Despite the fact that Nvidia current product line is mostly made up of 2 and 3 times renamed cards from 2 year-old technology, they are still making a lot of money:
This. I don't despise Nvidia but I like to root for the underdog. AMD/ATI has been getting slammed from the competition for years so when their competitors fall a little behind, in the spirit of continued competition, I cheer when they can gain some market share as well as actually turn a profit for once.
AMD/ATI have operated in the red longer than Nvidia ever has so I have no doubt they can weather a bad cycle or two. As mentioned above, they are doing quite well in the mobile/integrated graphics department. I don't think we need Nvidia to go head-to-head with ATI on this cycle of graphics cards because the 5800 series is already competitively priced. Considering the strength of Intel and Nvidia, I prefer to see AMD/ATI have a cycle(or three) where they can "catch up" in order to stay in the game longer, to the benefit of us all.
It's unlikely nVidia would face any serious financial trouble even if Fermi were to flop. The company has deeper pockets than AMD, who's been struggling for some time, and the high-end and performance segments of discrete GPUs is probably their least important - if most visual - markets.
The real money is in mobility chips/SoCs (Tegra), professional cards (Tesla and to an extent Quadro) and mainstream discrete chips.
nVidia is doing very well in these markets and will continue to do so even if Fermi turns out to be less than inspiring.
That said it would be preferable if it's at least competitive as it'd benefit us, as consumers, with the following price wars etc.
I'm still on a 4870 myself, and doing great TBH, but I'll keep an eye on the market the coming months even if I'm unlikely to upgrade before 6k hits.
I often wonder how people can have such disdain for nVidia. At face value, it's a focused, successful company. How can someone despise them so?
Well yesterday, I saw their dark side, the arrogant side that people have been ranting about. The global gaming community has been begging for information on Fermi for months!
It was arrogant of nVidia to throw out a teaser then offer nothing, KNOWING the world was expecting more, anything more. We wanted pricing, release dates, benchmarks, anything! We've f&*cking waited long enough! Who the hell do you think you are?? It was either extreme arrogance, or an attempt to cover something. Perhaps the reports of an underperformer are true. Either way, a total bullshit move on nVidia's part yesterday.
I think I know now what can drive a person to dislike a company. I had two 5870's in my basket yesterday. If it weren't for 2GB versions coming soon, I'd have grabbed them and been done wih you nVidia. I'm tired of waiting. You peeking out your door to piss on me helps very little.
Those 2GB 5870s will be mine on release. I may be one person, but I hope you feel the sting regardless.
Nvidia needs a mouthful of humble pie when it comes to PR.
They have been incredibly arrogant and at times even hypocritical. Like the whole "laughabee" business.
I do hope they can wriggle themselves out of this one for the sake of competition but they really deserve what they get from the press and fans right now.
[quote]I often wonder how people can have such disdain for nVidia. At face value, it's a focused, successful company. How can someone despise them so? [/quote]
Maybe because the have been renaming their G92 cards for how long?:)
I think a part of the problem that some people have is the attitude that comes from some of the NVIDIA fans out there. If you look at it, you continually hear about people slamming AMD/ATI driver quality, yet at this point, the driver quality has been at LEAST as good from AMD/ATI as from NVIDIA, if not better.
So, when people keep screaming that their preferred product is better in this way and that, even with evidence pointing to problems with their preferred product, it rubs some people the wrong way. There will always be those who prefer the underdog, but there are also those who watch what goes on and is said, and grow to dislike companies who take on a superior attitude, yet can't handle it when they make a mistake.
You can even see this in the AMD vs. Intel comparisons. You have a LOT of people out there saying how Intel is better, yet, the only really superior products that Intel makes are the processors. Think about that for a moment, Intel chipsets are really not all that great in the budget to mid range areas, and are only acceptable in the high end. Intel graphics are pretty damned pathetic, their wireless chipsets may be very sensitive, but can drop signal at times(even with good signal strength), and so on. Basically, name an area outside of CPU and fab process technology that Intel makes a superior product. AMD may not have the best CPU and fab process technology, but from a total platform perspective, AMD really isn't doing that bad of a job, and system prices in the low to mid range reflect that.
I would hardly consider this article unbiased. There isn't a single article on the website that has anything objective to say about nVidia. While they may have had problems that lead to delays, I highly doubt the problems are as bad as they have been made out to be.
This guy's "sources" are BSN and Fudzilla? And his main argument is that somehow Charlie is a douche because he writes negative stuff about Nvidia? AND you think he's level headed? Really? His head appears to be on the same level as his ass... That's about it.
Hello mate don't get into bashing but most of thing on the site that has been published is getting true some are still speculations. but you have to admit this that there part is not as good as it seemed to be they will get it better with new revisions later on in the months to come with better clock ability and I want better competition that will help consumers with better option and price drop by ATI
And it seems that ATI has won this round not the whole match. I am an ATI fan with 4xxx series but 88xx series were unstoppable by nVidia but now it is the turn of red team.
Level headed compared to who he's criticizing, yes. Of course, one has to take into account the name of the blog.
I'd say his sources are logic and reason (and maybe a little anger). Those may not be the best, but compare them to the other Charlie's sources.
Reading through the content that is there, he does a fairly good job of pointing out some of the flaws in arguments made on Charlie's website, and showing that some of his predictions have not worked out very well.
Still, time will tell. The only way to know for sure is to see what nVidia has in March, and whether they can manufacture a decent number of them.
I'm unfamiliar with the site but it seemed like the author had a lot of inside info. The article was certainly detailed and a great read, I just wonder if most of it was accurate and not just a slam piece.
I'd be interested in hearing a comment or two from one of Anand's authors on specifics from that article...while a captivating read I'm not in the fab industry and a lot went over my head.
he has a very personal conflict with nvidia, but so far he's been right on everything he's said about fermi (I think it was october when he said it wouldn't come out before march, and Fudo was still saying it would arrive in 2009)
If the clocks and shader counts he quotes are right, I'm quite confident that a 5% margin is everything nvidia can get with the unmanufacturable GTX480, while the GTX470 will be just on par with 5870 and cost at least $100 more
I agree with you. I've been following SemiAccurate's Nvidia news since last summer and not only have Demerjian's schedule predictions come true, but he explains very well where he's getting them from. He may dislike Nvidia's management, but he understands the technical points and does the math. So I believe his further predictions that Nvidia will have nothing real until Fermi 2. We'll see a few press release parts and skeleton stocks at the etailers, but only for show.
And I think I think Fudo was conned on this by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Last fall Mr. Huang - no doubt alerted by Mr. Demerjian's analyses of Fermi production pitfalls - made a point of personally glad-handing a bunch of tech journalists. Fudzilla even ran a shot of Fudo in the happy embrace. That usually skeptical site has, since then, seemed to accept Nvidia's decreasingly credible spin on its increasingly evident 40nm disaster.
I hope Nvidia will eventually get back on track and give ATI some competition, because otherwise ATI itself will get complacent. But we need ATI/AMD in the bigger picture, and I'm very glad they've got an entire generation of undisputed graphics card leadership here, to help them rebuild their finances.
I agree with you. I've been following SemiAccurate's Nvidia news since last summer and not only have Demerjian's schedule predictions come true, but he explains very well where he's getting them from. He may dislike Nvidia's management, but he understands the technical points and does the math. So I believe his further predictions that Nvidia will have nothing real until Fermi 2. We'll see a few press release parts and skeleton stocks at the etailers, but only for show.
And I think I think Fudo was conned on this by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Last fall Mr. Huang - no doubt alerted by Mr. Demerjian's analyses of Fermi production pitfalls - made a point of personally glad-handing a bunch of tech journalists. Fudzilla even ran a shot of Fudo in the happy embrace. That usually skeptical site has, since then, seemed to accept Nvidia's decreasingly credible spin on its increasingly evident 40nm disaster.
I hope Nvidia will eventually get back on track and give ATI some competition, because otherwise ATI itself will get complacent. But we need ATI/AMD in the bigger picture, and I'm very glad they've got an entire generation of undisputed graphics card leadership here, to help them rebuild their finances.
Do not even worry about Nvidia, they survived for a long enough time making money that it won't stop them. We need both companies to survive, competition is good for us, the consumers. Heard that fanboys? WE need BOTH companies to survive.
Where did you get the idea that the GTX470 will be on par with the HD5870? If the GTX480 is only expected to beat the 5870 by 5%, the GTX470 should come in just a bit faster than a HD5850 . . .
This doesn't bode well for NVidia considering that ATI could most likely get a HD5890 out the door at 1Ghz, possible with 2GB memory and six display ports as well.
Hey guys you are forgetting the main point here there first spin off came with only 448sp's that means going for the brute part that is 480 they might just launch the 470 early as due to the lower clock scale due to half hot clock being around 600mhz which restrict until the yeilds are better.
so it is an option that 470 might be around 5% to 8% faster than 5850 but ATI has the scale tilted with price cuts and at that time their yeilds will be very good with overclocks going near 7-800 mhz.
I read the semiaccurate links and the main point isn't that Fermi is having teething problems or how Nvidia should position it against ATI until yields improve, those problems are moot.
The main points, according to semiaccurate are:
-Fermi is a complete balls-up in terms of manufacturing
-It is super hot, and power hungry and with no headroom for either (result: Fermi certified cases)
-yields are <10% and <10,000 chips will be made
-Nvidia will sell each chip for $400+ US, but at a loss! (the 5870 chip is sold for $80)
-Fermi was far-from-finished general-purpose compute research project that was dusted off after their first GPU design hit some problem, and rushed into production
-It is a general-purpose compute architecture with GPU functions tacked on
-Just to FIX the current design would take 6+ months
-Even if yields were equivalent to the 5870 it would still be economically uncompetitive against the 5870
-Fermi 2 is a fantasy at this point, definitely not on TSMCs 40nm, and TSMCs next process, 28nm, is also a fantasy
-Nvidia management got way too complacent on R&D spending, engineer numbers and process research
People should stop giving undue validity to the technical opinions of people, with little professional experience or proper formal education on a field as complex as computer architecture and fabrication technologies.
As a person working in the belly of the beast, it is laughable the level of disconnect between the realities of the field, and the opinions expressed by some of these so-called "experts."
Anandtech and ars being the few glaring exceptions among the litany of mainstream gadget-oriented sites which filled with writers which have absolutely no effing idea of what they are talking about. I also blame tech companies for cater to these people and allow marketing to run rampant...
So, how do you explain the delays in getting this GPU out the door and no engineering samples making their way into the hands of review sites? This alone implies that Fermi is in trouble, and may easily miss an April, May, or even June release date.
It normally takes three or more months from when review sites get their samples to when it is actually released. With NDA, the PUBLIC may not get the information, but review sites have the inside scoop months in advance. If Anandtech and the other sites just don't have them yet, that isn't a good sign for Fermi.
Because there is a big difference between being 1 Quarter late to a psychological deadline. And the non-sense that the chip is broken and unfixable that chap over in the UK, who knows jack squat about the realities of the industry, is quacking about.
Yes, AMD beat NVIDIA to market in the DX11 parts. But the only ones making up the deadline for Fermi are NVIDIA themselves, not web bloggers who decide when a product should have been released.
So, how do you explain the delays in getting this GPU out the door and no engineering samples making their way into the hands of review sites? This alone implies that Fermi is in trouble, and may easily miss an April, May, or even June release date.
It normally takes three or more months from when review sites get their samples to when it is actually released. With NDA, the PUBLIC may not get the information, but review sites have the inside scoop months in advance. If Anandtech and the other sites just don't have them yet, that isn't a good sign for Fermi.
You know what, it's logical. Think about it. 40nm has problem about yeilds and still has. The bigger your chip is the bigger the problem of yeilds occur in your batch. ATI had problems with that and it's still not as good as they'd like.
Imagine now ATI has problems with a chip ALOT smaller than GF100 is supposed to be. It's more than double in size, the problem with yeilds with double size doesn't means half less liveable chips, it's more like a quarter. And those still can't be called no defects fully enabled chips cauz of heat and wattage problems(40nm problems).
Plus the architecture, they got big groups of simds, they can't disable one on 512 cores, they come in BIG blocks of 32. ATI did the right thing by making lots of smaller groups, why they got 1600 cores instead of 512(supposed for fermi).
It seems odd they don't have any out for advance review and benchmarking if they are coming soon. My guess is either the cards aren't as good as nVidia claimed they would be, they don't have drivers that work reliably or they have such a manufacturing issue they can't produce many and they won't have more than a few hundred available for the release.
I'm not an ATI fanboy - I still can't ever find the silenced 5870's in stock since I started searching in November. So ATI clearly can't get enough of these out the door either.
Joe's post above did set me thinking - if Nvidia are going to release Fermi as planned it'll be worth watching to see when their cards are released to reviewers, as well as when the NDA ends.
I have an HD 5870, the first ATI card since an X1950 PRO (and only the second of nine or so cards), I'm crossing my fingers for Nvidia, but I have to admit I have my doubts about GF100 being anything special at all.
Sweet! Thanks Nvidia! Now I know what date to start looking for ATI to release the 5890 and to drop prices on the 5870. Time to unload my old nvidia card! And thanks for making be both comfortable and happy about my first ATI graphics card purchase in almost 10 years!
Nvidia - convincing you to buy graphics cards, just not theirs.
Then on March 19th, they will post a new release date in early April, followed up with a late release in April.....It's getting a bit old, don't you think??
it will be itanium: charlie at semiaccurate has already leaked some results, and it seems the $650 fermi will be just 5% faster than 5870 (and so hammered by 5970), while the $500 one will be just on par with 5870
By learning about TSMC's 40nm and tech about GPUs, Ok the guy's on the side of ATI because he can't say anything bad about them. But he's got some info on tsmc's and engineering that are pretty good. He's just not digging about bad rumors turning around ATI.
Read what he said a while ago about fermi and do some research about what's happening NOW and you'll find the similarities.
Right, so the $500 card is on par with a 5870 but they are charging an extra $150 to be 5% faster than a 5870. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and I highly doubt it's true.
Aside from that, what games were benched for that 5% difference? Were any games that use DX11 tested with tesselation?
I'm still on the fence on what to purchase and have a tough time swallowing rumors.
It makes no sense? If this chipzilla does indeed have such horrible yield rates (and common sense points to 'yes'), its not a surprise nvidia will have to charge alot more for it than they had hoped to, should it be the expected performance disappointment. They simply hope to pull off an Apple, where the loyal fanboys storm in and buy whatever little supply there will be at whatever high price they're selling it.
Face it fanboys, either way, thermi will not be what you wanted it to be.
It makes no sense? If this chipzilla does indeed have such horrible yield rates (and common sense points to 'yes'), its not a surprise nvidia will have to charge alot more for it than they had hoped to, should it be the expected performance disappointment. They simply hope to pull off an Apple, where the loyal fanboys storm in and buy whatever little supply there will be at whatever high price they're selling it.
Face it fanboys, either way, thermi will not be what you wanted it to be.
Sounds like NVidia is gambling on how much extra people will pay to get a card with a stable set of drivers after all the headaches the 5000 series ATI cards have been causing. =P
It's only for win7+5xxx series users. The big mouse cursor is "almost" taken care of. It very rarely pops up anymore (about once every 2 days), but when it does, you're on a countdown for your system crashing. Rebooting is the only way out.
Oh and the grey screen? I'm forced to dual-boot winxp just to work with video captured with fraps.
Depending on the video I'm watching, my computer crashes. Mouse cursor every other day? I'm having to stick to the hotfix 9.12 drivers, as they were the only one who got it fixed right. The 10.1, 10.2 drivers kept popping out the big cursor after a little while, and that's not acceptable.
Mouse trails "fixes" the problem, but if you enable that, you don't get a mouse cursor in many games, so it's a no go.
I didn't have any problems at all when I switched from my old 8800GTS 320mb to a 4870, years ago. I was actually quite happy with it. Had no idea things would be this bad this time around. =/
If you do, the mouse cursor and crashing on video's issue is bios related not driver related. Flash your bios to F6 or w/e most recent on is and the issues are fixed.
I had the same issue for a while last year, thought it was ATI's fault the whole time, turned out to be gigabyte's.
most of the time the problems are hardware related and not necessarily ATI/drivers problems. Face it, search Nvidia driver problem or ATI driver problem, and there's not much results. Points out to nothing bad in either companies.
I always tend to hear ATI's driver problems, but I owned and build systems with lots of them and no more problems than with Nvidia, sorry fanboys... Cept the fan adjustment on 4xxx series and CCC being a prick when playing with options, don't install it FFS, never did hate it, get ATI tray tools or some other third party.
But do you remember the SUPER fuck Nvidia had with 6800 series and Nforce 2 chipset on socket 754? Nvidia never did anything bout it, the infinite stuttering shitty bug with their OWN pieces of hardware. Emailed them, wrote on the forums, but hey they already had the money in their pocket and it was too complicated to fix, Thanks again!
I have Athlon X4 and XFX Radeon 5850 ZANFC. The system is running 43 days already 24/7 - no crushes. I played Crysis, Modern Warfare 2 perfectly. The crushes and gray screen problem is highly exaggerated - it was almost immediately taken care with patches and recent drivers.
I did experience gray screen with the same card in my Intel machine though - I think sth with the mobo chipset has to do with this issue...
Honestly, rumors are just and only rumors. Until there are hard solid facts (AT benchmarks and actualy available cards on store shelves) I keep /ignore mode.
I hope GTX480 delivers since I would like to upgrade for higher CUDA as well as get better gaming performance (running 8800GT) and investing in outdated DX10.1 cards ain't worth it imo.
Why would you even read something posted by Charlie? One of the sorriest excuses of human flesh I've ever heard of. I thought he had discredited himself enough by now that people stopped reading.
Like they say , Put up or shut up . Nvidia cant seem to put up or out anything at the moment so when,if and untill they do Charlie had my vote.
Jen-Hsun Huang puppy trick was just shame full. Not to mention it smacks of no respect for anyone and everyone that buy his products.
You dont hold out your product in hand and lie to your buyers. That was just the last straw for me.
As far as I'm concerned Jen-Hsun Huangand Nvidia lost whatever trust I had for them that day.
Feb -28-2010 ........still no Fermi.
Discredited by what, you sound like a judge that got no argument. I read him and the only biased opinion in the last thing he wrote about fermi must be when he said Nvidia solution to the problem was engineering by screaming at people. Everything else is techspeech about 40nm process and the problem of making something BIG... which is quite true due to the fact that... there's no fermi yet for a product that was supposed taped out during the summer and in store in november..... learn what is a transistor...
So if I start spewing half-accurate technobabble at you, will you believe I am telling you the complete truth? Come on, even his "readers" admit he's got a grudge at Nvidia. Do you know what people with grudges do? They will not necessarily lie at you but they will twist the truth until the facts line up according to what they want you to believe.
All his pieces are biased crap, not worth the magnetic bits they are saved on.
You just said it, they will not necessarily lie... I read other tech than him, google search about 40nm and find out about it. Okay the guy won't find anything bad about ATI... he's got a side, but doesn't mean what he says his all false... that's said by nvidia's fanboys who I think are blinder than anyone else
And himself says that he heard rumors, speaking with people linked to TSMC... but then again do the research on google about it and find the similarities. The guy is not THE ultimate reference, but it'S not up to say he's worth nothing without explaining why...
I like Charlie's work. He's no Anand, but of all the tabloid style tech reporters, he's the only one worth reading. Sure, he blows stories out of proportion at times, and he clearly has a bias against nvidia. But he's been spot-on about Fermi all along, and months before everyone else. He alone was responsible for exposing the fake Fermi cards. Frankly, until HardOCP reviews the card, I'll believe what Charlie says about Fermi over any other source.
FYI for those posting about nvidia skipping 300 series, well that is incorect on your part.
Nvidia 300 series parts as you can see on thier web site is specifically for OEM branded use, basically its thier built in video on laptops and mobo's series, not actually buy off the shelf video card series.
But the new cards are not going to do well since they cant compete with ATI currently.
And no this is not a fan boy remark at all,
check specs comon logistics,
Nvidia 400 series will do 3 panel display only if you have SLI so you need to buy more cards just to make it work, and also the max resolution they spec for thier new 3 panel option is 1920x1080.
Ok why would anyone fan boy or not spend cash for 3 LCD's and have to buy 2 or 3 vid cards just to run at 1920x1080 ? even if they are a bit faster then ATI, most would prefer a single card that can run 5760x1200 or even go portait mode 3600x1920 for 3 screens. Ill take the 5760x1200 or 3600x1920 any day over a 1920x1080 max even if i lose a few FPS for it. Bottom line nvidia is in trouble, as there 3D touting stuff is only a gimick item for a few games, when ATI gives you 5760x1200 which you can use for work as well as just play, its got more overall long term usage value due to that effect alone, reguardless of speed.
Most poeople buy LCD based on size 1st then quality.
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PublixE - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
But Nvidia is 1Q behind.Aside from the obvious statement I made, I just hope "Fermi" is not another fiasco like the FX 5800 ultra was. Anyone remember the "Vacuum"?
Anyways, I will let you know I am an ATI fanboy - but I do hope Nvidia does well with "Fermi". Having only 2 -main- add-in graphics cards makers is a real bummer (***n you Intel for making crappy integrated video, and ***n you for cancelling larrabee).
I am quite interested though in the capabilities of this video card - I will be watching for the full review of the cards in the very near future.
aaitkonlyyou - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
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distortion620 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
I have been using an 8800gt and I am ready for a new card. I cannot wait for Nvidia to finally release there cards. I hope Fermi the best, but like many of you theres no way im paying over 400$ for any graphics card. I cannot wait because it will finally lower the 5870's prices, which is what ive been waiting for all along =). Thanks Nvidia! Please don't disappoint!beck2448 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Charlie also predicted the 280 gtx would be a massive failure. Turns out he was 100% wrong there. Let's wait and see before making dire predictions.erple2 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
I'd say that he was only 60% wrong. While it was a big step up from ATI's fastest card (the 3870) (about 60% faster), it was also about 2-3x the cost. What were the adoption rates of the 280? Good? Bad? Did nvidia make solid profit with the card? I don't know. I do know, however, that it was a large, hot, hungry, powerful card that cost way too much for me to even consider, and I'm not averse to dropping 400-500 dollars on a Video Card (but definitely not 650 dollars).tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Given that the 3870 series almost sunk ATi, and the mere mention of the part among cycles inside AMD triggers dormant ulcers... that should pretty much answer your query.The 3870 also was from a previous generation wrt GTX 280 BTW. The GT200 was also significantly faster than the 60% you quote wrt to the RV600. You are off by an order of magnitude, since most tests the GT200 beat the ATi part by about 400%.
silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
The 3870 series almost sunk ATi? Link please.I'm really not sure why the 3870 and 280 are being compared. They were launched 6 months apart, and vastly different in terms of price and power requirements. The 3870 can't ever have been expected to perform anywhere near the same level, and to be honest, you would probably be able to get three similar performing (to the 3870; try finding the 3870 nowadays) ATi cards cheaper than a single 280. I did some checking on the THQ charts and the difference at 1920x1200 goes from 297% at 8x AA to 225% at 0x AA, and that's mainly because of the massive advantage in bus speed and width that the 280 enjoys, along with the way that the 3870 performs AA. The two simply weren't made to compete with each other.
Sorry if it looks like I'm picking on you but I'm just going through the new posts and you seem to have made every single one that I've come to thus far ;)
tterremmotto - Monday, March 8, 2010 - link
All the red herring arguments in the world don't make up for the fact that the 3xxx series were the worst possible follow up to the disaster that were the 2xxx series.Simply because NVIDIA had better offerings at every single performance level during that generation. The G80/92 were far better performers than the cores in the 3xxx. And we're talking 2x speedup.
That little detail was reflected on the huge market share ATI lost in the mid and top ranges during the 3xxx series. So feel free to move the goalposts and make all sorts of hand wavy arguments, which you seem to think of as facts. But reality said a very different story. And yes, the 3xxx series do open a lot of ulcers inside ATI because hadn't it been for the R700 they would be pretty much dead in the water.
erple2 - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
I included the 3870 vs. the 280 because that was the "best" card ATI had available when the gtx280 came out. Clearly, 60% was a low-ball estimate. Based on the initial testing that Anandtech did for the GTX280 (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334..., the 280 was about 100-150% faster than the 3870 in the tests run.The 2900 was what almost sunk ATI, I think it was...
siuol11 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Where did you get that? Have you seen a 480? Do tell...geok1ng - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
WOW! A seven lines news, and a ton of posts, ranging from fanboy flaming to tech sites comparisons.I will use my seer powers and predict:
1- fermi will be slightly faster that 5870, dual Fermi will be slightly faster than 5970. Expect the cards to trade blows in a game by game basis.
2- fermi will run hotter, dual fermi will thermal throttle under stock settings.
3-fermi will cost more and offer poor bang for the buck against radeons
4- Fermi drivers will run smother and with less problems than catalysts
how do i reached these conclusions?
Because that's how the GPU market has been for the past 3 generations!
MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
how the hell is there going to be a dual fermi, given how much juice a single one uses?Galid - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Simply impossible given the limit of 300 watt to be PCI-E certified. And the amazing quantities of answer to that 7 line news is that it's the first time Nvidia is late in a schedule that much. They never did that from TNT all the way up to GTX2xx.bhougha10 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Funny stuff here. Can't believe how the sheep gather.Odds are 1 in 100 that the 480 is only 5% faster.
I'm glad ATI has gotten a little breathing room to make the margins, but you people need to stay real.
Manufactor this stuff in the USA and we would have the cards by now. And we may actually have jobs to buy a few of these cards.
jimijuke - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Ha! If microchips were made in the us we would still be using ATI Rage 128 cards (and poorly made ones!). There is a reason that most chips come out of Taiwan and it isn't just price.tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
You do realize most (if not all) the GPUs from NVIDIA, ATi, and Intel are designed in the USA right?Also the US still leads in silicon output, Intel being the largest IC manufacturer has most of its fabs in the US. As do IBM and in a lesser part Global Foundries.
The chips themselves are not the issue, but the board assembly and the labor required, which is why most of that moved over to Asia. But not due to cost, since they never pass the savings on to the customer, but due to increased profits.
More American corporations should be taken to task for all that stupid outsourcing. But honestly the US has to also understand that basing all our existence on an economic system which follows a sociopathic model of behavior (esp. due to the lack of any sort of national allegiance by capital) while expecting it to act rationally/humanely is supremely naive and stupid.
silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Isn't ATi Canadian? :)Galid - Saturday, February 27, 2010 - link
Used to be, before they started the Radeon series. Then they expanded and mostly moved in the US I think.bhougha10 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
That's funny, I was only talking about the manufacturing part when they put the boards together. Like the person said below intels fab is in the US and the global found is building one in the US, other big fab is in Germany I think. The biggest chip maker from Taiwan took the tech from Intel.The manufacturing part is the easy part, the engineers do the design, witch I believe is done in the US. I doubt the guys in China who manufacture the boards have much schooling at all.
Keep sending the jobs overseas and it won't matter if it would cost 100% more, we won't be able to buy them at a 200% discount without a job.
Lord Banshee - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
You know intel has Fabs in the US(AZ,NM,OR maybe some others) and AMD/Global Foundries are building one in New York.TheManY2K3 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Wow, I hope you don't live in the US.obiwantoby - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I wonder how much more expensive they would be if they were made in a Western Nation?siuol11 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Thousands of dollars... Seeing as we would have to import most of the engineering talent.Holly - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Rough guess 40% up, maybe even more.Aeternum - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
really?Aeternum - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
http://www.acnnewswire.com/Article.Asp?Art_ID=2849...">http://www.acnnewswire.com/Article.Asp?Art_ID=2849...Wwhat - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
So let me put it on the table: why the hate?And frankly I think they must have some issues with the card because they take quite some time, and even the date mentioned might be extended, but I also think the cards will be more than 5% faster than the current ATI's, except by that time ATI might indeed have something new and improved to release, not that it matters since they are sitting pretty anyway.
Plus it will obviously be very dependent on the game, with all the FP horsepower the fermi reportedly has I guess it would be very good in OpenCL/directcompute/CUDA and games using that should thus leap ahead.
Anyway I hope they remain competitive enough to put pressure on ATI and make enough to stay in business, because the HD4850/70 were half the price of their 5xxx counterparts, and I can't help feeling it's because of the lack of pressure from the competition.
Galid - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I'll answer to why the hate, ATI fanboys see Nvidia winning often and every Nvidia fanboy speaking against ATI(while they'Re not bad at all). So 90% of the time Nvidia fanboy has the right to say whatever he wants cauz ''his'' team wins.Now ATI fanboys are taking a good breath of fresh air even if it's for a little moment. And by the way, a company that when doesn't only try to reach for the top, takes something like physx keeps it for themselves(try to be a little like intel against AMD), I call that being a cheapster. ATI never did that. I'm no fanboy but I feel a little empathy. I personally own a 9800GTX+ and a radeon HD4870. Both runs great and overclock well one for me and the other for the wife and kids.
erple2 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
To be fair, ATI has been "in the lead" since after the 3870 was launched in late 2007, at least for the given market segment. They were also in the lead when the 9700 Pro came out (and for that full generation of cards). They were also in the lead when the X1950 came out, too. The x800 was a bit of a misstep (though not drastic), and the 2900 was not what I'd call successful (at all). So I'd say that in the last 10 years, NVidia has managed to do well enough to come out ahead a bit more than 1/2 of the time (6xxx, 7xxx, 8xxx, gt200), and ATI has done the same (9700, x1950, "3870", 48xx, and now 5xxx). I wouldn't say it's 90% - probably closer to 60-65%?tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
nvidia still has a bigger share of the mid and high end markets, and intel rules the low end. ATi is exactly in the same position as it was almost 1 decade ago: third.Whatever "lead" ATi is supposed to have had, has not been reflected in the market share significantly. Plus having the AMD albatross around their necks, gives ATi little room for error in their execution. Which is a shame, because their RV7/8 parts have been outstanding. Hopefully AMD can clean up their act this year, and if ATi can finally move over to GF they may be able to differentiate their products better from nvidia.
Galid - Saturday, February 27, 2010 - link
ATI had the lead in video card price/performance ratio, not in the market share. And that did reflect if you type market share Q2 2009 ATI you'll find out it did something...silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Your argument is a little flawed in that AMD isn't dead, therefore that particular albatross is still flying high :) However, I do agree in that AMD is somewhat of a shackle on ATi. The proposed 4 year lifespan of the STARS architecture and AMD's inability to advertise its products aren't doing it any real favours. The next 18-24 months will say an awful lot for AMD.tterremmotto - Monday, March 8, 2010 - link
AMD is an albatross, because even though they are not dead... their have been running on the red and bleeding cash left and right.Therefore ATI has to match or beat NVIDIA, while at the same time not having access to the cash reserves that NVIDIA has. They are doing a hell of an execution in the past couple of years. And hopefully AMD is getting their act together after the Intel cash infusion.
BernardP - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Despite the fact that Nvidia current product line is mostly made up of 2 and 3 times renamed cards from 2 year-old technology, they are still making a lot of money:http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht...">http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jht...
Yes, Nvida is behind technologically, But OEMs and individual users are still buying a lot more NVidia than ATI cards.
Let's hope ATI can profit from the present NVidia difficulties to gain significant market share and even the playing field.
Tewt - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
This. I don't despise Nvidia but I like to root for the underdog. AMD/ATI has been getting slammed from the competition for years so when their competitors fall a little behind, in the spirit of continued competition, I cheer when they can gain some market share as well as actually turn a profit for once.AMD/ATI have operated in the red longer than Nvidia ever has so I have no doubt they can weather a bad cycle or two. As mentioned above, they are doing quite well in the mobile/integrated graphics department. I don't think we need Nvidia to go head-to-head with ATI on this cycle of graphics cards because the 5800 series is already competitively priced. Considering the strength of Intel and Nvidia, I prefer to see AMD/ATI have a cycle(or three) where they can "catch up" in order to stay in the game longer, to the benefit of us all.
Mugur - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I don't like those rumors. What I would like is for AMD/ATI and NVIDIA to go head to head...Former NVIDIA fan (now owns a 5770 and a 4670...) :-)
michal1980 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Is there any hope for the Green team? Or are they about to go poof?Exodite - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
It's unlikely nVidia would face any serious financial trouble even if Fermi were to flop. The company has deeper pockets than AMD, who's been struggling for some time, and the high-end and performance segments of discrete GPUs is probably their least important - if most visual - markets.The real money is in mobility chips/SoCs (Tegra), professional cards (Tesla and to an extent Quadro) and mainstream discrete chips.
nVidia is doing very well in these markets and will continue to do so even if Fermi turns out to be less than inspiring.
That said it would be preferable if it's at least competitive as it'd benefit us, as consumers, with the following price wars etc.
I'm still on a 4870 myself, and doing great TBH, but I'll keep an eye on the market the coming months even if I'm unlikely to upgrade before 6k hits.
michal1980 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
i'm still on an 8800 card. thats been redone howmany times now?this year will be the year of new pc's in my house. doubt I'll be getting another nV card.
Hauk - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I often wonder how people can have such disdain for nVidia. At face value, it's a focused, successful company. How can someone despise them so?Well yesterday, I saw their dark side, the arrogant side that people have been ranting about. The global gaming community has been begging for information on Fermi for months!
It was arrogant of nVidia to throw out a teaser then offer nothing, KNOWING the world was expecting more, anything more. We wanted pricing, release dates, benchmarks, anything! We've f&*cking waited long enough! Who the hell do you think you are?? It was either extreme arrogance, or an attempt to cover something. Perhaps the reports of an underperformer are true. Either way, a total bullshit move on nVidia's part yesterday.
I think I know now what can drive a person to dislike a company. I had two 5870's in my basket yesterday. If it weren't for 2GB versions coming soon, I'd have grabbed them and been done wih you nVidia. I'm tired of waiting. You peeking out your door to piss on me helps very little.
Those 2GB 5870s will be mine on release. I may be one person, but I hope you feel the sting regardless.
Ahmed0 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Nvidia needs a mouthful of humble pie when it comes to PR.They have been incredibly arrogant and at times even hypocritical. Like the whole "laughabee" business.
I do hope they can wriggle themselves out of this one for the sake of competition but they really deserve what they get from the press and fans right now.
akse - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
[quote]I often wonder how people can have such disdain for nVidia. At face value, it's a focused, successful company. How can someone despise them so? [/quote]Maybe because the have been renaming their G92 cards for how long?:)
tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Well, good to see people are having problems with nvidia not based on technical issues, but on their numbering schemes for marketing.Targon - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
I think a part of the problem that some people have is the attitude that comes from some of the NVIDIA fans out there. If you look at it, you continually hear about people slamming AMD/ATI driver quality, yet at this point, the driver quality has been at LEAST as good from AMD/ATI as from NVIDIA, if not better.So, when people keep screaming that their preferred product is better in this way and that, even with evidence pointing to problems with their preferred product, it rubs some people the wrong way. There will always be those who prefer the underdog, but there are also those who watch what goes on and is said, and grow to dislike companies who take on a superior attitude, yet can't handle it when they make a mistake.
You can even see this in the AMD vs. Intel comparisons. You have a LOT of people out there saying how Intel is better, yet, the only really superior products that Intel makes are the processors. Think about that for a moment, Intel chipsets are really not all that great in the budget to mid range areas, and are only acceptable in the high end. Intel graphics are pretty damned pathetic, their wireless chipsets may be very sensitive, but can drop signal at times(even with good signal strength), and so on. Basically, name an area outside of CPU and fab process technology that Intel makes a superior product. AMD may not have the best CPU and fab process technology, but from a total platform perspective, AMD really isn't doing that bad of a job, and system prices in the low to mid range reflect that.
fshaharyar - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Hey guys thought you might look at this there are stories going around and it might very reasonable and probable that fermi may not be fast with regards to ATI HD 5870 in term of perfomance just see it your self Special mention of Anand is there for his unruffled story about ATI's Fightbackhttp://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/17/nvidias-fer...">http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/17/nvidias-fer...
just see it and decide for your self.
tachi1247 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I would hardly consider this article unbiased. There isn't a single article on the website that has anything objective to say about nVidia. While they may have had problems that lead to delays, I highly doubt the problems are as bad as they have been made out to be.Sivar - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
For an always-welcome fact check on semiaccurate.com, http://charliedemerjianisadouchebag.blogspot.com">http://charliedemerjianisadouchebag.blogspot.com is available and seems fairly level-headed to me. Of course, only time will tell.siuol11 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
This guy's "sources" are BSN and Fudzilla? And his main argument is that somehow Charlie is a douche because he writes negative stuff about Nvidia? AND you think he's level headed? Really? His head appears to be on the same level as his ass... That's about it.fshaharyar - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Hello mate don't get into bashing but most of thing on the site that has been published is getting true some are still speculations. but you have to admit this that there part is not as good as it seemed to be they will get it better with new revisions later on in the months to come with better clock ability and I want better competition that will help consumers with better option and price drop by ATIAnd it seems that ATI has won this round not the whole match. I am an ATI fan with 4xxx series but 88xx series were unstoppable by nVidia but now it is the turn of red team.
Sivar - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Level headed compared to who he's criticizing, yes. Of course, one has to take into account the name of the blog.I'd say his sources are logic and reason (and maybe a little anger). Those may not be the best, but compare them to the other Charlie's sources.
Reading through the content that is there, he does a fairly good job of pointing out some of the flaws in arguments made on Charlie's website, and showing that some of his predictions have not worked out very well.
Still, time will tell. The only way to know for sure is to see what nVidia has in March, and whether they can manufacture a decent number of them.
MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
time has told. that site hasn't published anything since October, and Charlie's predictions only looks better since then7Enigma - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I'm unfamiliar with the site but it seemed like the author had a lot of inside info. The article was certainly detailed and a great read, I just wonder if most of it was accurate and not just a slam piece.I'd be interested in hearing a comment or two from one of Anand's authors on specifics from that article...while a captivating read I'm not in the fab industry and a lot went over my head.
Thanks again for the link!
samspqr - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
the author is Charlie Demerjian, of Inquirer famehe has a very personal conflict with nvidia, but so far he's been right on everything he's said about fermi (I think it was october when he said it wouldn't come out before march, and Fudo was still saying it would arrive in 2009)
If the clocks and shader counts he quotes are right, I'm quite confident that a 5% margin is everything nvidia can get with the unmanufacturable GTX480, while the GTX470 will be just on par with 5870 and cost at least $100 more
Arbie - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I agree with you. I've been following SemiAccurate's Nvidia news since last summer and not only have Demerjian's schedule predictions come true, but he explains very well where he's getting them from. He may dislike Nvidia's management, but he understands the technical points and does the math. So I believe his further predictions that Nvidia will have nothing real until Fermi 2. We'll see a few press release parts and skeleton stocks at the etailers, but only for show.And I think I think Fudo was conned on this by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Last fall Mr. Huang - no doubt alerted by Mr. Demerjian's analyses of Fermi production pitfalls - made a point of personally glad-handing a bunch of tech journalists. Fudzilla even ran a shot of Fudo in the happy embrace. That usually skeptical site has, since then, seemed to accept Nvidia's decreasingly credible spin on its increasingly evident 40nm disaster.
I hope Nvidia will eventually get back on track and give ATI some competition, because otherwise ATI itself will get complacent. But we need ATI/AMD in the bigger picture, and I'm very glad they've got an entire generation of undisputed graphics card leadership here, to help them rebuild their finances.
Arbie - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I agree with you. I've been following SemiAccurate's Nvidia news since last summer and not only have Demerjian's schedule predictions come true, but he explains very well where he's getting them from. He may dislike Nvidia's management, but he understands the technical points and does the math. So I believe his further predictions that Nvidia will have nothing real until Fermi 2. We'll see a few press release parts and skeleton stocks at the etailers, but only for show.And I think I think Fudo was conned on this by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Last fall Mr. Huang - no doubt alerted by Mr. Demerjian's analyses of Fermi production pitfalls - made a point of personally glad-handing a bunch of tech journalists. Fudzilla even ran a shot of Fudo in the happy embrace. That usually skeptical site has, since then, seemed to accept Nvidia's decreasingly credible spin on its increasingly evident 40nm disaster.
I hope Nvidia will eventually get back on track and give ATI some competition, because otherwise ATI itself will get complacent. But we need ATI/AMD in the bigger picture, and I'm very glad they've got an entire generation of undisputed graphics card leadership here, to help them rebuild their finances.
MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
I'm happy to see ATI kick some butt this round so that AMD can stick around. Intel needs some competition tooGalid - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Do not even worry about Nvidia, they survived for a long enough time making money that it won't stop them. We need both companies to survive, competition is good for us, the consumers. Heard that fanboys? WE need BOTH companies to survive.Parhel - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Where did you get the idea that the GTX470 will be on par with the HD5870? If the GTX480 is only expected to beat the 5870 by 5%, the GTX470 should come in just a bit faster than a HD5850 . . .This doesn't bode well for NVidia considering that ATI could most likely get a HD5890 out the door at 1Ghz, possible with 2GB memory and six display ports as well.
samspqr - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I did some math, see here:http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?...">http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?...
(the magic number is 0.61: that's the power I used to convert raw power into real world performance, and it seems to work quite well)
ATI only needs a 925MHz card to match GTX480; at 1GHz they would have the same advantage over GTX480 as that one will have over 5870
fshaharyar - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Hey guys you are forgetting the main point here there first spin off came with only 448sp's that means going for the brute part that is 480 they might just launch the 470 early as due to the lower clock scale due to half hot clock being around 600mhz which restrict until the yeilds are better.so it is an option that 470 might be around 5% to 8% faster than 5850 but ATI has the scale tilted with price cuts and at that time their yeilds will be very good with overclocks going near 7-800 mhz.
which will narrow the gap between 470.
Now the ball rolls into Nvidia's die, sorry Side.
blyndy - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
I read the semiaccurate links and the main point isn't that Fermi is having teething problems or how Nvidia should position it against ATI until yields improve, those problems are moot.The main points, according to semiaccurate are:
-Fermi is a complete balls-up in terms of manufacturing
-It is super hot, and power hungry and with no headroom for either (result: Fermi certified cases)
-yields are <10% and <10,000 chips will be made
-Nvidia will sell each chip for $400+ US, but at a loss! (the 5870 chip is sold for $80)
-Fermi was far-from-finished general-purpose compute research project that was dusted off after their first GPU design hit some problem, and rushed into production
-It is a general-purpose compute architecture with GPU functions tacked on
-Just to FIX the current design would take 6+ months
-Even if yields were equivalent to the 5870 it would still be economically uncompetitive against the 5870
-Fermi 2 is a fantasy at this point, definitely not on TSMCs 40nm, and TSMCs next process, 28nm, is also a fantasy
-Nvidia management got way too complacent on R&D spending, engineer numbers and process research
-Fermi is the 'Laughabee'
tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
People should stop giving undue validity to the technical opinions of people, with little professional experience or proper formal education on a field as complex as computer architecture and fabrication technologies.As a person working in the belly of the beast, it is laughable the level of disconnect between the realities of the field, and the opinions expressed by some of these so-called "experts."
Anandtech and ars being the few glaring exceptions among the litany of mainstream gadget-oriented sites which filled with writers which have absolutely no effing idea of what they are talking about. I also blame tech companies for cater to these people and allow marketing to run rampant...
Targon - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
So, how do you explain the delays in getting this GPU out the door and no engineering samples making their way into the hands of review sites? This alone implies that Fermi is in trouble, and may easily miss an April, May, or even June release date.It normally takes three or more months from when review sites get their samples to when it is actually released. With NDA, the PUBLIC may not get the information, but review sites have the inside scoop months in advance. If Anandtech and the other sites just don't have them yet, that isn't a good sign for Fermi.
tterremmotto - Monday, March 8, 2010 - link
Because there is a big difference between being 1 Quarter late to a psychological deadline. And the non-sense that the chip is broken and unfixable that chap over in the UK, who knows jack squat about the realities of the industry, is quacking about.Yes, AMD beat NVIDIA to market in the DX11 parts. But the only ones making up the deadline for Fermi are NVIDIA themselves, not web bloggers who decide when a product should have been released.
Targon - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
So, how do you explain the delays in getting this GPU out the door and no engineering samples making their way into the hands of review sites? This alone implies that Fermi is in trouble, and may easily miss an April, May, or even June release date.It normally takes three or more months from when review sites get their samples to when it is actually released. With NDA, the PUBLIC may not get the information, but review sites have the inside scoop months in advance. If Anandtech and the other sites just don't have them yet, that isn't a good sign for Fermi.
Galid - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
You know what, it's logical. Think about it. 40nm has problem about yeilds and still has. The bigger your chip is the bigger the problem of yeilds occur in your batch. ATI had problems with that and it's still not as good as they'd like.Imagine now ATI has problems with a chip ALOT smaller than GF100 is supposed to be. It's more than double in size, the problem with yeilds with double size doesn't means half less liveable chips, it's more like a quarter. And those still can't be called no defects fully enabled chips cauz of heat and wattage problems(40nm problems).
Plus the architecture, they got big groups of simds, they can't disable one on 512 cores, they come in BIG blocks of 32. ATI did the right thing by making lots of smaller groups, why they got 1600 cores instead of 512(supposed for fermi).
boe - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
It seems odd they don't have any out for advance review and benchmarking if they are coming soon. My guess is either the cards aren't as good as nVidia claimed they would be, they don't have drivers that work reliably or they have such a manufacturing issue they can't produce many and they won't have more than a few hundred available for the release.I'm not an ATI fanboy - I still can't ever find the silenced 5870's in stock since I started searching in November. So ATI clearly can't get enough of these out the door either.
Griswold - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Not a guess, its pretty much a given.philosofa - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Joe's post above did set me thinking - if Nvidia are going to release Fermi as planned it'll be worth watching to see when their cards are released to reviewers, as well as when the NDA ends.I have an HD 5870, the first ATI card since an X1950 PRO (and only the second of nine or so cards), I'm crossing my fingers for Nvidia, but I have to admit I have my doubts about GF100 being anything special at all.
Grit - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Sweet! Thanks Nvidia! Now I know what date to start looking for ATI to release the 5890 and to drop prices on the 5870. Time to unload my old nvidia card! And thanks for making be both comfortable and happy about my first ATI graphics card purchase in almost 10 years!Nvidia - convincing you to buy graphics cards, just not theirs.
Doormat - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Typical PR move for bad news, you dump it on Friday afternoon when you hope fewer people are watching.fragMasterFlash - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Make with the polygons, already! At this rate ATI will probably be sampling Northern Islands by the time NVidia gets Fermi into production.Lunyone - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Then on March 19th, they will post a new release date in early April, followed up with a late release in April.....It's getting a bit old, don't you think??iGas - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Will Fermi be a Hammer or will it be an Itanium?
samspqr - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
it will be itanium: charlie at semiaccurate has already leaked some results, and it seems the $650 fermi will be just 5% faster than 5870 (and so hammered by 5970), while the $500 one will be just on par with 5870coldpower27 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Charlie is extremely biased against nVidia so no, not gonna believe any of what he says. Let's way till the cards come out shall we.Galid - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
So Biased that He was right about 80% of what happened about fermi for the last 6 months... read a bit before attacking for nothing.tterremmotto - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
How can one be 80% right in regards to predictions about a product which is not shipping?Galid - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
By learning about TSMC's 40nm and tech about GPUs, Ok the guy's on the side of ATI because he can't say anything bad about them. But he's got some info on tsmc's and engineering that are pretty good. He's just not digging about bad rumors turning around ATI.Read what he said a while ago about fermi and do some research about what's happening NOW and you'll find the similarities.
CptTripps - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Right, so the $500 card is on par with a 5870 but they are charging an extra $150 to be 5% faster than a 5870. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and I highly doubt it's true.Aside from that, what games were benched for that 5% difference? Were any games that use DX11 tested with tesselation?
I'm still on the fence on what to purchase and have a tough time swallowing rumors.
Griswold - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
It makes no sense? If this chipzilla does indeed have such horrible yield rates (and common sense points to 'yes'), its not a surprise nvidia will have to charge alot more for it than they had hoped to, should it be the expected performance disappointment. They simply hope to pull off an Apple, where the loyal fanboys storm in and buy whatever little supply there will be at whatever high price they're selling it.Face it fanboys, either way, thermi will not be what you wanted it to be.
Griswold - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
It makes no sense? If this chipzilla does indeed have such horrible yield rates (and common sense points to 'yes'), its not a surprise nvidia will have to charge alot more for it than they had hoped to, should it be the expected performance disappointment. They simply hope to pull off an Apple, where the loyal fanboys storm in and buy whatever little supply there will be at whatever high price they're selling it.Face it fanboys, either way, thermi will not be what you wanted it to be.
silverblue - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I see what you did there.yacoub - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Sounds like NVidia is gambling on how much extra people will pay to get a card with a stable set of drivers after all the headaches the 5000 series ATI cards have been causing. =PGriswold - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
You mean, how many people will pay the extra dough for a thermonuclear furnace.formulav8 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I've heard of a gray screen and mouse cursor problem but nothing death defying??Am I just overlooking a major problem out there for the ATI drivers?
Jason
Iketh - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
It's only for win7+5xxx series users. The big mouse cursor is "almost" taken care of. It very rarely pops up anymore (about once every 2 days), but when it does, you're on a countdown for your system crashing. Rebooting is the only way out.Oh and the grey screen? I'm forced to dual-boot winxp just to work with video captured with fraps.
LordanSS - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Depending on the video I'm watching, my computer crashes. Mouse cursor every other day? I'm having to stick to the hotfix 9.12 drivers, as they were the only one who got it fixed right. The 10.1, 10.2 drivers kept popping out the big cursor after a little while, and that's not acceptable.Mouse trails "fixes" the problem, but if you enable that, you don't get a mouse cursor in many games, so it's a no go.
I didn't have any problems at all when I switched from my old 8800GTS 320mb to a 4870, years ago. I was actually quite happy with it. Had no idea things would be this bad this time around. =/
banthracis - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I'm curious, do you have a gigabyte MOBO?If you do, the mouse cursor and crashing on video's issue is bios related not driver related. Flash your bios to F6 or w/e most recent on is and the issues are fixed.
I had the same issue for a while last year, thought it was ATI's fault the whole time, turned out to be gigabyte's.
Galid - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
most of the time the problems are hardware related and not necessarily ATI/drivers problems. Face it, search Nvidia driver problem or ATI driver problem, and there's not much results. Points out to nothing bad in either companies.I always tend to hear ATI's driver problems, but I owned and build systems with lots of them and no more problems than with Nvidia, sorry fanboys... Cept the fan adjustment on 4xxx series and CCC being a prick when playing with options, don't install it FFS, never did hate it, get ATI tray tools or some other third party.
But do you remember the SUPER fuck Nvidia had with 6800 series and Nforce 2 chipset on socket 754? Nvidia never did anything bout it, the infinite stuttering shitty bug with their OWN pieces of hardware. Emailed them, wrote on the forums, but hey they already had the money in their pocket and it was too complicated to fix, Thanks again!
Ananke - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
I have Athlon X4 and XFX Radeon 5850 ZANFC. The system is running 43 days already 24/7 - no crushes. I played Crysis, Modern Warfare 2 perfectly. The crushes and gray screen problem is highly exaggerated - it was almost immediately taken care with patches and recent drivers.I did experience gray screen with the same card in my Intel machine though - I think sth with the mobo chipset has to do with this issue...
Holly - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Honestly, rumors are just and only rumors. Until there are hard solid facts (AT benchmarks and actualy available cards on store shelves) I keep /ignore mode.I hope GTX480 delivers since I would like to upgrade for higher CUDA as well as get better gaming performance (running 8800GT) and investing in outdated DX10.1 cards ain't worth it imo.
b15h09 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Why would you even read something posted by Charlie? One of the sorriest excuses of human flesh I've ever heard of. I thought he had discredited himself enough by now that people stopped reading.Nate007 - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
Like they say , Put up or shut up . Nvidia cant seem to put up or out anything at the moment so when,if and untill they do Charlie had my vote.Jen-Hsun Huang puppy trick was just shame full. Not to mention it smacks of no respect for anyone and everyone that buy his products.
You dont hold out your product in hand and lie to your buyers. That was just the last straw for me.
As far as I'm concerned Jen-Hsun Huangand Nvidia lost whatever trust I had for them that day.
Feb -28-2010 ........still no Fermi.
Galid - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Nvidia fanboy, nothing to see... move alongGalid - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Discredited by what, you sound like a judge that got no argument. I read him and the only biased opinion in the last thing he wrote about fermi must be when he said Nvidia solution to the problem was engineering by screaming at people. Everything else is techspeech about 40nm process and the problem of making something BIG... which is quite true due to the fact that... there's no fermi yet for a product that was supposed taped out during the summer and in store in november..... learn what is a transistor...Magius - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
So if I start spewing half-accurate technobabble at you, will you believe I am telling you the complete truth? Come on, even his "readers" admit he's got a grudge at Nvidia. Do you know what people with grudges do? They will not necessarily lie at you but they will twist the truth until the facts line up according to what they want you to believe.All his pieces are biased crap, not worth the magnetic bits they are saved on.
Galid - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
You just said it, they will not necessarily lie... I read other tech than him, google search about 40nm and find out about it. Okay the guy won't find anything bad about ATI... he's got a side, but doesn't mean what he says his all false... that's said by nvidia's fanboys who I think are blinder than anyone elseAnd himself says that he heard rumors, speaking with people linked to TSMC... but then again do the research on google about it and find the similarities. The guy is not THE ultimate reference, but it'S not up to say he's worth nothing without explaining why...
Parhel - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I like Charlie's work. He's no Anand, but of all the tabloid style tech reporters, he's the only one worth reading. Sure, he blows stories out of proportion at times, and he clearly has a bias against nvidia. But he's been spot-on about Fermi all along, and months before everyone else. He alone was responsible for exposing the fake Fermi cards. Frankly, until HardOCP reviews the card, I'll believe what Charlie says about Fermi over any other source.afkrotch - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I won't believe anyone on a card that isn't even out in the open yet.Taft12 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Examples or it's not true. He's been right about an awful lot, personal vendetta or not.hwhacker - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
nVIDIA uses every marketing/pr trick in the book. Friday means everything.sweetspot - Friday, March 5, 2010 - link
FYI for those posting about nvidia skipping 300 series, well that is incorect on your part.Nvidia 300 series parts as you can see on thier web site is specifically for OEM branded use, basically its thier built in video on laptops and mobo's series, not actually buy off the shelf video card series.
But the new cards are not going to do well since they cant compete with ATI currently.
And no this is not a fan boy remark at all,
check specs comon logistics,
Nvidia 400 series will do 3 panel display only if you have SLI so you need to buy more cards just to make it work, and also the max resolution they spec for thier new 3 panel option is 1920x1080.
Ok why would anyone fan boy or not spend cash for 3 LCD's and have to buy 2 or 3 vid cards just to run at 1920x1080 ? even if they are a bit faster then ATI, most would prefer a single card that can run 5760x1200 or even go portait mode 3600x1920 for 3 screens. Ill take the 5760x1200 or 3600x1920 any day over a 1920x1080 max even if i lose a few FPS for it. Bottom line nvidia is in trouble, as there 3D touting stuff is only a gimick item for a few games, when ATI gives you 5760x1200 which you can use for work as well as just play, its got more overall long term usage value due to that effect alone, reguardless of speed.
Most poeople buy LCD based on size 1st then quality.
john810 - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
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MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
"Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident on a Friday."GoodRevrnd - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Such as stocks having less time to tank.GoodRevrnd - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
Such as stocks having less time to tank.gwolfman - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
LOLIRLsdhfkjsdhfksjdhfks - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
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