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NVIDIA GTX 480 Slide  (Source: Donanimharber)
Cards promise about 10% better performance than comparable ATI parts

AMD and NVIDIA are always fighting it out for market share in the video card market. The competition between the two companies in the video card and GPU market is often likened to the competition between AMD and Intel in the CPU market.

NVIDIA has been working on its next generation Fermi architecture for a while now. We got a few details on the Fermi GPU back in January. NVIDIA reported in January that it was in mass production with Fermi GF100 chips and claimed that the new cards would blow AMD away. In February, NVIDIA reported that the first cards to use the Fermi architecture would be the GTX 480 and the GTX 470. The GPU firm offered no firm specs on the cards at the time.

Now, the specs and pricing for the GTX 480 and 470 video cards has been revealed reports VR-Zone. According to the publication, the cards are set to launch on March 26 and an official picture of the GTX 480 has been leaked. The GTX 480 video card promises a core clock of 700MHz, shader clock of 1401MHz, and a memory clock of 1848MHz. The memory interface will be 384-bit and the card will have 1536MB of RAM and a 250W TDP. The card will sell for $499, which is typical for a new high-end card.

The GTX 470 will offer a core clock of 607MHz, shader clock of 1215MHz, and a memory clock of 1674MHz. The card will have a 320-bit memory interface and 1280MB of RAM. The TDP is said to be 225W and the card will sell for $349. According to early benchmarks, the GTX 470 is claimed to be 5-10% faster than the ATI HD 5850 with a similar lead for the GTX 480 compared to the Radeon HD 5870.

Plans for dual GPU Fermi cards are also in the works.

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Not good enough
By HotFoot on 3/19/2010 9:51:31 AM , Rating: 5
10% faster for a product coming out a good half-cycle late or more isn't good enough.




RE: Not good enough
By xsilver on 3/19/2010 9:55:45 AM , Rating: 5
and if the recommended prices dont hold up - 10% more performance @ 10% more cost = yawn


RE: Not good enough
By CrystalBay on 3/19/2010 9:57:59 AM , Rating: 5
I'd be surprised to find them at list price...


RE: Not good enough
By xsilver on 3/19/2010 10:09:29 AM , Rating: 3
sorry do you mean up or down?

ATI would probably be planning on price drops to keep that 10% gap if not more I think.

and in my eyes as long as they keep that price gap, they've won this round (again?)


RE: Not good enough
By just4U on 3/19/2010 10:28:34 AM , Rating: 2
Usually the prices are somewhat lower then their suggested MSRP. Altho right at launch demand might fuel a slight premium.

As to AMD dropping prices... that's probably likely. The high prices on the 5X series are only partially up to AMD though. Retailers have been price gouging on the whole line since launch and it's selling well above it's suggested MSRP.


RE: Not good enough
By Spoelie on 3/19/2010 10:48:16 AM , Rating: 4
The 5850 MSRP at launch was $259, if the GTX470 MSRP is $349 that's quite a steep price for 5-10% more performance.

Of course, with the ridiculous prices they charge for the 5850 now, it is priced about right..


RE: Not good enough
By just4U on 3/19/2010 2:13:33 PM , Rating: 2
Yep, I'd say people should keep a close eye on all that as I expect prices to drop substantially. The Nvidia cards when they come out might start at those prices but Im betting that after the first two weeks they will drop down to. Nvidia has to have some wiggle room there to work with.


RE: Not good enough
By Souka on 3/19/2010 6:07:00 PM , Rating: 2
About time!

My GTX285 is getting old.... need to upgrade to make WOW faster


RE: Not good enough
By FaaR on 3/19/2010 6:52:15 PM , Rating: 3
You make WoW faster by upgrading your CPU, provided you already have a strong graphics card like yours.

...Although I have more than a slight suspicion you were being sarcastic, so feel free to disregard this reply. :D


RE: Not good enough
By islseur on 3/19/2010 6:16:07 PM , Rating: 1
HELLO!! What's all the FUSS is about? All based on some Turkish birgiriyorum speculation.... Let Nvidia first release the cards > Next some reputable review sites test it and only then conclude how much % there is a gain 9% or 9.16354%.

The bashing diarrhea about being fat before even taking off the robe on the ring, seems premature. Let the match first begin. Then let the judges decide who's the WINNER. Then rob your hands and grab a piece of the looser at cheaper price. I have a guess who's that gonna be this time, but I'm not gonna tell you.


RE: Not good enough
By ClownPuncher on 3/19/2010 7:06:12 PM , Rating: 3
I hear ya, hoping nvidia has a better product than what is being speculated.

But a boxing analogy? If a boxer showed up to a match over 6 months late, wouldn't ATI just win by default then?


RE: Not good enough
By ekv on 3/20/2010 3:39:22 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
If a boxer showed up to a match over 6 months late, wouldn't ATI just win by default then?
Excellent point. I think Anand covered that exact scenario in his article "The RV770 Story: Documenting ATI's Road to Success
"
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3469...

ATI does seem to be executing their game plan well. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I suspect they are keeping AMD afloat. Not sure why AMD cpu's are rather inferior to Intel's, but my opinion is that NVIDIA is kind of opening that "can of whoop-ass" on themselves. Something they have yet to address. What's the saying, "pride precedeth a fall"?


RE: Not good enough
By SPOOFE on 3/20/2010 4:39:19 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If a boxer showed up to a match over 6 months late, wouldn't ATI just win by default then?

It depends on what you consider "win". A boxer can "lose" a fight but still get massive amounts of money to do it.


RE: Not good enough
By Calin on 3/22/2010 2:58:17 AM , Rating: 2
The 5-series cards are pricey also because the production at TSMC is still not up to par (much better for AMD's card than for Fermi, though).
As for the higher prices in AMD's 5-series card, that's what you see when there isn't competition. Without a competitive AMD, Intel did this too (before the original AMD Athlon)


RE: Not good enough
By Iaiken on 3/19/2010 3:52:19 PM , Rating: 2
I'd be surprised if ATI didn't have a 5890 up their sleeve this entire time while they waited NVidia to show their hand.


RE: Not good enough
By ImSpartacus on 3/19/2010 5:47:42 PM , Rating: 2
Nah, they'll probably through out a 5890 late in the game to fill in their lineup when their prices come down and yields improve.

Look how the 4890 was released. It was the last 4000 part to come out and at about the same price the lower spec'ed 4800 parts were at their release.


RE: Not good enough
By xsilver on 3/19/2010 10:00:15 AM , Rating: 5
ok just checked the tdp which if right sucks too.

250w / 225w is not 10% more than 188w/151w


RE: Not good enough
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:12:46 PM , Rating: 2
Ya I would agree. Not only that but these are not yet official numbers yet. Untill the cards are released and Benched from numerous gaming sites I'd be skeptical.
I do agree that the Numbers will not likely be lower but could be more then stated. We shall see.
Either way your right , that is not good for Fermi.


RE: Not good enough
By ClownPuncher on 3/19/2010 11:38:16 AM , Rating: 2
Ugh, a significantly wider bus size, a decent amount more ram, alot more heat, alot more power consumption. 10% is NOT impressive no matter how you slice it.


RE: Not good enough
By B3an on 3/19/2010 4:41:50 PM , Rating: 2
RAM does not magically make games run faster unless the actual game needs the more RAM. For most 1GB is still easily enough.

It will help for 2560x1600 users like myself though.


RE: Not good enough
By ClownPuncher on 3/19/2010 4:44:22 PM , Rating: 1
This is the age of 5760x1080, MO RAM!


RE: Not good enough
By erple2 on 3/19/2010 4:58:24 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah, but that currently only works with ATI cards, ironically...

:)


RE: Not good enough
By nafhan on 3/19/2010 10:08:27 AM , Rating: 5
And look at the TDP! That's almost 50% higher for a 10% increase in speed!


RE: Not good enough
By Slaimus on 3/19/2010 10:18:40 AM , Rating: 2
It could have been a lot worse. There were rumors of 295W TDP floating around for a while.


RE: Not good enough
By Divide Overflow on 3/24/2010 10:33:21 PM , Rating: 2
Wow, you sure are easy to please. I suppose if the rumor had been 600W TDP you'd be happy if it only came out to be 450.


RE: Not good enough
By randomly on 3/19/2010 10:47:58 AM , Rating: 5
10% performance (maybe) over the HD5870 with a 40% increase in power dissipation and TWICE the die size...ouch. That's no way to make money.

HD5870 die size 263 mm^2
GX480 die size 529 mm^2

I hate to see this happen. A competitive Nvidia was a very good thing for the market.


RE: Not good enough
By Slaimus on 3/19/2010 11:01:41 AM , Rating: 3
Cypress is 333mm^2


RE: Not good enough
By randomly on 3/19/2010 2:19:44 PM , Rating: 2
you're right. my bad, the 4870 has the 263 mm^2 die size.


RE: Not good enough
By B3an on 3/19/2010 4:47:35 PM , Rating: 1
It's not all about games anymore. This GPU can do some impressive other things for the workstation and server markets. It's more like a CPU and GPU in one. This is where a lot of that extra space will go.

Still disappointing about the gaming performance, but atleast it isn't worse.


RE: Not good enough
By someguy123 on 3/19/2010 7:45:09 PM , Rating: 2
This is possibly true, and one of the reasons why I waited for this card, but they haven't released any info on acceleration to the public.

Would also be nice to see more things actually make use of cuda. Only program I use that makes decent use of cuda is tmpgenc.


RE: Not good enough
By Targon on 3/21/2010 8:29:18 AM , Rating: 2
The vast majority of GPUs are sold in the low to mid range, with a few in the high end of the spectrum, and a TINY number being in the ultra-high end(dual-GPU cards, SLI/Crossfire setups).

With that in mind, NVIDIA needs to not only get their high end out and competitive(remember, that 10 percent can be handled by a refresh part like a 5890), so what about the low and mid range parts? If AMD totally dominates the low and mid range, NVIDIA will be bleeding money in the next six months. We also don't know how availability will be, or what fun little problems Fermi will have when it comes to stability or performance.


RE: Not good enough
By Calin on 3/22/2010 4:31:45 AM , Rating: 2
NVidia hoped that Fermi will sell like pancakes to the GPU-compute market (Tesla cards). It would have profit from one Tesla card more than from a hundred low-end gaming cards - unfortunately, the Fermi for Tesla isn't there


RE: Not good enough
By gamerk2 on 3/19/10, Rating: 0
RE: Not good enough
By nafhan on 3/19/2010 1:40:52 PM , Rating: 2
I think we could only list that as a benefit if AMD was having problems with heat dissipation, and judging by the fact that Cypress chips have been in consumers hands for about 6 months now...


RE: Not good enough
By randomly on 3/19/2010 2:08:03 PM , Rating: 5
No it actually doesn't help.

The die temperature is determined by the total power dissipation times the thermal resistance from the die to ambient air.

The thermal resistance of the die to the heat spreader is only a small part of the total thermal resistance in the system. Because the overall thermal resistance is dominated by the heatsink and the limitations on airflow through the card and the case any advantage of lower power dissipation per unit area of silicon gets you is overwhelmed by the increased heat flow in the rest of the thermal solution.

Making your bonfire bigger does not make it cooler.


RE: Not good enough
By steven975 on 3/19/10, Rating: 0
RE: Not good enough
By erple2 on 3/19/2010 5:04:18 PM , Rating: 3
It does and it doesn't...

While the die may get hotter, the reality is that, all other things being equal (similar heat sinks/materials, etc), the increase in total heat generated depends more or less only on the wattage used (at least, when you look at a closed system).

So while the die on the ATI card may get hotter, the ambient temperature through the heat sink will (most likely) be lower, since the wattage consumed is lower.


RE: Not good enough
By randomly on 3/19/2010 6:35:12 PM , Rating: 2
yes it helps a small amount. The increase in power though un-helps a large amount. Small disappears into large.


RE: Not good enough
By mindless1 on 3/21/2010 3:38:27 PM , Rating: 1
Actually yes making your bonefire larger, but without a corresponding increase in power (-> heat), DOES make it cooler.

It is really sad that a supposed tech site has turned into such a circus with ignorant people blabbering on and/or downrating factual info.

Heat density at the die is VERY IMPORTANT, VERY SIGNIFICANT. The overall thermal resistance is about % difference in surface area with the most primary heatsinking path being between die and heatsink, not heatsink and air.

Perhaps you need a simpler example. Which is hotter, the flame on a match or the human body? Obviously it is the match flame but the human body produces multiple times as much heat.


RE: Not good enough
By johnpombrio on 3/21/2010 7:36:42 PM , Rating: 2
The heat issue is a valid one with the Fermi. It comes down to the way the chip is laid out. Only certain parts of the chip will be active at any point and it is the current leakage that causes most of the heat. So there will be hot spots on the chip. If the chip is laid out in a proper manner these hot spots will be distributed throughout the chip and will shed heat evenly. If not...
The smaller die size uses less power to flip the transistor so that's good.
It then really comes down to how the chip is laid out. Intel and AMD's CPUs have natural hot spots in the computing cores while the cache is usually pretty cool. That is what limits the speed of the chip, those hot cores.
Fermi is no different. NVidia needs to crank up the speed to compete with ATI. NVidia has already run into trouble and had to reduce the clock speeds to get any sort of good yields. This will cap the o/c capabilities and create a hot running chip that will only partially be able to dissipate the heat. You can only do so much cooling on a hot spot using passive thermal techniques. The heat spreader and heat sink on top can be as large as you want but that will not help that small hot spot much.
These hot spots have effectively stopped the CPU and GPU clock wars.


RE: Not good enough
By Calin on 3/22/2010 4:42:18 AM , Rating: 2
As for the CPU clock wars, Pentium IV had a double-speed ALU unit, and even so it could have clocked much faster than what was on retail (3.6 GHz) - I think 6GHz were reached under liquid nitrogen cooling.
Too bad for those hot spots


RE: Not good enough
By dark matter on 3/23/2010 5:09:13 AM , Rating: 2
Yup, good old liquid Nitrogen.

Apparently you can overclock your CPU even more than using liquid nitrogen if you do it on the far side of the moon.


RE: Not good enough
By Calin on 3/22/2010 4:37:43 AM , Rating: 2
Fermi's large size does help with the heat transfer from the chip to the cooler (and this might make some small reduction in cost for both the chip package AND for cooler (one might use a flat copper heat sink and not need to polish it mirror-like, or plate it with gold or whatever).
However, you still need to move the heat from the small area contact (300-500 mm^2) to the huge area of the heat sink (25,000 mm^2, maybe), AND you will need a larger heat sink or more airflow or better heat sink or liquid cooling (or all of them), so what you save in that "contact patch" you more than make up everywhere else (not to mention bigger PSU, hotter case and so on).


By dark matter on 3/19/2010 9:59:38 AM , Rating: 5
So the vapour ware of nVidia supposedly trumps ATI's commercially available products by 10% does it.

How long has the 5' series been out again. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...




By just4U on 3/19/2010 10:18:02 AM , Rating: 5
10% faster or even just as fast .. It don't matter.

The 5X Series for AMD is selling at a premuim right now above it's suggested MSRP. Having NVIDIA finally release their new line should drive prices down.

This is good news.


By StevoLincolnite on 3/19/2010 11:07:55 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
How long has the 5' series been out again. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...


Sad part about it all is that... ATI delayed the release of the Radeon 5xxx series to make the chip smaller, hence they could have had cards out the door sooner than they were.
Whilst nVidia delayed there chips to make them larger.

Anyway, I'll be glad for when nVidia finally launches Fermi... Looking for a price drop from ATI so I can pick up a Radeon 5850/5870 or two allot cheaper.


By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:36:45 PM , Rating: 2
Im thinking the same thing.
I just don't feel comfy getting a Fermi card this time around.
Too many issues and too many uncertainties for a product that has taken way to long to come out and by the admission of it's OWN Staff, " making a chip like this is F^&* hard " I'm more then happy with a 5870 or 5850x2.


By Calin on 3/22/2010 4:44:00 AM , Rating: 2
The price for AMD cards can even increase if NVidia can not bring enough cards to market.


By bighairycamel on 3/19/2010 11:19:55 AM , Rating: 2
Is NVidia just going to pretend the 5970 doesn't exist?

Funny how they say "fastest card in the world" but claim 10% increase over ATI's second fastest card.


By bighairycamel on 3/19/2010 11:21:09 AM , Rating: 3
Guess I should correct myself since they said "fastest GPU" and the 5970 is a dual-GPU IIRC.


RE: How long have the 5 series cards been out again.
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:42:31 PM , Rating: 2
Kinda of really makes you wonder what the hell is going on at Nvidia , I mean claiming they have the Fastest GPU card when they havent even RELEASED it yet. Let alone anyone near it or show the card realtime being benched on games.
So untill it is OUT I reserve my judgement.

On that note ...Judgment Day is approaching.


RE: How long have the 5 series cards been out again.
By Smilin on 3/19/2010 3:26:01 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
I mean claiming they have the Fastest GPU card when they havent even RELEASED it yet


Who said nVidia is claiming anything? Oh..you mean the screenshot and specs that were LEAKED.

You can't really gripe at them about a card that is not yet released then take them to the mat on performance claims that are not released either.


RE: How long have the 5 series cards been out again.
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 3:53:30 PM , Rating: 2
WEll I was quoting a previous post here by someone else .
BUT since you asked here is the info ,,,,

“We expect [Fermi] to be the fastest GPU in every single segment. The performance numbers that we have [obtained] internally just [confirm] that. So, we are happy about this and are just finalizing everything on the driver side,” said Luciano Alibrandi, the head of NVIDIA public relations department in EMEAI region, in an interview with the DonanimHaber website.
http://www.donanimhaber.com/Video.aspx?Id=1415

Good enough ?


By steven975 on 3/19/2010 5:00:29 PM , Rating: 2
Given that Crossfire doesn't have the performance adding consistency that SLI does, the GTX480 may very well be the fastest solution in quite a few games.

And while 5970 is technically one card...it is 2 GPUs. Saying the 5970 is the fastest card is one thing...saying it is the fastest GPU is another.


By LRonaldHubbs on 3/19/2010 7:19:18 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Kinda of really makes you wonder what the hell is going on at Nvidia

A friend of mine had an amusing (albeit improbable) theory: that nvidia is actually a money laundering organization and the graphics business is a front. As long as the graphics bit breaks even they are happy; if it turns a profit, all the better. LMAO.


By gamerk2 on 3/19/2010 12:44:26 PM , Rating: 1
The 5970 costs around $700 right now. Unless its 40% faster then the 480, the 480 wins Price/Performance. And as manufaturing costs drop, and the 480 starts to drop in price, we get to look at SLI 480's versus a 5970.

NVIDIA obviously plans to make the 480 cheap enough to make a $700 5970 look too expensive and power hungry for most users.


By BZDTemp on 3/19/2010 1:00:56 PM , Rating: 2
I think it will be a long time coming before Nvidia is able to make the 480 cheap enough to put two GPU's on a card that sells for $700. In fact I will be surprised if the new cars are widely available at launch because from that I hear they have all sorts of problems.

Also I'm guessing it will not be that long before ATI brings out the next round. It's likely to be just a speed bump but they have had good time to prepare and I'm sure they will love to stick it to Nvidia while they are down.


By Dark Legion on 3/19/2010 2:20:24 PM , Rating: 2
If you want to compare MSRP's, then the 5970 is $600. Otherwise, wait until Nvidia's card come out, because those will likely not be priced at MSRP either. Also don't forget that manufacturing costs drop over time (and supply increases) for ATI too, not only Nvidia.


By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:48:35 PM , Rating: 2
You should change the Meds your on.


By Calin on 3/22/2010 4:49:07 AM , Rating: 2
The 5970 is power-limited due to PCI Express specifications (300W per slot), and it runs its GPUs at lower performance than what the highest single GPU card runs for (slower core, slower memory).
With the 5870 at 190W and 5970 almost at 300W, where do you think the 470/480 (225W minimum) have space to grow? Dual GPU Fermi card might be even slower than single GPU Fermi card, due to this hard limit in power.


By DigitalFreak on 3/19/2010 12:20:10 PM , Rating: 5
Fail #2


By Rookierookie on 3/19/2010 12:47:30 PM , Rating: 3
The 9700 design line ended with the HD2xxx series, and beginning with HD 3xxx it's a completely different animal.

On the other hand, the Geforce series from the 7xxx series to the current incarnation on the market being to the same species.


By FaceMaster on 3/20/2010 8:43:17 AM , Rating: 2
Actually I think that the 8000 series was a major new design. It moved away from pixel and vertex processors towards a unified shader architecture.

The 8800 series was superior to anything that ATI could churn out until the 4000 series. Though in that time ATI completely changed its graphics cards to make them the less power consuming, stream processor beasts it has today.

I like to think of the ATI 5000 vs Fermi as the same thing but in reverse. Hopefully Nvidia will learn from this and will change their strategy in the future, or I don't see them lasting too long.

No, I'm not a fanboy, I've had several graphics cards from both companies, and I'd hate to see either win over the other because it means higher prices and slower technological advancements. I mean, just look at the 5800 series! It's way too expensive at the moment.


By somata on 3/20/2010 10:25:45 PM , Rating: 4
Actually I'd argue that the basic R300 (Radeon 9700/9800) design extends only to R420 (X800 series). R420 was basically a doubled R300, with the same basic organization plus a few tweaks and (fairly minor) extensions.

Although R520 and R580 (X1800/X1900) used the same basic shader organization as R300, they were fairly major redesigns. They had completely new thread dispatch engines (enabling higher shader processor utilization), 128-bit pixel data-paths (up from 96-bit), much more robust HDR-support, and of course SM3.0 support.

R600 (HD 2000/3000 series) was a near complete redesign. The unified VLIW-based shader processors are nothing like their older Radeon cousins. RV770 and "RV870" are definitely in the R600 lineage, but if that basic design continues to scale well, why change it?

Of course, having said all that, even major redesigns hardly mean starting from scratch. A lot of the core building blocks can be carried over from prior work; no sense in reinventing the wheel. At the same time, even seemingly minor tweaks shouldn't be trivialized; these are massively complicated pieces of silicon we're talking about after all.


By kroker on 3/19/2010 12:53:37 PM , Rating: 2
First of all, Cypress is a new architecture, they've changed more things besides adding more shaders and ROPs, it's just that they haven't changed their old architecture as drastically as Nvidia has. And Northern Islands is rumored to change that as well.

Second of all, the point of a new design isn't to be *new*, it's to provide more performance, lower power consumption relative to performance, and new features, flexibility and other improvements. Nvidia's new design offers marginally more performance but consumes a lot more power than ATI. So what's the point of a new architecture then? It will probably do very well in CUDA & OpenCL, but most people buy these cards for games.

Netburst was an ambitious new architecture too, you know... So much for new architecture!


By Camikazi on 3/19/2010 1:03:15 PM , Rating: 3
You do realize Fermi is nvidia's first dx11 card right? So AMD kind of beat them by a long time on updating to dx11, so asking how long it took AMD to do it just makes nvidia look bad since it took them longer. Also, waiting for fab to be ready and for dx11 specs to be out is not the point? How can they possibly make smaller and dx11 cards UNLESS those things are done? Seems to me they did it as fast as they could and a lot faster then nvidia could.

On the chips I can't comment 100% sure, but from what I heard the 3xxx and 4xxx are very different and completely new compared to the old 9700 architecture. You really should find better arguments, cause the ones you are using now make no sense.


By Smilin on 3/19/2010 2:57:32 PM , Rating: 1
So by your logic we should award the win in a race to who has lead for the most laps rather than who just finished in first place?

Don't worry, I'm sure ATI has some vapour cards that beat the fermi. Wait with patience.


Slight exaggeration?
By messyunkempt on 3/19/2010 10:21:02 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
NVIDIA reported in January that it was in mass production with Fermi GF100 chips and claimed that the new cards would blow AMD away


I think me and nvidia have a very different view on what constitutes blowing something away.




RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Aloonatic on 3/19/2010 10:39:51 AM , Rating: 5
They're probably referring to the fans that will be on the duel Fermi card. You night need to strap your PC case down when those things get going :-D


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By StevoLincolnite on 3/19/2010 11:03:42 AM , Rating: 5
Dustbuster 2.0!


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By marsbound2024 on 3/19/2010 12:59:30 PM , Rating: 3
You know I wanted to laugh at that in pure jest, but it's an absolutely serious comment.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By mcnabney on 3/19/2010 11:57:48 AM , Rating: 3
There isn't going to be a dual Fermi card. The damn chips suck too much power. They are already closing in on the hard 300W power limit.
Now, they could undervolt two chips, but the performance would suck. I think the only way to get more than one Fermi chip in your computer is to buy additional cards. The chip is just to hungry and hot for a single board to hold a pair of them.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By gamerk2 on 3/19/2010 12:11:44 PM , Rating: 1
They said that about the 280, which had a simmilar TDP (238) when it came out. Didn;t stop the 295 from being developed, now did it?


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By ClownPuncher on 3/19/2010 12:27:05 PM , Rating: 3
Of course not, but they didn't just use 2x 280's for that, it was chopped down.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Natfly on 3/19/2010 1:29:04 PM , Rating: 3
That's because they did a die shrink of the 280 (G200, 65nm) before making a dual card (G200b, 55nm) For the same thing to happen again nvidia will have to wait until the end of this year or early next year when the next process is ready.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By tviceman on 3/19/2010 12:22:01 PM , Rating: 2
GTX275 TDP - 219 watts
GTX295 TDP - 289 watts

Looks to me like a GTX470, which is 225 watts can make it under 300 watts if the previous generation is any indication to go by.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:26:18 PM , Rating: 2
Priceless !!! LOL


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By shin0bi272 on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Slight exaggeration?
By ClownPuncher on 3/19/2010 11:54:11 AM , Rating: 5
I find it amazing that you figured out how to post, judging by your logic.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By GodisanAtheist on 3/19/2010 11:58:45 AM , Rating: 2
Why would anyone want to play Warmonger in the first place?

Batman would have probably been a better example, and Metro 2033 looks like it could be the best accelerated title Nvidia has scored thus far.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Kurz on 3/19/2010 12:35:28 PM , Rating: 3
... The 5970 wouldn't be able to do all/none of the effects.
It'll still beat the 8800Gtx on FPS alone.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By randomly on 3/19/10, Rating: 0
RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 2:23:01 PM , Rating: 2
LMAO , uh ya i said I'm thinking same.

If Nvidia thinks this is BLOWING away ATI there needs to be some shuffling done at the offices of Nvida.


RE: Slight exaggeration?
By Chocobollz on 3/19/2010 2:48:30 PM , Rating: 2
I think that's why they say it as "blowing" so they could make up an excuses later on ;-)


Ouch
By darklight0tr on 3/19/2010 10:34:34 AM , Rating: 2
I've always used NVIDIA cards (not a fanboy, though) but this isn't good at all if its true. A slight increase in speed over the ATI 5xxx series for way more power and heat doesn't equal success. NVIDIA would have been smart to price the parts lower as well to drive sales, but I imagine they probably can't go much lower at this time anyways due to the massive investment they have put into Fermi. I wouldn't call it a complete failure on NVIDIAs part, but it is quite a stumble. Luckily my GTX 280 can still run pretty much every game at max settings so I don't need to upgrade for a while yet.

Hopefully this will finally force ATIs prices back down to the levels they were at before (or lower) as some competition finally comes back to the market.

I think many people will probably either go for the equivalent 5xxx ATI card when the prices come down or will wait for the next gen ATI or Fermi v2, whatever that is.




RE: Ouch
By Nfarce on 3/19/2010 11:15:29 AM , Rating: 2
That's pretty much where I was/am at. My first ATI card was an HD 4870 because it outperformed Nvidia's GTX 260 for less money. Right now I'm driving a GTX 275 overclocked to just above 285 stock performance, and it runs everything I can throw at it on a 4.4GHz E8400 o/c system at 1920x1200.

As someone who wants a 3-screen setup this year, I've been sitting back observing ATI again with the 5xxx cards and waiting for Nvidia's response (the hype is way over the top - just shaddap and show us the benchmarks already). ATI will have no reason to lower prices any time soon as Nvidia looks to release their flagships at full steam ahead prices.

Right now I'm leaning towards ATI again. I've just never been a big fan of their driver support and had many CCC issues with the 4870.


RE: Ouch
By shin0bi272 on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Ouch
By GodisanAtheist on 3/19/2010 12:12:30 PM , Rating: 5
Everyone has different experiences from either vendor. A number of people report having the alt-tab bug with Nvidia cards, or the stutter bug in bioshock and GTA4 so on so forth. I personally have two dead 7900GTs (neither of which I could turn on shadows for without getting huge artifacting) and one dead 8800GTS sitting in my closet, but have only ever had an old 9800pro's fan die on me. Luck of the draw.

Lets not forget the recent 196.75 driver snaffu, or the overclocking whups with the 196.21's. ATI's drivers aren't gold by a long shot (I have a dual monitor set-up on my 4850 and I can't OC my mem 1mhz without a GSOD) but ATI's drivers did not kill Vista's reputation and ATI's drivers don't kill their cards. Of course, ATI is the one with the drivers you can't trust...

I'm starting to rant. I'm no fanboy, as I've owned an equal number of either vendors cards through the years, depending on who could double my performance for under $200. The GTX4xx series, based on prelim data, is neither a smashing success nor a dismal failure. It just kinda is.


RE: Ouch
By DigitalFreak on 3/19/2010 12:21:52 PM , Rating: 4
... and fail #3


RE: Ouch
By Taft12 on 3/19/2010 12:23:05 PM , Rating: 4
The only thing that smells fishy is the consumption of Nvdiia kool-aid. I know Nvidia doesn't want you to know any benchmarks outside of physx and tesselation exist, but unfortunately for them (and you) they do.


RE: Ouch
By nafhan on 3/19/2010 1:58:10 PM , Rating: 3
By virtue of being the only DX11 card for 6+ months and - likely - the only midrange DX11 parts for much longer, the 5xxx series is where the bar will be at for DX11 game performance for quite some time.
Anyway have fun playing with your benchmarking tools!


RE: Ouch
By kyp275 on 3/19/2010 2:17:01 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
If you go amd let me know if you have any problems with battlefield bad company 2


I run a 5850, and have zero problems w/ BFBC2 :)


RE: Ouch
By themaster08 on 3/20/2010 7:29:39 AM , Rating: 2
Likewise, except with 2x HD 5770's.

Two of my friends have absolutely no issues either with a HD 4850 and HD 4670.


RE: Ouch
By FaceMaster on 3/20/2010 8:34:23 AM , Rating: 2
ur ling, my ati 2600 runs it slowly compared to my brand new Geforce 295. NVIDIA ROOLS!


RE: Ouch
By themaster08 on 3/20/2010 12:45:34 PM , Rating: 2
What's that got to do with anything?


RE: Ouch
By FaceMaster on 3/27/2010 11:30:20 AM , Rating: 2
It's undeniable proof that Nvidia > ATI. Also, before I installed the drivers on my ATI card, XP wouldn't reach my default resolution. How bad is that?!


RE: Ouch
By cmdrdredd on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Ouch
By Qi on 3/24/2010 9:35:44 AM , Rating: 1
Let me dispel that myth for you:

NVIDIA Drivers Caused Lion's Share of Early Vista Crashes
http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA+Drivers+Caused+Lio...

NVIDIA 196.75 Driver Recall – Overheating Problems Cause GPU Deaths
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/video/nvidia-1...

AMD's ATI Catalyst 10.3a Driver Performance
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/19/amds_ati...


TDP isn't as bad as you think
By gamerk2 on 3/19/2010 12:33:34 PM , Rating: 3
5850 TDP = 151
5870 TDP = 188
470 TDP = 225
280 TDP = 238 (for refrence)
480 TDP = 250
295 TDP = 289 (for reference)
5970 TDP = 294

5850 price = ~$339
470 price = $349
5870 price = ~$439
480 price = $499

Throw in the performance numbers, and you see that Price/Performance/Power is right where they should be for the 400 series; TDP isn't significantly higher then the 200 series, and especially the 470 rules at its Price/Performance level (+10% for an extra $10).




RE: TDP isn't as bad as you think
By tviceman on 3/19/2010 2:13:12 PM , Rating: 2
This is rational. Unless you are limited by your rig's power supply, or you simply cannot stand the idea of not buying the most efficient power using GPU, then TDP won't be an issue for the vast majority of customers/consumers. Nvidia, on the other hand, has engineering issues in figuring out how to increase performance in future refreshes without going overboard on power consumption, but that is not directly a consumer's problem.

If a gxt470 can trade blows with a 5870, possibly even win more often than lose at DX11 games, then this to me is a better buy for the CONSUMER.


RE: TDP isn't as bad as you think
By Smilin on 3/19/2010 3:19:28 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Unless you are limited by your rig's power supply, or you simply cannot stand the idea of not buying the most efficient power using GPU, then TDP won't be an issue for the vast majority of customers/consumers


That's me. I'm very likely picking up one of these. The TDP is crap who cares?

They may indeed have trouble with future refreshes but that doesn't matter today. On the flipside they overcame some big technical hurdles to get this thing running. The architecture is *very* advanced and this may help them in the long run as well.


By Dark Legion on 3/19/2010 3:08:24 PM , Rating: 2
MSRP != actual price, nor does it account for factory overclocked cards or variations in manufacturer, as is very clear in ATI's current generation.

HD5850 MSRP = $299
GTX470 MSRP = $349
HD5870 MSRP = $399
GTX480 MSRP = $499
HD5970 MSRP = $599

HD5850 price (fully stock) = $315
HD5850 price (XFX Black Edition) = $350
GTX470 price = ?
HD5870 price (fully stock) = $405
HD5870 price (XFX XXX Edition) = $430
GTX480 price = ?
HD5970 price (fully stock) = $700

No only that, there is currently nothing to actually show the real world performance of the Nvidia cards.


RE: TDP isn't as bad as you think
By Iaiken on 3/19/2010 4:55:14 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
5850 price = ~$339


Problem there is that the MSRP for that card is only $229 so there is tons of room for AMD and the OEMS to discount the parts and still make a profit.


10% in worst case
By pensuke89 on 3/19/2010 10:35:48 AM , Rating: 2
I think its 10% in worst case scenario. According to leaked benchmarks, it have significant better performance @ higher res and AA, and also better DX11 performance.




RE: 10% in worst case
By troysavary on 3/19/2010 11:09:04 AM , Rating: 4
Actually, given the way nVidia has been keeping a tight lock on any info, I think the numbers will be lower. nVidia seems to be pimping a few cherry-picked benches. I bet when the chip finally gets into the hands of reviewers (who knows when) we will be seeing a totally different story.

The higher DX11 benches are mostly Uniengins's Heaven on the tesselation benches. But nVidia does tesselation different. They don't have a seperate tesselation unit, but throw the full might of the shaders at tesselation. This is great for a tesselation bench where not much else is happening except rendering highly tesselated objects, but what happens when there is lots of other work for the shaders too? I bet we will see a situation where nVidia will have higher theoretcal tesselation performance, but overall performance will take a huge hit when tesselation is used.


RE: 10% in worst case
By johnpombrio on 3/21/2010 7:18:08 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, one Danish site managed to get some true benchmarks while the NVidia booth guy was being "distracted". They show the GTX480 and the Radeon 5870 neck and neck, each winning some and each losing some.


RE: 10% in worst case
By Camikazi on 3/19/2010 1:06:32 PM , Rating: 2
That would be odd considering most every company puts up best case, perfect setup scenario numbers and not worst case.


Deja vu
By martinrichards23 on 3/19/2010 11:59:42 AM , Rating: 5
Hot, late, over hyped and underwhelming performance.

Geforce 5700 anyone?




RE: Deja vu
By erple2 on 3/19/2010 5:55:47 PM , Rating: 2
Interesting. The 5700 was actually a fairly decent card (for its market segment - ATI 9600 competitor), from what I remember - probably the "best" of the Geforce FX cards. The 5800 (aka "the Dustbuster"), on the other hand ... was terrible.


RE: Deja vu
By cmdrdredd on 3/21/10, Rating: -1
In laypersons terms...
By nextguy on 3/19/2010 2:59:57 PM , Rating: 2
Look, I know very little about the technical stuff when it comes to video cards. All I know is that a game looks good and fast or it doesn't. Can someone please be so kind and tell me if Nvidia's technology is better? Again, I know very little but they keep talking about that tesselation stuff and how it is better. They also have PhysX which I know not many games use but if they did, is it not better than the software physics engines?




RE: In laypersons terms...
By erple2 on 3/19/2010 6:15:30 PM , Rating: 4
1. Newer cards of the same "class" have more advanced features (with few exceptions, this is true). NVidia's yet-to-be-released card's (aka "Fermi") technology is better than ATI's current tech, but only time (and reviewer's benchmark analysis) will tell if that matters at all in games.

2. Tessellation makes lower-quality models look better - but the question is whether making them look better sacrifices too much performance and therefore degrades the overall game experience. That is a big question right now, and something that will be answered when Fermi actually gets into reviewer's hands.

3. PhysX is an interesting concept, and works well, but the question remains as to how it really affects game play. While a more accurate and detailed physics model makes things look more realistic, or can do interesting things, does it really contribute significantly enough to gameplay to be noticeable? Adding physics to any game costs some performance somewhere. While there are physics accelerators (PhysX is one such tech that works with NVidia graphics cards), games will still run slower with PhysX on than with it turned off. Again, the question remains, is that performance hit significant? And is the resultant increase in game play experience worth the performance hit? Right now, I only know of 1 game that really makes significant use of PhysX to make it worthwhile as more than simply shiny-candy - "Mirror's Edge".

4. Software Physics is a bit of a misnomer - the physics is either calculated on the CPU (which is somewhat limited in its ability to do those calculations) or on certain GPUs (namely NVidia's 9600 and faster GPUs - and which are significantly "faster" than even the fastest CPU available right now, at least for these Physics Calculations). With physics, you can have lots and lots of simple processors (think tens to hundreds) do the calculations well (ie doing them on a GPU) and they will significantly outclass a few very complex processors (2-8 of them - think your CPU) in those calculations. However, Physics calculations can be dumbed down to run on the simplified Processors (like on a GPU) so the aggregate throughput is very high. That's what people mean when they say "highly parallelize-able".


Finally, some competition!
By Skott on 3/19/2010 12:17:22 PM , Rating: 2
I grant you 10% performance increase isn't a whole heck of a lot but at least now there will be some meaningful competition again because nVidia can claim better again over ATI. I been wanting to upgrade my 8800GT to something better and I been thinking a 5870 would be a sweet spot for me considering I may want to buy two more 22" LCDs and go with a 3x Eyefinity set up. At least now maybe with the 480GTX coming soon ATI prices will drop a bit. I don't expect huge price drops but even $25-$50 would be helpful. If we're really lucky this could be a start of a big price war but I don't think that is going to happen.




RE: Finally, some competition!
By dagamer34 on 3/19/2010 7:50:28 PM , Rating: 3
Being better at a cost of $100 more and 6 months late isn't economical. It's not about having the "best" card possible, as it's easy to make $1000 card that'll beat everything on the market. It's about having the highest performance per dollar, and it's hard to see how nVidia can climb out of this hole they've dug themselves.

Besides, as far as profits go, there won't be any Fermi derivatives ready for sale for a while. And ATI is probably close to refreshing their cards anyway.


Integrity
By TETRONG on 3/19/2010 10:33:52 AM , Rating: 2
Hows about we wait until the actual benchmarks before reporting that it's 5-10% faster.




RE: Integrity
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 4:34:42 PM , Rating: 2
:) ya but that wouldn't leave anyone with much to talk about regarding Fermi, lol
I can just hear the Nvidia Fan base fuming right about now.


By DigitalFreak on 3/19/2010 12:25:02 PM , Rating: 2
What would you know about playing Crysis, unless you sullied your Mac by installing Windows on it?


By Nathen on 3/19/2010 4:46:18 PM , Rating: 2
? Hello ? anyone home ?

Where does he say anything regarding a MAC ?


By NicodemusMM on 3/19/2010 5:51:13 PM , Rating: 2
You must be new here... or just don't read most of the "-1" comments. Stick around and read more comments by Pirks (or for the true masochist read his previous posts) and you'll see why Mac was brought up.

Nic


Fermi benchmark
By Dingmatt on 3/19/2010 11:18:11 AM , Rating: 1
Am I the only person who looks at this Fermi benchmark (yes, theres only one) everyone quoting and thinks...
They ran that with a crap CPU, wonder if the results are bottlenecked?




RE: Fermi benchmark
By Parhel on 3/19/2010 11:57:21 AM , Rating: 3
Probably you are the only person thinking that. The writing has been on the wall for a while regarding Fermi. For me, this is better than expected. I and many others expected an unmitigated disaster, and I won't be convinced otherwise until I see reviews and widespread availability.


Power Per Unit of Surface Area
By gamerk2 on 3/19/2010 12:36:28 PM , Rating: 2
From a discussion I was having on another forum:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/viewbbcode.php?c...

quote:
It's not the overall power that determines how hot a chip will get, it's the power per unit of surface area. Also commonly known as heat flux. Since the fermi chips are much larger than the ATI chips, I would guess heat will be less of an issue even though they require more power to run.




RE: Power Per Unit of Surface Area
By Goty on 3/22/2010 4:20:40 PM , Rating: 2
You're right, but all else being equal (logic to cache ratio, manufacturing process, etc.), bigger chip = hotter because the transistor density is the same. You spread the heat over the surface of the chip but you're limited by the surface area of the cooling solution which is in turn limited by the PCI-E form factor.


Fermi Will Be the Fastest GPU
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 4:43:00 PM , Rating: 2
"Company representatives seem to still be very optimistic about their technology and expect the Fermi GPUs to top the performance of any other GPU in every way. According to the maker, internal tests indicate quite satisfactory performance capabilities.

“We expect [Fermi] to be the fastest GPU in every single segment. The performance numbers that we have [obtained] internally just [confirm] that. So, we are happy about this and are just finalizing everything on the driver side,” said Luciano Alibrandi, the head of NVIDIA public relations department in EMEAI region, in an interview with the DonanimHaber website. "

http://www.donanimhaber.com/Video.aspx?Id=1415

I love the part....
" Company representatives seem to still be very optimistic about their technology and expect the Fermi GPUs to top the performance of any other GPU in every way. "
This was way back in Dec of 2009. No doubt they were very over optimistic ?




By digitalreflex on 3/20/2010 9:58:34 PM , Rating: 2
I think you could still probably see their reps talk like that today as their job is to spread "sunshine" about their products.


Dual Fermi
By Goty on 3/19/2010 10:20:14 AM , Rating: 3
I'd like to know how they plan on making a dual fermi board with a TDP that high without seriously crippling both chips. Rumors are that NVIDIA is having a hard enough time getting chips out the door at all (which is pretty evident by the huge delay and sky-high TDPs), so I'd be extremely skeptical of any rumors detailing a dual fermi card until NVIDIA has had time to move onto a new stepping.




Not worth paying for
By spathotan on 3/20/2010 12:15:20 PM , Rating: 2
Trash.

Ill be sticking with my GTX 285 for another year it looks like.




By shaidorsai on 3/20/2010 2:29:07 PM , Rating: 2
@ 499 the 480 would = massive FAIL...reason ? ATi 5870 available at 400. Enough said.

Then again maybe not...there are still tards out there buying 285's for almost 400 so who knows....maybe nVidia can count on brand loyalty to save them.




What the %&ll is nVidia doing?
By 3ogdy on 3/21/2010 6:14:39 AM , Rating: 2
Is this just a joke or what?
A videocard that's more expensive than what ATI's video cards but only provides 5-10% more speed is just a bad joke given the price difference and the amount of time we ' waited ' for this.
In fact , you might be able to reach that speed only by doing a bit of overclocking on your ATI Radeon so why would I like to buy this new and ' better ' nVidia card?
Also, if the TDP is that higher...nVidia is in big trouble since there are actually no gains...no performance gains(what do you mean 5-10% after all this time?),higher TDP,considerably higher price(extremely higher if AMD will drop prices on their videocards...which, in fact , is just what is going to happen).
And even if you're an nVidia fan...why would you spend that much on a video card that's not faster/impressive enough?
And think of what AMD did when shifting to a new series : the 5xx0 series is acceptably better than the 4xx0 one...but....nVidia, after designing a new videcard series you tell us the cards will be just 5-10% faster than what ATI is already selling at EVEN LOWER prices?
What is nVidia doing?




By johnpombrio on 3/21/2010 7:14:53 PM , Rating: 2
1. What will be the availability of the GTX480? Yield reports have been showing only about 20% yields on this monster Fermi chip.
2. What will the true benchmarks show for the GTX480?
3. Will the drivers be stable on launch?
4. Real world performance?
5. Ability to o/c such a power hungry chip?
6. Will the GTX480 be good for an HTPC application?
These are just some of the questions I have.




...
By JFL1969 on 3/22/2010 10:26:50 AM , Rating: 2
AMD can start lowering prices as soon as fermi comes out and still make a profit. I doubt nvidia's got any margin to do so with the upcoming fermi cards




By trisct on 3/23/2010 1:13:19 PM , Rating: 2
They will need an open playing field where they can put out attractive killer apps for the HPC side of GPUs. Offering CUDA won't get that market rolling, only generic and open platforms will get developers really going, when they can offer apps that don't have a hardware lock-in.

NVIDIA needs GPU computing to become mainstream, to really sell these cards, or even to demonstrate a decisive advantage over ATI. They cannot do that using CUDA.




By letgomyeggroll on 3/25/2010 12:47:49 AM , Rating: 2
To my understanding it takes 1 ATI 5000 series card to do Eye Infinity, but it will take atleast 2 NVidia in SLI mode to only do 3 monitors in Eye Infinity. So it would take atleast twice the money for NVidia to have same capability of the ATI. And yes have more than 1gig of RAMS does not make it preform any better. If you remember when they came out with the 8000 series, they started with 640MB but they backed down to 512MB later because it didn't help them.

The number 1 problem I had in the pass with all NVidia cards in the past was HEAT!!!!! And i didn't even over clock any of it. With my new 5870 I have a 24 and 42 monitor hooked up at the same time in HD with no sweat. So will NVidia will continue to have the same problem?




3D vs Eyefinity
By KOOLFUN5 on 3/25/2010 5:21:18 PM , Rating: 2
Well NVidia is sunk basically, as most poeple dont care about a mere 10% performance in a video card. The big deal is eyefinity ATI just put out a new card that can run 6 monitors on 1 card > Nvidia, to do multi display past 2 monitors at all = 2 or more video cards = more cost for that pieceo f hardware. SLI for 3 monitors at 1920x1080 is their max for the new cards, ATI 5760x1920 wins all day long the 10% issue is a mute point.




By dark matter on 3/19/2010 9:59:42 AM , Rating: 1
So the vapour ware of nVidia supposedly trumps ATI's commercially available products by 10% does it.

How long has the 5' series been out again. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...




I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: I'm buying
By StevoLincolnite on 3/19/2010 11:44:05 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
2. It will be faster that the ATI offering.


Won't know for 100% what the performance is like until the cards are in the wild, for all we know those benchmarks could have been fabricated with inferior quality settings in the benchmarks utilized, and are a "Best case" scenario.

quote:
3. The price will be on par with the performance.


That depends on what ATI prices it's chips at, for instance if you can get 2x 5870's or a 5890+5850 set-up would you pass that opportunity up if they were 25% (or more) cheaper?

Hell I wouldn't, especially if the performance is *only* 5-10% which again you need to refer to my first point.

All about price and performance...


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: I'm buying
By Dark Legion on 3/19/2010 3:50:26 PM , Rating: 2
Well, of course timing and power consumption are up to personal desire. However, the performance is based upon Nvidia's claim (as has been said) and even if it is faster than ATI's offering, it may still not be on par price/performance-wise. At Nvidia's launch, ATI's prices may be lower than they are now, or both may be above MSRP, or neither; only time will tell. However, have you considered selling your SLI setup and upgrading to a 5970? (If it comes back down to $600, it seems like a very doable and more powerful option, though no physx.)


RE: I'm buying
By Pirks on 3/19/2010 6:11:41 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
fvck everyone who downrated a level headed and rational argument that you happened to disagree with
haha don't like it being in Pirks shoos smili boy :P hehehe, suffer bastard!!! muahaha


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/22/2010 9:23:15 AM , Rating: 1
I think only reader1 can hang with you pirks..
http://www.dailytech.com/CommentUser.aspx?user=203...


RE: I'm buying
By Chocobollz on 3/19/2010 3:01:37 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
All about price and performance...

Not necessarily true for some peoples (eg. nvidia fanboy? ;-)


RE: I'm buying
By Leper Messiah on 3/19/2010 11:50:20 AM , Rating: 4
Why would you spend over $500 for a card that has roughly the same TDP as a 5970, but is 30 or 40% slower? This just doesn't make sense unless you're a hardcore nVidia fanboy.


RE: I'm buying
By tviceman on 3/19/2010 11:55:57 AM , Rating: 2
There is a massive price difference between $500 for the gtx480 and $700 for the hd 5970.


RE: I'm buying
By Taft12 on 3/19/2010 12:26:01 PM , Rating: 2
The price difference is of equal mass to the performance difference. If you're the kind of person who is looking to spend over $400 on a video card, the price difference is a pretty minimal concern.


RE: I'm buying
By gamerk2 on 3/19/2010 12:38:53 PM , Rating: 1
People will spend $400 on a GPU, but very few will spend $700. Unless the 5970 is better then SLI'd 480's, or twice as good as a single 480, the 480 wins that Price/Performance battle quite easily.

Especially the 470, which offers 10% for an extra $10 or so at current prices...


RE: I'm buying
By StevoLincolnite on 3/19/2010 1:05:25 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Especially the 470, which offers 10% for an extra $10 or so at current prices...


Last time I'm going to say this, and excuse the caps.

WE DON'T KNOW THE PRICE OR THE PERFORMANCE OF ANY OF THE NEW nVidia CARDS! So stop pretending as if you do, and wait for them to be in reviewers hands.

For all we know it's the next Geforce FX, or the next Geforce 8800, to much uncertainty to know for sure.


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/19/10, Rating: 0
RE: I'm buying
By letgomyeggroll on 3/25/2010 12:58:40 AM , Rating: 2
Why are boneheads comparing a 5970 to 480? Of course the 5970 will cost way more than the 480 cuz it's a dual GPU. The bottom line is that a hardcore NVidia fan will make any excuses to make an arguement. Even thou the specs are not what it preformed, and the test results are shown in their faces, they will kiss NVdia's a#$. I was an NVida fan before I got an ATI 5870, but so far when you buy a NVidia, you're buying a name. Not matter what NVidia puts out, people will buy, like putting a crappy Mercedes.


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: I'm buying
By randomly on 3/19/2010 3:55:47 PM , Rating: 2
Everybodies priorities and values are different. I have no problem with your reasons for buying one and it's unfortunate people rank down legitimate posts just because they don't agree with them.

Personally I would not buy one for multiple reasons. I like my computers quiet, high power dissipation and quiet don't go well together. My work area is already hot enough without increasing the output of my PC heater. I lost 2 laptops and a desktop card to Nvidia's bumpgate failure problem so I'm gun shy about their reliability. As an engineer increased power dissipation makes me uneasy from a reliability standpoint.

5-10% performance advantage doesn't outweigh the heat and noise drawbacks, especially if that performance advantage is negated by the lack of overclocking headroom.

It's good Nvidia will finally release Fermi.
It's very bad that it is not a broadly commercially competitive product with it's high cost to build, low chip yields, high power requirements, probably higher noise, and marginal performance advantage.

I don't particularly like Nvidia , but I'd hate to see the day when they aren't a threat to ATI anymore.


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/22/2010 9:42:34 AM , Rating: 1
Good point. Noise is indeed something I'll be watching for in the final reviews. My power and case ventilation won't notice the new card but if it's an utter leafblower on it's own that just won't do.

Lack of overclocking isn't a concern for me personally but nVidia might be sweating it for future releases. I work with enough kernel debuggers that I've learned to avoid overclocking stuff. Stability is almost always an illusion.


RE: I'm buying
By Nathen on 3/19/2010 4:17:20 PM , Rating: 2
"" Car analogy equivalent: $1mil F1 Racecar vs $200k Lamborghini on city streets.

So does any of this make sense or am I just a fanboy? ""

I had somewhat repect for you up until just tried to comapare an F1 car to a Lamborghini.
You can't even Compare an F1 to a Bugatti Veyron.

Are you kidding me ? Have you ever BEEN to a F1 race ?

Anyways Im not trying to flame you or anything but jesus, lets stick to Video cards.
In the end you BUY what you want but I will agree with most here and say that UNTILL we know prices ( that includes ATI's prices in reaction to Fermi ) we must remain calm and wait for the reviews.
Personally I think I'm purchasing an ATI card this round, but I'm willing to wait and see how things shake out.


RE: I'm buying
By phenimation on 3/20/2010 1:02:22 AM , Rating: 2
I have to wonder to what extent they've "padded" the specs. You know, a couple less watts of TDP here, a couple more FPS on this game.

As for GPGPUing, did anyone hear about Oakridge dropping their order for Fermis?

All in all, i've got to say i'm really disappointed in nVidia. I expected Fermi to have very good performance in comparison to the 5xxx series, 20 to 30% would have been good, and to be relatively power efficient. After all 40nm. But they've delivered a power-sucking beast which is 10% better than the competition *AND* ATI's 6xxx series will be out this year.

I was waiting out for Fermi. I hoped it would be worth it but it looks like its not.


RE: I'm buying
By Targon on 3/21/2010 8:48:54 AM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't count on the Radeon 6000 series when it comes to the AMD vs NVIDIA fight, but I would count on AMD being ready to release their refresh cards within a week of Fermi being released, which will probably eliminate any performance advantage NVIDIA might claim.


RE: I'm buying
By amagriva on 3/21/2010 12:37:07 PM , Rating: 2
I'm interested on the "Oak Ridge dropping Fermi orders" news.
Any link?


RE: I'm buying
By AmdInside on 3/21/2010 7:31:44 PM , Rating: 2
That was a false rumor started by Charlie if I remember correctly


RE: I'm buying
By phenimation on 3/22/2010 4:39:27 AM , Rating: 2
You're right, my bad.


RE: I'm buying
By Smilin on 3/22/2010 9:37:00 AM , Rating: 1
/facepalm.

That's what I get for using a car analogy. Now I have to explain sh1t.

While an F1 would massacre any street legal car on a racetrack it's usefulness as a vehicle on city streets would be diminished to the point where you would be better off with an exotic that costs far far less.

Similarly getting the very top end video card or a pair of them in SLI/CF offers value that is not proportionate to the price. A high end (but not top-end) card will get the job done just fine. A $700 card just isn't worth it. Buy a step down from that and save your money so you can upgrade a bit sooner.

Based *only* on information I have right now I'll likely buy.

Things I'm still watching before my purchase:
Noise (the only thing worrysome about the high power draw)
What's the final street price, what are the final benchmarks.

And yes, I've been to F1 races even though I'm an American.


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