[QUOTE="Instashot"][QUOTE="lhughey"]get your 699.99 ready for Fermi and its lovely lady humps. Its fermi-licous!Rexer-i4
Its not $600, that Sabrepc site or whatever was confirmed to be fake prices and also that is an unknown site.
They listed spec when for example 2gb V-mem isn't possible on a 512mb card like the G400 series which confirms that site is full of **** and is just looking for attention.
Word around i that GTX 470 will be $299, 480 $399, and the X2 version $599.
if those prices were true and the benchmark were exactly what nvidia promised then ati will have tough time. ... Do you have any idea what you're talking about, at all? Same question for the guy you quoted.
1) The price of a Graphics card is mostly decided by the chip since board costs are overall the same. The cost of the chip is determined by its size, also known as die size. ATi's Cyprrus has 2.2 billion transistors and nVidia's Fermi has 3.0 billion transistors. So the die size of nVidia's Fermi is larger [same process node (40nm) at same manufacturer (TSMC)]. There's also another problem which is defects. The chance you'll get a defect increases the more your die size increases, and no this is not lineair.So asuming the're on even grounds then no matter what ATi's cards are always going to be cheaper unless nVidia wants to sell at a loss.
Now the thing is nVidia and ATi distribute their resources differently. ATi puts more peeps on process technology while nVidia puts more peeps on archtectural design. Couple that with everything you've heard about TSMC lately and I think you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the $$$$ is hitting the fan. Countless of sources are reporting quite low yields (% of good chips out of a single silicon disc).
2) Its already 6 months past the launch of the HD5xxx series and there's still no word about performance or any benchmark leaks, what does this tell you? When your competitor already releases products that cover every price segment and showing you every corner of the room you should try to keep as much as people from buying this product, and what would be the perfect way, in the GPU world, to do that then to release some benchmarks? No, you're right nVidia is doing all of this on purpose, because they obviously felt sorry for ATi.
This should tell you enough about its performance. Infact boards are already circulating. If Charlie's source info is correct, and you have to admit he's been on a strike ever since 2009 march regarding Fermi, the GTX480 only performs roughly 5% better then the HD5870 while leaving little to no headroom at all for overclocking. Which should tell you enough about the possibility of an X2 card since if there's no headroom there are thermal issues and thermal issues means lots of powah going thro that chip. Remember PCI-e ceiling is 300w. HD5870 at full load sucks up 188w so it required a. nVidia reported the GTX480 (GTX380 at the time) would suck up 225, but due to above mentioned issues this might be even higher.
So in order to allow them to stay under the ceiling they would have to shrink to 28nm which is currently targetted to hit the market in 2011 Q2, by then we'll have Fermi 2 which should release 2010 Q4/2011 Q1.
So, is it possible Fermi's are going to cost 299$, 399$? Sure, but that would mean losing money on every card sold. Then again they might not have much choice. If I were anyone currently holding back I would suggest waiting for Fermi 2. Heck, my 8800GT is still running 90% of my games at 1080p/2-4AA. So I'm wondering how exactly people are justifying these purchases. :P Then again that's just me.
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