Fud...GTX 280 drops to $499

[cegras]

The nvidia die is pretty huge though. I'm not sure how big the tukwila intel core is, but if it's about similar perhaps we can loosely compare the yield?

[Extelleron]

The nvidia die is pretty huge though. I'm not sure how big the tukwila intel core is, but if it's about similar perhaps we can loosely compare the yield?

Tukwila is ~699mm^2 on Intel's 65nm process. I would expect Tukwila yields to be just as good or higher than GT200 TBH; it might be a bigger chip, but Intel's process is way better than TSMC's and most of Tukwila is cache.

[Anemone]

Even @ $499 I'm not yet convinced, but we'll see what the scores look like. Probably waiting till they shrink it to 55nm, while also getting a chance to see what the R700 (not the 770) is able to do as well.

The jump up in performance of this over a well clocked 8800 isn't really enough to warrant purchase, at least not from what we've been hearing about performance so far. But those figures could easily be wrong as well.

We'll see. 55nm process would do a lot for this chip even if they keep the heat the same but just up the clockspeed a bunch.

[Seraphiel]

Performance vs price, at the highend or extreme highend, is idiotic. The logic is clear here, to anyone with any significant experience.

Also people and their requirements are different. A gamer with a 22" 1680 * 1050 display, is in an entirely different market than one with a 30" 2560 * 1600 display. The two, with native solutions used, may well have totally different opinions, and rightly so + it is also based upon settings wanted (maxed or compromise, AA or no AA, AF or no AF, how many samples of both satisfies one if any are required or expected etc.).

We are all different, and so are our requirements and expectations ... And anyone sensible should celebrate this

EDIT: Using a 1280 * 1024 display, with low expectations for IQ... who really needs anything beyond this new or current generation of solutions? Hopefully none...

[Isaac MM]

Damit...i don't want to wait for the 4870x2 so i hope the GTX 280 is faster

[Bo_Fox]

Ouch... I do not imagine Nvidia doing well with their GTX 280/260 cards. Hotter than X1900XTX ever was, more power than even an HD2900XT, and the largest die size ever for any given chip in history?? Plus the 16 memory chips on an increasing complex PCB with poorly designed traces/PWM's that require far too many capacitors compared to ATI's neat design, etc..... all for $399-$499 with those manufacture yields, oh please.

Until Nvidia does a 55nm refresh, Nvidia's stock will be plummeting. Nvidia better follow up with a 55nm version real quick, in like 2 months if possible. ATI's R770XT cards really do look incredibly promising--I'm actually surprised after nearly 2 1/2 years have passed since its last reigning card, the X1900XTX.

Now, I wanna bet Nvidia will be finding itself in the same place that ATI was at with its HD2900XT. Bets, bets, anyone?

[Hornet331]

Indeed........I'm not falling for that one anymore.

Last year I bought the 8800GTX for $535, sold it for $475 because I just caught up in the "I must have it too" dilemma.........Now? I go buy the 9800GTX for $260, faster and better than the 8800GTX, so skipping a 1st generation of nVidia cards pays off. By a lot!

But I'll certainly be waiting for the benches of these new cards.

9800gtx is hardly better than a 8800gtx, 8800gtx even owns the 9800gtx in higher res.

[Hornet331]

Ouch... I do not imagine Nvidia doing well with their GTX 280/260 cards. Hotter than X1900XTX ever was, more power than even an HD2900XT, and the largest die size ever for any given chip in history?? Plus the 16 memory chips on an increasing complex PCB with poorly designed traces/PWM's that require far too many capacitors compared to ATI's neat design, etc..... all for $399-$499 with those manufacture yields, oh please.

i don't think anyone will beat the 1950xtx with 95°C at stock cooler and 2900xt needs ~60W more then a 8800gtx so 2900xt still beats the 280gtx.

Also i didnt know the ammount of caps say something about the quality of pcb or the traces...

sounds more like fanboy talk.

Until Nvidia does a 55nm refresh, Nvidia's stock will be plummeting. Nvidia better follow up with a 55nm version real quick, in like 2 months if possible. ATI's R770XT cards really do look incredibly promising--I'm actually surprised after nearly 2 1/2 years have passed since its last reigning card, the X1900XTX.

i doubt that, but well see.

Now, I wanna bet Nvidia will be finding itself in the same place that ATI was at with its HD2900XT. Bets, bets, anyone?

i bet you lose.

[zerazax]

Sounds like we have fanboi wars going on again

[D-Cyph3r]

Fanboyism aside for a little while....


This is very exciting for us consumers, $150-odd price drop before it's even launched.... either nVidia are feeling especially generous for all of us who bought 8-9 series cards or they are definately scared of what ATI has coming (4850 Xfire and 4870X2 in particular).

[Flinch]

I'll believe the price drop on the 260, but I have a real hard time finding validity in a price drop on the 280.

[Hornet331]

Sounds like we have fanboi wars going on again

i really love my ati cards, but the 280gtx is so tempting i quess ill have to switch to the green side.

[perkam]

This thread is useless without reviews

Perkam

[GoldenTiger]

Fanboyism aside for a little while....


This is very exciting for us consumers, $150-odd price drop before it's even launched.... either nVidia are feeling especially generous for all of us who bought 8-9 series cards or they are definately scared of what ATI has coming (4850 Xfire and 4870X2 in particular).

I hope indeed that the 280 price drop is real... $150 off would be sweet .

[mascaras]

$150-odd price drop before it's even launched....

hmmmmm dont count much on that .. (Not for GTX280)



regards

[silverphoenix]

how has Ati's drivers and control software gotten? the time I had my X1950XT the card was powerful but I hated the software for it...

[inCore]

This thread is useless without reviews

Perkam

Yes. Forums have a habit of over-speculating when nobody really has a clue and most people simply end up re-wording what has already been said and stating it as their own opinion.

Nevertheless, it's fun knowing everything about the cards before they've even been released.

[Sneil]

Buy-It-Now for $669

[just a noob]

is this going to be like the 9800 gx2 and cost $600 when it comes out? and not the speculated price?

[Bo_Fox]

sounds more like fanboy talk.

LOL No fanboyism here, dude..

Well, at least Nvidia will still have the reigning card. But I anticipate that the production will be so limited that the prices will actually be jacked up to like $650 or $699. It probably will not ever be available at most major retailers or e-tailers. Nvidia's stock will still go down anyways since ATI will be raking in the majority of the market cash.

And I, not a fanboy, have no idea about the R700 (4870X2), if it will finally be the true reigning card to have, when factoring in at least 20 game benchmarks at 1920x1200 with AA.

Nvidia will probably be forced to do a quick 55nm refresh of a 9800GTX, but with much much faster memory (wait a minute, Nvidia's cursed to not accept GDDR5 memory so Nvidia might have to do with 1GB of 8 GDDR3 chips clocked at say, 2.2 GHz--OUCH again for Nvidia if they cannot even cope with GDDR4!).

[gOJDO]

And I, not a fanboy, have no idea about the R700 (4870X2), if it will finally be the true reigning card to have, when factoring in at least 20 game benchmarks at 1920x1200 with AA.

4870X2 should outperform 280 GTX in most games and most settings.

Nvidia will probably be forced to do a quick 55nm refresh of a 9800GTX

Nope, g92 is doing fine on 65nm. nVidia needs a 55nm GT 200 chips. Maybe then they would be able to release 280GX2.

but with much much faster memory

Let's hope that their 55nm chips are going to use gDDR5. It'll reduce the bus width and that will reduce the overall card cost.

(wait a minute, Nvidia's cursed to not accept GDDR5 memory so Nvidia might have to do with 1GB of 8 GDDR3 chips clocked at say, 2.2 GHz--OUCH again for Nvidia if they cannot even cope with GDDR4!).

It is not the frame buffer capacity that nVida g92 and D10U are needing, but it is the bandwidth(which can be achieved by wide bus or/and by high video-RAM frequencies). IMO the reason why nVidia skipped gDDR4 is because it was virtually offering no performance boost versus gDDR3.

[dieqast]

Seems like the GTX-series launch is not far (1 to 5 days expected wating-time for delivery)! And Fuad is right! (if dollar = euro as common in PC-Land)

http://sallandautomatisering.nl/?red....php?pid=50760

€ 503,00

Chipset GeForce GTX 280
Geheugen 1024 MB
Type geheugen GDDR3
GPU snelheid 602 MHz
Geheugen snelheid 2214 MHz
Interface PCI-e 16x
RAMDAC 400 MHz
TV-out HDMI

Codenamed GT200, the GTX 280 GPU developed in 65nm process and has 1.4 billion transistors clocked at 602MHz. The processor clock, something that we use to call Shaders, works at 1296MHz and Nvidia's new chip has impressive 240 cores.

The GTX 280 card uses GDDR3 memory with 512-bit memory interface clocked to 1107MHz (2214MHz). The card has 141.7GB/s bandwidth and it comes with a total of 1GB memory.

The GT200 chip has 32 ROPs, 80 texture filtering units, 48.2 Gigatexels/sec texture filtering rate. The card supports HDCP, and HDVI via DVI to HDMI adapter and comes with two dual link DVI-I and a single HDTV out.

Ramdac is set to 400MHz, and the card itself is dual-slot with PCIe 2.0 interface and has one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connector. So, now you know.

http://sallandautomatisering.nl/?red....php?pid=50759

€ 348,00

Chipset GeForce GTX 260
Geheugen 896 MB
Type geheugen GDDR3
GPU snelheid 576 MHz
Geheugen snelheid 1998 MHz
Interface PCI-e 16x
RAMDAC 400 MHz
TV-out HDMI

Nvidias second GT200-based card will also be available for sale in about six days and here are the final details and clocks. Geforce GTX 260 is, as well, based on 65nm GT200 core that has 1.4 billion transistors, but this time clocked to 576MHz. Some of these transistors will sit disabled, as GTX 260 has two of ten clusters disabled.

The Shaders are clocked to 1242MHz and the card has a total of 192 Shaders (what used to be called Shader units are now called processor cores).

The card has an odd number of 896MB GDDR3 memory clocked at 999MHz (1998MHz effectively) and this is enough for 111.9GB/s bandwidth. The slower of the chips has 28 ROPs, 64 Texture filtering units and 36.9GigaTexels/second of texture filtering rate.

If you look at these specs closely, you will see that GTX 260 is the same as GTX 280, but with two clusters disabled. If GTX 280 has ten clusters, GTX 260 ends up at eight.

[GoldenTiger]

Seems like the GTX-series launch is not far (1 to 5 days expected wating-time for delivery)! And Fuad is right! (if dollar = euro as common in PC-Land)

Awesome, hope it really turns out that way... looks promising !

[Taoof]

Dollar = Euro

[dieqast]

Dollar = Euro

Haha correct if you're into currencies, but with graphic cards this is a different story ..