The GT300/Fermi Thread - Part 2!

[***Deimos***]

why should nvidia sell it for such a low price if it performs as well as a 5970 or better?

performance.. we dont know.
Cost - 3B Tran@40nm - definitely very high.

I'm betting $600. Unless nVidia pulls a Sony - inlude a blu-ray, and make up loss by selling games LOL

Yeah right At first everyone said "wait until Fermi is there before buying HD5k" and now you say "wait until HD6k is there before buying Fermi"? Jesus You should buy your freaking GFX whenever you need it, not when your glass globe tells you to.

Yeah my glass globe has been pretty smelly recently.. maybe its the floating goldfish.
I bought DX10 AFTER Crysis launched.. expect to do the same with DX11 when BadCompany2 and Crysis2 arrive.

i think ati could have sold quite some additional 5800 cards if they would have reduced the price 50-100$ .....

#cards @ 400 x profit(400) > #cards @ 300 x profit(300).
ie COST=200.. 100 x $200 = Y x $100,
Y = 200. (TWICE as many as 100)
Basically, I'm sure AMD marketing is smart enough to do the math, and probably came up that they wouldn't find twice as many gamer consumers if they lowered the price.

Exactly, although ATI had the right idea by first testing out 40nm on the RV740 and going for a smaller design, which made their transition much smoother (relatively)

This goes back to 55nm RV670. AMD almost (RV630) skipped 65nm altogether. Likewise AMD ahead on implementing Tesselation, Vista/Win7 driver, GDDR5, 40nm, AVC/VC1 acceleration, DisplayPort... its a long list. l)

[Roger_D25]

Deimos - Those were all excellent points above, you really hit the nail on the head

[NapalmV5]

less $ than 5970 dont mean less performance than 5970 lol

white paper fermi/gf100 specs dont add up to 3 billion transistors

lets just say they havent shown all their cards yet

[LordEC911]

less $ than 5970 dont mean less performance than 5970 lol

white paper fermi/gf100 specs dont add up to 3 billion transistors

lets just say they havent shown all their cards yet

Ummm... with a chip like this, i.e. very costly to produce, yes it does.
If they could sell it for more they definitely would.

Number of trannies I speculated on back in Sept was ~3.1-3.4b(I pick 3.2b), going off the info that GF100 was G200 sized.

[highoctane]

Not that simple. These designs are being worked on for 3-4 years before they are released. This isn't a simple, hey let's throw DX11 into the architecture and get it out next month since GF100 is having problems. There isn't much you can do as far as a backup plan in this industry the R&D costs are just way too high as it is.

Thats my sentiment on the issue more or less, there is little choice but to release and work through the issues for a product that has been in development win or loose which is what we've seen with other hardware in the industry. The only way to really have a backup plan would be to actually have a backup design of similar performance potential being developed in parallel in case the first design doesn't work out.

[***Deimos***]

Thats my sentiment on the issue more or less, there is little choice but to release and work through the issues for a product that has been in development win or loose which is what we've seen with other hardware in the industry. The only way to really have a backup plan would be to actually have a backup design of similar performance potential being developed in parallel in case the first design doesn't work out.

TL no workie, S3 S2000
the no show BitBoyz
the doomed Voodoo4.
hyped beyond belief, and barely propped up with questionable optimization, fx
circuit problem plagued X1800XT
power beast X2900XT

Launching a half-ready product could have worked in the last century.. nowadays with fierce competition and slim margins, the bad press will ruin your company. Only folks like Intel and Microsoft who are too big to fail, can get away with it (a few times).

I gotcha, it really does seem like they fell asleep at the wheel in regards to getting any dx11 hardware out the door. Both ATI and Nvidia seem to release the latest on the highend part first before releasing the lower parts so with gt300 delay's you would have thought some midrange to lower end parts would have been scheduled to release by now.

very good point
I've repeatedly asked the same question too - where are at least rumours of midrange/lowend DX11 tapeout?? Is nVidia abandoning that market segment? Obviously they can't make new Intel or AMD chipsets, so you'd think with resources concentrated on video cards, they'd be the ones ahead of AMD...

FYI Fermi yields will obviously be worse than 5870. Question is how much, and the impact. Even if Fermi is launched at $299, low availability will create $1000 eBay market. ex X800XTPE, iPhone, PS3 etc..

[LordEC911]

I've repeatedly asked the same question too - where are at least rumours of midrange/lowend DX11 tapeout?? Is nVidia abandoning that market segment? Obviously they can't make new Intel or AMD chipsets, so you'd think with resources concentrated on video cards, they'd be the ones ahead of AMD...

FYI Fermi yields will obviously be worse than 5870. Question is how much, and the impact. Even if Fermi is launched at $299, low availability will create $1000 eBay market. ex X800XTPE, iPhone, PS3 etc..

Rumors of midrange have always been late Q2, though no word on tape outs or anything is pretty strange.

Again, any GF100 product under $399 isn't going to happen anytime soon.

[Chumbucket843]

new stuff about the rocket sled demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjIzo...layer_embedded

[LiquidReactor]

Any folding ppd numbers out yet? With 512sps GTX 480 should be breaking 20k ppd easily.

[zalbard]

Any folding ppd numbers out yet? With 512sps GTX 480 should be breaking 20k ppd easily.

There's been no new numbers for a while, I smell another delay, March starts to seem unlikely...

[ElSel10]

There's been no new numbers for a while, I smell another delay, March starts to seem unlikely...

That is a load of crap. People start pulling stuff like that out of their rear and the rumors start spreading very easily due to a lot of anti-Nvidia feelings that seem to be very prevalent with a large number of people.

[zalbard]

That is a load of crap. People start pulling stuff like that out of their rear and the rumors start spreading very easily due to a lot of anti-Nvidia feelings that seem to be very prevalent with a large number of people.

There is no official release date out so far. You have no facts to prove me wrong.
I am simply drawing the conclusion out of the current situation.

[lowfat]

Any folding ppd numbers out yet? With 512sps GTX 480 should be breaking 20k ppd easily.

if true

[Bodkin]

There is no official release date out so far. You have no facts to prove me wrong.
I am simply drawing the conclusion out of the current situation.

Dont talk about outers lack of facts when they are commenting on the lack of yours

[FischOderAal]

Any folding ppd numbers out yet? With 512sps GTX 480 should be breaking 20k ppd easily.

Yeah, in single precision :p

*SCNR*

[natty]

The wait on this card is very frustrating

[zerazax]

less $ than 5970 dont mean less performance than 5970 lol

white paper fermi/gf100 specs dont add up to 3 billion transistors

lets just say they havent shown all their cards yet

If Nvidia had a card that performed better than their competition, what makes you think they'd price it any less? For that matter, ATI as well?

[CadESin]

The wait on anything is frustrating, waiting on my iPad to come so I can bash it in with a sledge hammer is frustrating.

As for fermi I am starting to wonder how massive the problems have been for Nvidia, and how long these problems could effect the future of PC gaming. Gf 100 is the archatecture that Nvidia, from what I have read was going to use for a long time to come, and from the looks of it, its not working out as they had hoped.

Nivida has a few ways then can go from here imho, they can pull a ATI and rework fermi in to something that sorta works, IE the 2900XT in to HD38XX cards, or they can try to build a new arch, which they should have already started back when Gf 100 started not working as expected.

I am not saying no one is going to buy Fermi, I bought a 2 2900Pros knowing darn well that a 8800 Ultra would have been a better buy, but I am saying is that if this was the first card of a new arch, fermi is not a repeat of the 8800, there is nothing here great enough for Nvidia to rename for the next 3 years.

I could be totally wrong and fermi could own everything, but I would suspect that if that was the case it would already be out, or at least there would be a few "real" leaks.

Its all bad though, fermi being late and costing a lot when it does come out just hurts PC gaming, Good gaming PC's need to be under 1,000 USD in order for PC gaming to make it back into the mainstream, and right now you can build a good Direct X 10 PC for around that, but throw in a 5850 or 5870 and you break the budget. Fermi needs to come out now, cost the right amount, and work at least haft as well as the fan-boys expect or PC gaming is going to be in trouble.

I am a AMD/ATI fan, I will admit it here, but I want Nvidia to be strong so that ATI has a reason to keep breaking new ground. The 8800 days were great, you could throw anything at a 8800 GTX and it just spited it back out. The 5870 is a great card, but its no 8800, and from the looks of it Fermi is no 8800 ether, (yes I know a 5870 will play most anything at HD+ res but thats more out of a lack of good PC games, then due to it being an amazing card) To me it looks like the next big step forward will be next gen with the Fermi 2 (or whatever they end up calling it) and the HD 68XX.

Fermi is late, really really really late, and that is bad for everyone involved, save ATI, so unless you work for ATI you have many reasons to be rereading this thread every day with the hope that the next post will be word that Fermi is out, it owns everything, and costs so little that ATI was forced to drop its entire line by 100 USD.

[Roger_D25]

Great post CadESin, you made many good points!

[***Deimos***]

In the Rocket Sled demo youtube video, they simulated 500 000 particles for the bridge, at about 5fps. The presenter says you can do millions.

My observations:
1. Fermi is running well. If you can run something that complex, no reason you can't launch.

2. 500 000 particles is almost as high as screen pixel count (2MP for 1080). That's huge!! In Particle Fluid Simulation GTX285 (CUDA) does 30fps with 60 000 particles. 2fps on Core i7.

3. Repeated mention of "CUDA" and "PhysX" instead of DX11. I guess nVidia will continue promoting proprietary path. So, future TWIMTBP games like Batman Arkham Asylum2 will continue to require nVidia card for all the features. AMD users get shafted?

4. Rumours, photos and tapeout of Clarkdale almost 12 months before launch. nVidia DX11 midrange/lowend... canceled?

[hurleybird]

In the Rocket Sled demo youtube video, they simulated 500 000 particles for the bridge, at about 5fps. The presenter says you can do millions.

My observations:
1. Fermi is running well. If you can run something that complex, no reason you can't launch.

2. 500 000 particles is almost as high as screen pixel count (2MP for 1080). That's huge!! In Particle Fluid Simulation GTX285 (CUDA) does 30fps with 60 000 particles. 2fps on Core i7.

So... very rough estimate 40% (1 - (500000 / (60000*6)) = .39) faster than GTX285 while needing to render a scene and do physics as well? Sounds pretty good. The whole demo looks sweet, but so did whiteout. In fact, I'd say whiteout still looks better than any game on the market and came out with the HD2900. Just shows that demos aren't always the best way to gauge power.

[CadESin]

So... very rough estimate 40% (1 - (500000 / (60000*6)) = .39) faster than GTX285 while needing to render a scene and do physics as well? Sounds pretty good. The whole demo looks sweet, but so did whiteout. In fact, I'd say whiteout still looks better than any game on the market and came out with the HD2900. Just shows that demos aren't always the best way to gauge power.

YES the whiteout demo was amazing, here a link for a bit of a refresh for everyone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL2hnBe6tiE

Based on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-1GMbqzGX0, I am guessing its 3 GF100 cards, one for rendering, one for PhysX/CUDA, and one for Direct X11 Compute and Tessellation, or maybe its all 3 cards working together on everything, there is no way to tell I guess, Thus I agree with hurleybird, I am not sure if that demo is really anything to get that excited about, its cool tech, but if it takes 3 GF100 cards to run its really not going to impact most peoples gaming. Then again do demos like this ever really relate to what we will play this and next year?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/gf100.html is a fun read though to see how Nvidia sees GF100 at least.

[NapalmV5]

ever since the 600$ 3dfx voodoo2 sli decade+ ago.. thats where the fastest video cards have been hoovering around

one fermi beats 1ghz 58xx @ lower price
one fermi beats 1ghz 59xx @ lower price
one fermi beats 1ghz 6000 @ this is the mofo around 600$

[orangekiwii]

is that what you're hoping for? or is that what you know?

[LordEC911]

There is no official release date out so far. You have no facts to prove me wrong.
I am simply drawing the conclusion out of the current situation.

Official in the sense that even the bottom PR people are commenting on a Q1 '10 release???

I personally thought that the latest they could be was end of '09. While it might have been mentioned, it was nothing that could be traced back to Nvidia. We have video and tech media that have direct quotes from Nvidia PR on a Q1 '10 launch. If they miss that, they are in a world of more hurt than even Charlie could imagine.