The GT300/Fermi Thread - Part 2!

[Leeghoofd]

FYI, i asked around regarding fermis @ cebit and didnt get a single reply...
Looks like there wont be any fermis at cebit, at least not in public...

I hope to see some behind the booth action (with some free grog :p) would be a major letdown for me if there weren't any cards on display

[saaya]

I hope to see some behind the booth action (with some free grog :p) would be a major letdown for me if there weren't any cards on display

me2... if i see something i will def let you know
pm me your mobile no and ill send you a text heheh

[Jamesrt2004]

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/...ding-examined/

looks like the financial markets know something we dont?
they seem to have lost most of their faith in nvidia and expect "ok" to bad results for 2010...

nvidia really cut their rnd budget? didnt they just brag about how much they spent on rnd over the past years and that they are investing more and more?

if they cut rnd it sounds like they are definately not working on a new architecture but are refining fermi... they are probably preparing a 32nm or 28nm fermi?

yeah true they ont need rnd if they only need a shrink.. might be a good sign that they HAVE finished fermi and just need to get it out their now

[Teemax]

Read page 9 of Anand's excellent article on Cypress:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3740&p=9

Maybe TSMC was the straw that choked Fermi.

[Teemax]

looks like the financial markets know something we dont?
they seem to have lost most of their faith in nvidia and expect "ok" to bad results for 2010...

Take an objective look at NVIDIA's position today:
- GT200b is pretty much EOL right now.
- NVIDIA exclusive partners are making funny products: EVGA's GTX275 coop (GT200b + G92b), Galaxy dual G92b.
- Pretty much all mobile GeForce 2xx have been renamed to GeForce 3xx, I suspect Fermi based mobile parts will not come so soon.
- The only good news from NVIDIA lately is Tegra 2 (which is quite cool) and the mobile Optimus technology.

With no solid product, I simply cannot see how NVIDIA can be profitable this quarter or even the next. 2010 does indeed look bad for NVIDIA.

[FischOderAal]

yeah true they ont need rnd if they only need a shrink.. might be a good sign that they HAVE finished fermi and just need to get it out their now

But why would big green do that? They could shout "full steam ahead" for the next architecture. A Fermi-shrink might be a (early) 2011 card but what comes afterwards? Cutting R&D isn't a good idea imho.

[Sentential]

I find it ironic how clearly nvidia forgot what made them a successful company. If memory serves me correctly ATI's strategy is the one that nvidia used to bludgoen 3dfx into bankruptcy because 3dfx was always late; always missed targets and had features people didnt want at a price that wasn't competitive.

I have strong suspicious that Fermi will never be made in volume in the consumer market and we wont see a real wide spread DX11 chip from nvidia until summer. Reason I suspect this is because of how quiet they have gotten all of a sudden about its release....unusually so.

No leaked benchmarks of any substance, and only a handful of "reference" boards. I mean hell we havent even seen a PCB shot yet; what's up with that?

[Zed_X]

NV finally found final CLOCKS of GTX 470/480. Cards are ready to launch, will be in second half of March in reviews. There is one word: Gemini, when GF100 will be launched, remember for that word! Bye fans!

[Tim]

NV finally found final CLOCKS of GTX 470/480. Cards are ready to launch, will be in second half of March in reviews. There is one word: Gemini, when GF100 will be launched, remember for that word! Bye fans!

Less then a month to go, time flies.

Gemini? You mean dual GF100?

[FischOderAal]

If I remember correctly GeCube used "Gemini" for their Dual-GPU-cards, didn't they?

[blob]

rumor goes around:
199euro for GTX 470
299euro for GTX 480

[shoopdawoopa]

rumor goes around:
199euro for GTX 470
299euro for GTX 480

Source of rumor?

[andres1]

rumor goes around:
199euro for GTX 470
299euro for GTX 480

Add another 100€ and you may find the true prices.

[blob]

link
Check his track record

[FischOderAal]

rumor goes around:
199euro for GTX 470
299euro for GTX 480

Rumor goes around:

the Cake is a Fermi!




Sorry, but these prices are highly unlikely imho. I don't think NVIDIA is giving away Fermi that cheap, unless GF100 really does suck balls...

Source of the info:

Ik kan het verder ook niet helpen, deze informatie komt rechstreeks uit de prijslijst van een nVidia partner.

"I can't help myself either, this information comes directly from a pricelist of one of NVIDIA's partners." (Correct me if I'm wrong)
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...71807#33471807

(In the dutch thread some are doubting the numbers as well from what I can read and understand)

[Teemax]

I concur, the Cake is a Fermi! (please note the capitalization for future references )

Maybe it's the price for Fermi per chip, not board? If it's chip price, then it's OK I guess.

[FischOderAal]

Why is "Cake" written in capitals here? Sorry, English is not my mother tongue But thanks for correcting me

[Teemax]

That was just a joke. The CAKE in Portal (game) is sacred

[zalbard]

It's the price of the Wooden Screw edition.

[ajaidev]

Gemini = dual fermi AFAIK

[saaya]

i think somebody just took the us dollar price and calculated what that is in euros... unfortunately thats not how it works...
whatever something costs in us$ in the us is usually what it costs in europe in euros...

200E=275us$
300E=400us$

the real euro price would then be around 275E and 400E...
even that sounds a bit low...

[zalbard]

Add 50% more and that'd be about right, yeah.

[jfromeo]

If it's $400, it will be 400€ in Europe, at least at launch.

[***Deimos***]

So NVIDIA should just say "sorry dudes and dudettes, but Fermi won't beat HD 5970 so we ain't gonna relase it"? What would be the point of that?

Fermi might not be the new messiah for gamers, but as quite few already pointed out Fermi has unique HPC-capabilities.

A product that might not sell well to gamers but do "quite" good in HPC-applications is better than no product at all, don't you think?

Sometimes you've got to release what you got, no matter what. Don't you think ATI didn't like what R600 turned out to be? RV670 was basically R600 done right but wasn't really faster. Should they not have released RV670 because it was late and not fast enough?

Wake up NapalmV5! WTH happened to you?!

You are right about the parallels to R600.. big, power hungry, late and overhyped.

In the end though, regardless what the outcome of Fermi is, the market will move on to new products.

Already 2 years ago nVidia engineers created architecture for DX11 successor, and right now they are designing it with lessons learned from Fermi.

But, nVidia's make chips bigger and bigger mentality is becoming their acheles heel. As the inside look into AMD showed, changing course (convincing EVERYONE to do things differently) is difficult. 90-95% chance that GT400/"Fermi2" will be big monolithic design... probably 28-32nm shrink of Fermi.

After that, in 2012, (if Fermi doesnt do it) nVidia might be first to break 645.16 mm^2 barrier. ie a chip so big its 1 square inch, on a wafer thats only 37.7 inch^2.

JUST IN CASE BACK IN SEPT 30, 2009 YOU WEREN'T SHOCKED THAT FERMI IS 3BT.. some perspective:
45nm Phenom II 6MB L3 = 258mm2
45nm Core i7 8MB L3 = 263mm2 - tiny in comparison
45nm 6core Dunnington 16MB L3 (Core2) = 503mm2
45nm 8core SMT POWER7 32MB eDRAM = 567mm2
65nm 240SP GT200 = 576mm2 - redefining ridiculously huge
45nm 8core SMT Tukwila Itanium 24MB L3 ~700mm^2 and 2BT.
40nm 512SP Fermi = ?? record die size ?? - 3BT is record!!??

BTW: if anandtech Inside RV870 article is true about TSMC 40nm, bad news for Fermi. Via defects, and doubling to compensate, and having more redundant logic/ALU will bloat an already enormous die size. Likewise transistor channel length varience bigger problem for Fermi since chip already hot enough.

[Sam_oslo]

i think somebody just took the us dollar price and calculated what that is in euros... unfortunately thats not how it works...
whatever something costs in us$ in the us is usually what it costs in europe in euros...

200E=275us$
300E=400us$

the real euro price would then be around 275E and 400E...
even that sounds a bit low...

Add 50% more and that'd be about right, yeah.

If it's $400, it will be 400€ in Europe, at least at launch.

Are you guys talking about these prices with a competing GPU from ATI or without it? You guys have to clarify this, because the price is always directly affected by competition.

If Fermi beats the performance of current ATI-line up, an ATI just watch it (with those big plans for 86x-series which comes later , and even bigger and later plans for 28nm ) then a superior Fermi won't be cheap, for sure.
But if ATI can match the Fermi-performance with a refresh (or new GPU) at the same time, then we are looking at good prices and cheap Fermi.
What scenario is the base of your price speculation guys?