Nvidia GF100

[Chalenge]

From what you are saying then the only benefit from this availibility will be the price drop on 285s (since 295s have virtually disappeared) and other 200 class GPUs? Do you think these Fermi cards will come in priced far above the current line?

[Skuzzy]

There is a lot of speculative pricing running around the Internet at the moment.  I would not trust any of it.

The price will all depend on how much NVidia is willing to give away.  NVidia got caught flat-footed by ATI's move to modular chips, which reduced the costs significantly for ATI/AMD.

NVidia is faced with manufacturing the largest die ever done for a video card during a time when yeilds at the 40nm production are not good (TSMC claims they are getting a handle on it though).  The larger the die, the worse the yeilds are to begin with.  The larger the die, the higher the costs are as you only get so many chips from one wafer.  The wafer costs are pretty much fixed, so you always want to get as many chips from one wafer as you can.  These are facts, which cannot be ignored nor marketed away.  It is going to cost more for Fermi than anything ATI will produce in the foreseeable future.

NVidia is faced with two basic choices.  1)  Price themselves much higher than ATI/AMD and hope like heck the performance is that much better (not looking all that hot at the moment) or 2) Try to stay price competitive and give up making any money on Fermi (hang on to marketshare) and get the next generation design done as soon as possible (basically a 5000 series oops, as that is exactly what happened there).

ATI has made a couple of very good decisions which puts them in a position to simply blow NVidia away.  If NVidia tries to compete on price, ATI can ruin their day very quickly as it is costing ATI/AMD much less to produce thier cards than it is costing NVidia, at the moment.

On the other hand, if NVidia holds thier prices high, ATI can simply ride the higher net profit curve and be in a better position to turn designs around faster while still making money.

If ATI plays its cards right, this could be a banner year for them and a really bad one for NVidia.  Fermi is either going to be the boat anchor NVidia will be sorry they ever started, or it is going to be something they can ride out until the next generation.  Being caught with thier shorts around thier ankles, by ATI, has never set well with NVidia.

[Chalenge]

When you say '5000 series oops' are you talking Geforce or Quadro? I absolutely love the FX 5800... is there something I dont know about it?

[Skuzzy]

The FX 5000 series was a terrible series.  NVidia could not disassociate itself fast enough away from those parts.  It was a panic release to catch back up with ATI as ATI caught NVidia napping with the 9800 cards.

They ran too hot and the interconnects in the silicon were prone to high leakage whihch caused premature deaths for many, many of those cards.  It was a bad design and NVidia knew it.

[Chalenge]

You must be talking several years ago for another line and not about this gem?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133253

[Skuzzy]

Any 5000 series cards made today are not using the original parts they released.  The NV30 chips have all gone the way of the do-do.

[Chalenge]

I was going to say... I have not found any card that can do what this does for Autocad and while I would never try to use it with AH or any other game inside of a 64-bit OS I dont think there is another card on the planet that can touch it!

I was really hoping the GF100 would do for games what the FX 5800 did for my CAD system!

[Pudgie]

That is exactly why any new build that I do from now on will have an Intel chipset on the mobo..................so that I can go with either vid card platform.

Right now I want to go with an ATI vid card.

Performance/price ratio is very hard to beat.

But what's worse is that I have a NForce mobo & 260GTX vid card setup that ROCKS so I don't have a good enough excuse to jump out & build new.

 

[Skuzzy]

Interesting tidbits are starting to leak out about the NVidia GFX480.

42A on the 12V power rail (600W minimum) will be needed for the single GPU version of the card. It has to have a 6 pin and 8 pin power connector from the power supply.  Curious to see what kind of cooling solution this card will need.  Dissipating 500W of power will be no small feat.

It will not have "DisplayPort" support.  It will have the mini-HDMI port and twin DVI ports.

1.5GB of GDDR5 RAM.  Forget using this card in a 32 bit operating system.  That amount of video RAM puts useable memory at 2.5GB for a 32bit OS.  Would be tight with Windows XP, but no way with Vista/7.

[Chalenge]

So its a 64-bit OS card only then? I got no problem with that!  

Power and cooling isnt a problem either or at least I dont think it will be. I have the Coolermaster ATCS 840 with two Seasonic X750 Gold PSUs powering 295s... and really... do I even need a GFX480? No but I will get one anyway.

Is there an advantage to 'DisplayPort' versus 'HDMI?'

[Skuzzy]

In a nutshell.  HDMI is based on legacy CRT raster-scan architecture, while DisplayPort is for modern flat panel displays and computer based chipsets.

DisplayPort is set to replace VGA, DVI, and LVDS connections, on video cards, as the dominant computer video interface.  DisplayPort is a networking type of bus architecture where you can add monitors to the single connection to the video card without inhibiting the performance of the video system.

DisplayPort can work over copper or fiber and has a bandwidth of 10.8Gb/s making it substantially faster than HDMI.  DisplayPort can also carry audio and USB connectivity as well.

It is just a better all round computer video interface.

[Denholm]

What happens when the gaming industry hits the ceiling of graphical, 3D, fully immersible gameplay? Will NVIDIA and ATI continue making new and "more powerful" technology or will they refine the technology of that day to make it more efficient?

Not trying to hijack this topic, I just find it interesting that we continue making more powerful technology although there's nothing available to tax these resources.

[Skuzzy]

<snip>Not trying to hijack this topic, I just find it interesting that we continue making more powerful technology although there's nothing available to tax these resources.

Oh, I don't know.  There is still plenty of poorly written software out there that requires a brute force approach to work.  Every year seems to bring more of it to the market.

Give Microsoft a few more years and they will require this type of product, just run the desktop.  Everyone wll ooh and ahh, and ignore the fact there is more bloat in it than there are M&M's in New Jersey.

[Denholm]

That I can agree with!

[Chalenge]

Okay so now the question I have is if you have a video card that does have a DisplayPort output can you avoid the TripleHead2Go device and still get the same function?