Nvidia plans three Fermi cards at launch , x2 card in 2009?

[josiahsuarez]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15795/1/
High end, dual and performance

We learned that towards the end of 2009 Nvidia plans to launch three Fermi architecture based cards. The one that Nvidia talked about, is the high end single chip card and this one was said to to have 16 clusters and total of 512 shader cores. Let’s call this it Fermi GTX.

The dual card will naturally have two of these cores and likely a bit less than 2x512 shader cores simply as it has to operate with a TDP of around 300W. Heat is a big enemy of semiconductors and once you get up to 3.1 billion transistors even with small 40nm gates, you still end up with a lot of heat. If we could come up with a codename for better understanding, it would be Fermi GX2.

The third card, something that we can call Fermi GT, will be a performance card, and it could be the new 8800GT. Nvidia expects a lot of sales from this card and this one would go up against Radeon 5850.

This should be it for 2009 and in the first three months of 2010 we would expect the remaining members of Nvidia's Fermi DirectX 11 generation, including entry level and mainstream cards. Notebook stuff based on Fermi comes much later in 2010.

[Maverick123w]

But when in 2009?! I'm so bad at being patient lol... I want to get a 5850 so bad but I feel like Nvidia is gonna release a game changer.

[josiahsuarez]

end of december. if you need to upgrade immediately just go for the 5XXX series.

[K007]

gt going up against 5850? i would have thought the gt300 was going to have more power than that...hell the gt should be going against the 5870/x2 maybe -.-...

[LydianKnight]

gt going up against 5850? i would have thought the gt300 was going to have more power than that...hell the gt should be going against the 5870/x2 maybe -.-...

That's for the trimmed down version (with 256 cores (probably)), it's like 9800GT vs RadeonHD 4850, the full version is the one to beat the 5870, and the GX2 version is the one to beat the 5870 X2.

Read better ¬¬

[Toss3]

gt going up against 5850? i would have thought the gt300 was going to have more power than that...hell the gt should be going against the 5870/x2 maybe -.-...

It's just speculation and the author of the article just assumes that nvidia's cut down version will go up against ati's cut down version while it might not turn out to be that way in reality.

I'm guessing the GT is going to give even the 5870 a run for its money.

[josiahsuarez]

I'm guessing the "this model competes against this other model" bits relate to pricing rather than performance. the GT should provide good bang for the buck, and if you need more performance there are two higher levels to step up to if you can spend the money.

what I find surprising is that there will be an X2 card at launch. good news!

[slaWter]

I also have a hard time believing the GX2 rumor. Those are insanely huge chips!

[Johnny C]

I'm guessing the "this model competes against this other model" bits relate to pricing rather than performance. the GT should provide good bang for the buck, and if you need more performance there are two higher levels to step up to if you can spend the money.

what I find surprising is that there will be an X2 card at launch. good news!

They need the X2 card at launch because now that we have solid 5870 performance numbers, Nvidia knows that their single gt300 won't be enough for the performance crown. Hence the delays. Nvidia is scrambling. If they weren't actually behind, they would not let ATI remain uncontested for 3 long months in the DX11 market. In a couple of weeks win7 officially launches and DX11 goes to the masses.

I hope the new cards live up to the hype that Nvidia's trying to build. But I'll be buying a 5870 in the mean time. You can always upgrade again if Nvidia's offerings are that much faster.

From the NVnews top page:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20091002130844_Nvidia_Admits_Showing_Dummy_Fermi_C ard_at_GTC_Claims_First_Graphics_Cards_on_Track_fo r_Q4_2009.html

They don't even have a working card (that's not tesla) to show anyone....I doubt Nv will release anything in 2009(except alot of hot air). ATI showed working samples of the 5870 in JUNE! Release to market: October.

[noko]

I am some what relieved if Fud is some what correct. Meaning a complete line of Fermi cards including mobile parts and not just GT300. The picture I was getting is ATI with top to bottom DX11 cards, low power, low cost great performance against high end GT300 and then last generation gpu's rebaggage parts which to me would cause Nvdia to loose market share and profits. I just don't see nvidia having any significant number of GT300 cards available this year so this coming quarter may not be too good for them.

[Airbrushkid]

I don't expect much. I'm a Nvidia fanboy since the day of the TNT 2 16 Meg my first Nvidia card. And I've heard rumors of cards in the past being 200 times faster then the cards they where replacing and never saw that happen. Yet I will stay a fanboy because there's always worked for me and never had a driver problem like those with Ati cards. I have a GTX 260 right now in what you call a old system but I still can plays the games the guys with faster systems do. Maybe I'll get lucky and build a quad system next year. By then we will see the new Fermi cards. But who really knows.

[Bman212121]

I also have a hard time believing the GX2 rumor. Those are insanely huge chips!

Well the GTX 275 (And 2 make up the GTX 295) is the same die as the GTX 285, just underclocked. I don't see why they can't scale it down or possibly cut some of the SP off each die to fit into the thermal envelope.

[slaWter]

Well the GTX 275 (And 2 make up the GTX 295) is the same die as the GTX 285, just underclocked. I don't see why they can't scale it down or possibly cut some of the SP off each die to fit into the thermal envelope.

Sure but that usually doesn't happen at release.