NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 leaks out with Fermi on board
By Nilay Patel 
posted March 4th 2010 11:46AM
posted March 4th 2010 11:46AM
posted March 4th 2010 11:46AM
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@i1patrick "$1500 to $2400 for a new mid-level gaming PC."
Most people are pretty happy about entry-level gaming PCs which you can get (e.g. with ati5770 or gf9800) for $600-800. And it would run at 16x10 pretty much any recent game.
"... but is it really 5x-8x better?"
See above. Your "5x-8x" is really more like 2x-3x.
And you forgot to take into the account the fact that PC games are on average 2-3 times cheaper compared to their console versions (thanks to the fact that former fall in price faster). 10 PC games (new - 1yo) would cost you $200 or even less. 10 console games (new - 2yo) would cost you $400-700. After 20-30 games, you're already better off with a PC.
But let's give consoles the credit where its due: they are dead simple to setup and use and their online component IMO heralds new era in development of our herd mentality.
@i1patrick
In late '06, the PS3 had just launched at $500 and $600 for the 20GB and 60 GB models, respectively.
@Dummy00001
You're assuming that consoles are reasonably priced. Fact of the matter is that consoles are WOEFULLY under-priced. Feel free to fact-check this, but I believe Sony only just recently started making the tiniest profit per console sold, and is probably still a long way from recuperating the money spent getting the thing out there.
That said, these high-end cards do cater to the extreme and so are often over-priced.
I guess my point is that I don't really think you can compare the price of a card to that of a console. Two completely different business models.
@i1patrick Well basically a console is actually just a graphicscard in a box that runs code, especially now that graphicscards even have audio codecs, and fermi is fully C compliant so theoretically using a custom OS on ROM you could use it without any CPU/RAM, it would just need some USB ports to complete the picture, I guess that's next on graphicscards. USB ports, oh and network ports, should be cheap to add.
I hope Nvidia finally get their act together and start putting 2 DVI, 1 HDMI AND 1 DISPLAYPORT connector on the backplate just like every top end card from ATI has had for the last year. It sucks that Nvidia cards only have a few connectors when ATI ones have every connector you would ever need. Considering Nvidia cards are way more expensive than the equivalent ATI card - if the ATI cards can have all connectors - so should Nvidias.
Knowing Nvidia, they will just disappoint as usual.
Nice power supply design. Great job S, M, B, et al
For all the negativity surrounding Fermi (high production costs, low yields, large power draw), I hope for Nvidia's sake that it at least performs as well as the Radeon 5000 series. Otherwise, it's destined to be an epic fail if it loses in all areas.
@r3loaded
I've been building my own computers for years, and I have switched between Nvidia and ATI several times. My last one was a GTX 260, which died after barely a year. I replaced it with a 5770, which is cheaper, gives more fps, uses a lot less juice, runs much cooler, and handles DX11. Sorry, Nvidia, but it looks like ATI is where it's at for the near future, unless Fermi has some big, big surprises.
Size of that thing! That looks 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 sized.....
Fermi, the Italian physicist, is on board? Or is this is some trendy product code name we are all supposed to be automatically familiar with?
@giesen He died in 1954, he's not on board with anything really.
ha, you guys are overlooking the best part of this card ===== you can triple-SLI it!!!
@Sp1n pretty sure that would asplode your eyes
THESE CAME FROM THE DUTCH SITE HTTP://TWEAKERS.NET
THEY WERE AT CEBIT AND TOOK THESE. THANKS TO THEM
the cards arent performing as they were supposed to be,
the cards are using far more power than they were supposed to be and the claim that "its a new card its a more advanced card" doesnt really work this time around
the chipmaker isnt making as many as they wanted to due to manufacturing problems, because of this there's a very short short supply coming
Nvidia's pissing on their card makers (partners) with strange NDA's if you thought previous NDAs were bad you should check out the ones for this release.
they are really doing their best to keep benchmarks from being released til after the card is out, which is unusual considering that they encouraged leaked benchmarks when their cards were really good
not to mention they are "releasing" it at PAX instead of a real tech press convention.
i've only had nvidia cards since i can remember
but this is the first time i'm actually worried because things just dont look that promising
@psychoticdream
Since you're obviously in the know are there more interesting details you can give about that NDA?
I never really had a chance to study any of their earlier NDA's so I couldn't could form an opinion, but you've really piqued my interest and I'd really love to check out this new one, as you've suggested. Can you share a link with us?
@allnighter
this is one
you can easily google for more sites
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/02/nvidia-threatens-its-partners-cebit/
@allnighter
and this is more recent with the first out of nda benchmarks
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/04/gtx-470-pcb-gets-nekkid-put-through-thrashing/
http://bbs.chiphell.com/viewthread.php?tid=73452&extra=page%3D1
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FNvidias-Fermi-Leistung-der-GeForce-GTX-470-enthuellt-946411.html&sl=de&tl=en
and before you or any other start saying "charlie has a nvidia vendetta etc tec" remember he outed nvidia when they used a fake fermi card at a "fermi presentation"
he was right when they said tsmc had trouble with 40nm production, he was right again when he said yield production was under 7% (which nvidia blamed on TSMC)
@psychoticdream
Holy $hit, you were serious!?
And Charlie is your source?
Ok....
@allnighter
i know charlie gets a horrible rep as a nvidia hater but funnily enough nvidia makes it too easy
when it was shown that charlie had been right no one gave him any credit despite having been the one to say it first months and months earlier http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100113PD201.html
if you want a better article into ati's recent lineup and what nvidia didnt do read anand's article on the history of the rv870
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3740&p=8
he brings up points that charlie had mentioned up to a year ago once again proving he had been close if not on the mark to some of the claims made in his site
...and it will still be slower than tri-fire 5870's
and when the 5990 comes out, you'll be able to quad-fire in a mATX rig. nvidia has no hope.
@elduderino come on dude, it's proper to compare single GPUs to single GPUs, not double or triple GPUs to single GPUs.
@Jacob1
it was supposed to be a reply to an earlier comment about how you could tri-sli the new fermi cards/
couldn't be bothered to correct it
Soon graphics cards will be the size of motherboards and will require so much juice you'd have to get a separate power supply for them...
I remember when I got an 8600 GTX 2 years ago, I thought it was absolutely enormous and it was the first card I'd gotten which required additional power. Then cards started taking up 2 slots and getting longer and longer and now we've come to this - it probably will barely fit in your case, is absolutely huge, the manufacturing process is diminishing at a much slower rate than transistor count is increasing, so chips are getting bigger and bigger - the Fermi chip has a 500 mm die! 500! and 3 billion transistors. You'd need a 10nm process to put that into a card the size of the old 6000s and 7000s. And the power requirements are outrageous - 300W. 5 years ago my entire power supply was 350W. I just got a 750W thinking this was more than I would ever need... Forget about it, in 5-10 years we'll need an external dedicated power unit for the graphics card alone.
@Yankee
It should be fine for the people doing SLI. i mean, most people with serious gaming computers have an 800w + PSU anyways.
What happened to the GeForce3xx series?
I guess they're really just rebadged GT2xx cards? Dumb.
@zuke 300 series are rebranded geforce 9x00 series cards
@psychoticdream Thanks for the info. That's even worse than I thought! :\
Wish they'd make some effort to shorten these cards to fit into regular cases. I want to upgrade from an SLI 8800GTS config, but don't want to have to rearrange all my HDs (RAID array), optical drives, and inside case wiring just to fit in a card that's 11 inches long and nearly touches the HD bay in my Antec900! Ok, rant over.
@zuke
more in depth answer
"300 series are rebranded 200 series, some of which are rebranded 9000 series, sometimes with added Dx10.1"
can't wait to see how these cards stack up against ATI's full lineup. By the time Nvidia releases these cards ATI mightwell be on it's way to releasing the refresh of the HD5000 series
Ehhh, guys from Engadget. This pic`s are from a dutch website called www.tweakers.net . Thay published the exclusive pictures of the GTX-480.
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/65933/cebit-nvidia-gtx-480-op-de-gevoelige-plaat-gevangen.html
Why do they have the connector bus covered up?? this is stupid because it probably is a pci 2.o
@dlpmaster
apparently there's numbers or things that could make it easy for nvidia to recognize who's leaking the pics (which partner)
@psychoticdream
No it is that we dont know who the manufacturer is. Its standing in the article on www.tweakers.net .
In dutch:
"De videokaart is door Nvidia op verschillende manieren gemarkeerd, zodat foto's van kaarten naar de diverse fabrikanten kunnen worden herleid. Om dat te voorkomen, zijn enkele kenmerken van de videokaart onherkenbaar gemaakt."
In english:
"The Nvidia card is marked in various ways, so pictures of the cards to various manufacturers can be traced. To prevent this, some features of the card obscured."
this gpu gives me boners
1.7 wood screws whirring noises
Just kidding. maybe when they sort out the power issues I'll upgrade.
Freaking finally. I need to replace these GTX 285's for faster 3D Vision... that stuff needs serious power to run in un-optimized games.
The sooner they're out, the sooner one year will pass from the release and I can snag two for under $1,000.
These cards are so powerful (and expensive) now. I would love to see them work hard to make a really powerful single slot card like they used to. I bet if ATI really worked at it, they could make something as powerful as a 5770 into a single slot card, and nVidia could do the same with a 260 or 275 with DX11.
The only reason we went dual slot anyway was because nVidia couldn't compete with their 5800 Ultra. The worst part is that it caught on. Now the same thing is happening again, except this time the cards are getting longer and longer. This card thankfully doesn't look as long as what ATI has been putting out, but it's only a matter of time.
@Sergio526 they now reached a point where they have billions of transistors, all that switching will use power, and that creates heat and that needs something to cool it.
What I don't get is why they don't move up a bit though, I mean in every computercase there's room above the slot, so they could easily use that room to extend the cooler that direction, but I guess even if they did they'd need an extra slot on the back again to add the connectors since you can only cram so many connectors in 10 centimeter space.
I think the whole AT(x) case design needs a renewal basically, it's all good and well to release tinier and tinier versions but the old full-size needs some designloving too.
This card has exactly the same footprint as a GTX 280. I took the picture and blew it up until the SLI pins were exactly the same length of the GTX 280 I had in my hand. Not only did the pins line up, so did the power connectors. That makes the card exactly 10 1/2 inches long.