NVIDIA to get official with Fermi GPUs, will 'more than double the performance' of existing cards
It's sure taken 'em long enough, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that NVIDIA will finally allow the long-awaited Fermi design to reveal itself to the world. We're guessing that the GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480 that we've been hearing (and hearing) about will be the flagship GPUs to get launched, but whatever the case, the WSJ assures us that the new line will "more than double the performance of its current products." As you'd expect, the Fermi cards -- which will ship with 512 480 or 446 cores (depending on model), three billion transistors and a whole heap of expectations -- will support 3D titles along with the latest video processing software, but they'll also be aimed at more unconventional markets like "medical research and oil-field exploration." Sounds gnarly, NVIDIA, but we're just interested in seeing our frame rates hit triple digits in Crysis 2 -- got it?























Alright now we need some benchmarks(ones not done by Nvidia)
@spsfinest how about ATi?
@CaptainPlanet
I was referring to getting some benchmarks from sites like HotHardware or TomsHardware.
@spsfinest what about Voodoo?
@spsfinest
dont forget with good drivers
"As you'd expect, the Fermi cards -- which will ship with 512 cores.."
Wrong. 480 ships with 480, 470 ships with 448.
@Celeras
That's true TSMC is still have troubles with 55nm GPU , I read that yield is still around 50%. I assume GTX 485 will have 512 cores or Nvidia will go crazy again and will release something like GTX 480+
@spsfinest All for $999
@Celeras
Forgive there Supidity, as it is Obivious to me and you that they do not know what they are talking about.yes you are correct , there is NO 512 core. only 480 and 448. Fermi is so bad they had no chouce but to disable the cores. seems really dumb to me that ENGADGET could not even look it up or confirm what they are posting is correct.
Shame.
@Celeras and if they dont burn your house down before that...
@spsfinest The Tesla series will probably get the fermies with 512 working cores.
Yeah, maybe in tessellation rendering, but I'd like to see the claims hold true in game-play too. We'll see!
@Jon Presco It wont.
@Jon Presco They said it improves PhysX performance too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkI-ThRTrPY
I reckon it will improve standard performance but not much. Probably won't even rival ATI's GPUs just now. The tessellation looks cool but few games will use it for a while.
When it trickles down into laptops, then it will be interesting as developers will start experimenting with it in games due to the marketshare.
Good luck NVIDIA. Improve my 3D Vision... now!
Maybe this is why Apple still hasn't released updated MBPs.
@Apple Fan These GPUs are for desktops with big power supplies. And Apple has never been known to include a decent graphics card with a powerful Mac desktop.
@Apple Fan
Nope, these are desktop cards. Laptop fermi cards aren't even in production yet.
@Smurf The ATI Radeon HD 4870 isn't terrible, but you're right, it wasn't even the top end when the current Mac Pro incarnation came out.
@Apple Fan That MBP somehow might cost you $5000 or so.
@Smurf
In addition to the 4870 (which isn't top end, but is decent) you can also get the gtx285, which is almost the top of the line for the current nvidia generation.
@Dale P the ATi HD4870 is far from terrible.
@Apple Fan
Yep, Apple is waiting for desktop cards to be released, so that they could put them in their notebooks.
@Nitesh
And probably wont be for a while. Fermi is Nvidia's Pentium 4.
Oh, and I hope game developers start offering a super-ultra-mega tessellation option in all their DX 11 games.
@Smurf, Metro 2033 does and I hear it's pretty nice looking.
I thought there wasn't going to be a 512 core...
@st33ld13hl
There is not. Engadget is is wrong and miss informed.
Hmm, what exactly is AA and why is every bench mark centered around it ?
@DeezeNuts
AA is Anti-Aliasing. It basically gets rid of blockyness and that sort of thing in your graphics. It also tends to consume a lot of graphics processing which is why it's always benched.
@DeezeNuts
It stands for Anti Aliasing and it's a technique that adds gray points around pixel joins in diagonal or curvaceous lines in an scene so that they appear straight or smoother to the eye.
Here more info about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing
It is important in Graphic card benchmarks as this technique has proven to have huge impact in performance at certain quality levels; so technically the better the graphic card does with AA enabled, the better quality you will experience without too much performance impact.
After that you also have to consider the quality of the implementation though, but I will not get into that kind of detail :)
@DeezeNuts
When I was in college we did AA by drawing the entire frame multiple times but slightly offset by subpixels. So 4x AA means drawing each frame 4 times. The subpixel offset smooths out the rough edges. Prerendered graphics take advantage of this since they have all the time in the world to process it.
That is why it's so expensive to do this. It's pretty much the same as going from 60fps to 240fps. I don't know how they do it these days but I can't imagine a cheaper way since you would have to figure out where the edges are.
@hated hehe, well we gotta use em now dont we?
ME WANT!
@rideintegrity ME WANT TOO!! ME SMASH OFFSPRING PIGGY - GET MONEY - BUY CARD!!! - LOSE WIFE!! - IT WORTH IT!!!
Benchies or I don't give a shit, Nvidia.
I just read 'Sounds gnarly, NVIDIA, but we're just interested in seeing our frame rates hit triple digits in Crysis 2 -- got it? ' like Dr.Perry Cox from Scrubs.
ATI is kicking their ass with a better product at a lower price (at ALL price levels!)... However, I'll go back to NVIDIA with my next purchase if they're significantly better than the high-end Radeons (ie. 5870 and gang)...
The only thing NVIDIA has done better than ATI is its work with CUDA, though as OpenCL develops I suspect that advantage will be diminished.
@rudiger From everything I've read, Fermi cards are only showing a 10% performance increase over the 5870 (I could be wrong, it could have been the 5970). Doesn't sound like that much of an increase.
@aschettler
Nvidia claimed same or better then the 5870. i dont think that it happening. If you want to know your gonna have to do your research.
One thing is 100 % certain. fermi will not compete with the 5970.
@Nathen
Which means not much reason to wait for NVIDIA... just get a 5970 if you need the performance.
Sounds great! Now how about the film industry finally moving away from 24fps??
@EdgeOne Why would they do that?
@EdgeOne
unfortunately, higher fps in film looks worse
@Failbait
seeing as thats about all that the eye can perceive I don't see why they would. frankly even with games, anything above about 35 fps is wasted information to your eye, and anything above 75 (or what ever your monitor refresh rate is) is completely wasted.
@RauBurger No.
@Failbait then how bout less fps then 24 if more=bad then less=good right
that is what an idiot or mac user would say
-wait are they 2 separate groups?
@EdgeOne Yes, please, my eyes can see 2 frames while in the theatres....
@EdgeOne
agreed.
The reason why 24 fps was used for film is because film was/is expensive and 24 fps is the minimum number of frames required to eliminate flickering. But, that never meant that 24 fps was great or even good, especially in fast camera panning. If you play pc games can tell, 60+fps is pretty smooth while even 30fps is often noticeably shitty.
24 fps really blows.
@University of Pi
24fps has more data per frame than 30fps at the same bitrate.
Yes you could go with 30fps, but it would probably have less color and look shittier than a comparable 24fps video