How will ATI respond to Fermi? (poll included)

[sxr7171]

Nothing. Why would they have to? It's not like nVidia will challenge them to release the refresh which is probably ready to roll out if they wanted to press forward with it. It's just a waste of money to roll out a refresh when you don't have to. They'll get around to releasing lower cost silicon when it makes business sense.

nVidia will let all gamers down both ATI and nVidia fanboys and rational shoppers as well.

 

[rahvin]

ATI isn't going to do anything. Charlie was dead on with every single rumor he posted. I believe his trend will continue and that Nvidia is only planning on producing 10k cards total for the worldwide launch. That means if you are one of the lucky(or stupid) ones to buy this monster you will have a collectors item. The fact is it's hot, underpowered and only 5% faster in contrived benchmarks than something ATI released 6 months ago. Nvidia knows this thing is a pig and I doubt they intend to produce any more than they need to say they actually released it.

Everything that's happened over the last few months (rebranding the 8800/9800/240 as the 340 being the biggest clue) has indicated that Nvidia is going to be absent this round. Let's just be honest, they fubar'd Fermi, the next round they will be competative with ATI (if you go by previous history last time nVidia botched it badly they will wipe the floor with ATI with the refresh part) as they fix the mistakes but right now AMD/ATI has the lead and Fermi isn't going to change that. Given the limited production run ATI has no reason whatsoever to reduce prices unless they just want to hurt Nvidia more. Northern Islands will be out before the end of the year so ATI will have their refresh part very soon anyway, given the performance, price and thermal characteristics of Fermi they don't have much reason to worry for a while.

Remember, Fermi was designed as a 512 SP chip, yields are so bad that the best they can do is 480SP (with 32 bad SP's per chip) and they are right at the limit for power (~300Watts) because the chip is so poor. Rumors out of TSMC is that Fermi yields are single digit, with the size of the chip they are getting around 102chips per 300mm wafer, single digit yields means they are getting less than 10 working Fermi's for every $5000 300mm wafer. That means each fermi is costing them close to $500. Given that the cards are selling for $400 Nvidia is taking at least a $150 loss on every sale. They aren't going to sell very many or it will put them out of business. If the rumor of 10,000 cards total is true then the are going to lose $1,500,000 selling Fermi and that's if the card only costs $50 to produce. That's a lot of money, I'd be surprised personally if you can even purchase a fermi, 10,000 cards worldwide is like 3 per city. It will be a hell of a collectors item though, one of those famous semiconductor failures in the history of computing.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I said 'nothing eventually' followed by lowering prices. But, if the $349/$499 prices are correct, I don't think AMD has to do much at all. If Fermi is 10% faster on average, then at $499 it's around 20% more expensive. Unless Fermi has spectacular performance in DX11 compared to the competing AMD parts I don't think AMD has to do much.

 

[mfenn]

They'll probably jack up the prices on the 5850 and 5870 even more. (When's the last time you heard of a $250 MSRP part selling for $320 6 months later?) Why?

Fermi isn't much faster than the 5000 series. Fermi is going to have a very limited production run. Ergo, the few Fermis that make it to the shelves aren't going to sell for anywhere near the MSRP. Suddenly, the 5850 looks like a bargain at $350 compared to the GTX 470 at $400+ (MSRP for the 470 is rumored to be $350, no chance in hell it will sell for that).

Bad time to be a gamer.

 

[happy medium]

I thought I read 2 days ago that the gtx 470 was 5% faster or even, with the the 5870?
Did a new rumer overlap that one?

Now what is the new rumered power input for the gtx 480? 225 watts? 280 watts? 275 watts? or 250 watts? Did the gtx 470 stay at 225 watts?

How many sp's is it now? 512?,480?, 420? for which chip? gtx 470 or gtx 480?
What are the prices now? 699$? 650$? 500$ 449$? 349?

Yeilds are at 5% ,16%,24%? for which chip? Fermi Telsa or geforce?

How much faster is the slow ,overpowered ,oversized ,hot, but faster pig chip now?
Lets see the first rumer was 25%, then it was 5% faster for gtx 470 over th 5870, now its 5% or 10% faster then the 5850 or is it the 5870?

When is it gonna launch? Paper launch? 26th? 29th?
April 4? 5 th?

Sources ? Bright side of the News, Semi accurate, Fudzilla. Or is it the VR zone now?

You gotta love it . Nvidia's PR in motion.

Edit : oh yea the poll, I voted increase the clocks. Why?, because they will need to, no one likes to come in second. Bring on the 5890 to be overshot by the gtx 485.
Haven't you guys been here before?

 

[Lonyo]

I thought I read 2 days ago that the gtx 470 was 5% faster or even with the the 5870?
Did a new rumer overlap that one?

Now what is the new rumered power input for the gtx 480? 225 watts? 280 watts? 275 watts? or 250 watts? Did the gtx 470 stay at 225 watts?

How many sp's is it now? 512?,480?, 420? for which chip? gtx 470 or gtx 480?
What are the prices now? 699$? 650$? 500$ 449$? 349?

Yeilds are at 5% ,16%,24%? for which chip? Fermi Telsa or geforce?

How much faster is the slow ,overpowered ,oversized ,hot, but faster pig chip now?
Lets see the first rumer was 25%, then it was 5% faster for gtx 470 over th 5870, now its 5% or 10% faster then the 5850 or is it the 5870?

When is it gonna launch? Paper launch? 26th? 29th?
April 4? 5 th?

Sources ? Bright side of the News, Semi accurate, Fudzilla. Or is it the VR zone now?

You gotta love it . Nvidia's PR in motion.

Edit : oh yea the poll, I voted increase the clocks. Why?, because they will need to, no one like to come in second. Bring on the 5890 to be overshot by the gtx 485.
Haven't you guys been here before?

If NV PR was in motion there would be less rumours about the negatives and more about amazing performance in certain benchmarks (whichever ones they beat ATI in by the greatest margin).

 

[happy medium]

If NV PR was in motion there would be less rumours about the negatives and more about amazing performance in certain benchmarks (whichever ones they beat ATI in by the greatest margin).

I don't remember ANY positive rumers about the 8800gtx.
It just snuck up and bit us in the ass.

 

[mfenn]

If NV PR was in motion there would be less rumours about the negatives and more about amazing performance in certain benchmarks (whichever ones they beat ATI in by the greatest margin).

Yeah, the best that NVidia's marketing guys can do is that lame Heaven demo. If they had something decent, then we would have a ton of "leaked" real-world benches by now.

 

[happy medium]

Yeah, the best that NVidia's marketing guys can do is that lame Heaven demo. If they had something decent, then we would have a ton of "leaked" real-world benches by now.

I thought the Heaven demo was theeee direct x 11 benchmark and Tessalation benchmark.

Or does it suck?

I heard many AT'ers saying, they are the 2 features in a high end future graphics card that matter?

Yes ? no? I don't know.

Edit: for me? I think those 2 would rank up there preety high if I was to spend 3/400$ on a card.

 

[mfenn]

I thought the Heaven demo was theeee direct x 11 benchmark and Tessalation benchmark.

Or does it suck?

I heard many AT'ers saying, they are the 2 features in a high end future graphics card that matter?

Yes ? no? I don't know.

Heaven is deeply flawed because it uses tessellation to a ludicrous extreme. I'm personally more interested in seeing how Fermi performs in Metro 2033, which uses tessellation in a more sane manner.

EDIT: By "deeply flawed" I mean deeply flawed as a benchmark, not as a tech demo. It fails at being a benchmark because it is not representative of a real game.

 

[happy medium]

Heaven is deeply flawed because it uses tessellation to a ludicrous extreme. I'm personally more interested in seeing how Fermi performs in Metro 2033, which uses tessellation in a more sane manner.

EDIT: By "deeply flawed" I mean deeply flawed as a benchmark, not as a tech demo. It fails at being a benchmark because it is not representative of a real game.

Oh I see they overshot with the demo? Made it to hard for cards?

From the benchies I seen the Metro 2033 game woops the crap out of a 58xx series card with those features turned on? I agree ,I will be looking closley at that benchmark come next week.
Something tells me it will run great on the Fermi but it will be said that Nvidia bought the game or some other excuse will come about. ( the game sucks or something like that). The physx features are non existant.
The game is deeply flawed.
I think you get the point.

Then again it might just suck on both companies cards?

I still think you will see this game packed in with a gtx card.?? mabe?

 

[mfenn]

Oh I see they overshot with the demo? Made it to hard for cards?

From the benchies I seen the Metro 2033 game woops the crap out of a 58xx series card with those features turned on? I agree ,I will be looking closley at that benchmark come next week.
Something tells me it will run great on the Fermi but it will be said that Nvidia bought the game or some other excuse will come about. ( the game sucks or something like that). The physx features are non existant. I think you get the point.

Then again it might just suck on both companies cards?

I still think you will see this game packed in with a gtx card.?? mabe?

Yeah, I think Fermi will absolutely be faster on tessellation, I'm just curious as to how much it will matter in a real game. Time will tell.

 

[SlowSpyder]

They'll probably jack up the prices on the 5850 and 5870 even more. (When's the last time you heard of a $250 MSRP part selling for $320 6 months later?) Why?

Fermi isn't much faster than the 5000 series. Fermi is going to have a very limited production run. Ergo, the few Fermis that make it to the shelves aren't going to sell for anywhere near the MSRP. Suddenly, the 5850 looks like a bargain at $350 compared to the GTX 470 at $400+ (MSRP for the 470 is rumored to be $350, no chance in hell it will sell for that).

Bad time to be a gamer.

I disagree about the 'bad time to be a gamer' part... we were spoiled by last generations prices, but AMD's current prices aren't bad at all, they're just not amazing like both AMD and Nvidia's prices were at the peak of the price wars from last gen.

In another thread someone posted a 5850 for $268 after Bing cash back. Even without that deal (seeing as it's not the norm) they start at $315 on Newegg. When you consider that the 5850 is a good deal faster than the GTX285, and the GTX285 starts at $355 on Newegg, AMD's prices look like bargains in comparrison. And if you don't mind multi GPU's/cards you can grab two 5770's for less than $300 and have more performance than a 5870. So while not as incredible as last gen prices, AMD's current prices are far from terrible.

 

[nitromullet]

Of course, both companies can only lower prices to a point, but generally over the span of the product's life cycle the prices will drop. Once the cards get to a point where either they are too expensive to produce for their relative performance bracket or a new technology replaces them, they are EOL'ed.

I agree the prices will drop, but isn't this primarily due to improvements at the fab over time? (yields increasing).

Too bad, another competitive fab didn't emerge. That would have helped a lot.

Yep, that's why I said that in the first place...

Nothing to begin with. Of course prices will drop on both sides as supply increases, but that will take a few months.

 

[happy medium]

Yeah, I think Fermi will absolutely be faster on tessellation, I'm just curious as to how much it will matter in a real game. Time will tell.

Yea I heard something about Fermi using shaders to do tessellation too.
I was under the impression that it had it's own tesselator chip?
Time will tell buddy hold on to your hats............

 

[TemjinGold]

I say, "Point and laugh hysterically."

 

[SlowSpyder]

I don't remember ANY positive rumers about the 8800gtx.
It just snuck up and bit us in the ass.

I've seen this mentioned a number of times in different threads, but the 8800GTX days were completely different then the current situation for Nvidia.

Before the 8800 launched, Nvidia had a very competitive DX9 part out in the 7900 cards. Nvidia isn't very competitive now, and their GTX2xx cards are all EOL'd.

Back then AMD had no DX10 parts out and had nothing in sight. Right now AMD has their entire lineup of DX11 parts out. Right now Nvidia should be doing anything they can to get a potential customer to hold off on buying an AMD part and wait to see what Fermi has to offer.

Because Nvidia didn't have to worry about AMD's DX10 parts before the 8800 launch, they could be tight lipped to keep the 7900's selling. They didn't have to worry about rumors regarding AMD's DX10 parts being better. With Fermi, many rumor sites are printing a lot of negitive information, high TDP's, high power use, low numbers of launch parts, fairly unimpressive performance compared to AMD"s current parts, etc. They have all the reason in the world to shout from the rooftops how wonderful Fermi is and why you shouldn't buy that AMD card and why you should wait for Fermi to arrive in a few weeks. But they aren't. They're being completely silent... it kind of makes you wonder why.

 

[happy medium]

I just hope that there is no shortage in supply at launch for Fermi like the 58xx series had.
Thats a killer for all of us, we all will pay more for our upgrades wether it be ATI or Nvidia.

Many people like myself have seen NO reason to upgrade our gtx 260'/75/80/85's or 4850's/60's/70/or 90's for the past 5 months untill now with Metro 2033.

I sure wasn't paying no $300 for a 5850(400+ for a 5870) nor was I waiting for bing cash back or a rebate. I will just wait for lower prices or a new compeditor to lower prices.

So I'm pointing now and laughing.

 

[mfenn]

Yeah, the best that NVidia's marketing guys can do is that lame Heaven demo. If they had something decent, then we would have a ton of "leaked" real-world benches by now.

I've seen this mentioned a number of times in different threads, but the 8800GTX days were completely different then the current situation for Nvidia.

Before the 8800 launched, Nvidia had a very competitive DX9 part out in the 7900 cards. Nvidia isn't very competitive now, and their GTX2xx cards are all EOL'd.

Back then AMD had no DX10 parts out and had nothing in sight. Right now AMD has their entire lineup of DX11 parts out. Right now Nvidia should be doing anything they can to get a potential customer to hold off on buying an AMD part and wait to see what Fermi has to offer.

Because Nvidia didn't have to worry about AMD's DX10 parts before the 8800 launch, they could be tight lipped to keep the 7900's selling. They didn't have to worry about rumors regarding AMD's DX10 parts being better. With Fermi, many rumor sites are printing a lot of negitive information, high TDP's, high power use, low numbers of launch parts, fairly unimpressive performance compared to AMD"s current parts, etc. They have all the reason in the world to shout from the rooftops how wonderfu Fermi is and why you shouldn't buy that AMD card and why you should wait for Fermi to arrive in a few weeks. But they aren't. They're being completely silent... it kind of makes you wonder why.

+1 This is what I was trying to get at. Very eloquently stated sir!

 

[happy medium]

I've seen this mentioned a number of times in different threads, but the 8800GTX days were completely different then the current situation for Nvidia.

Before the 8800 launched, Nvidia had a very competitive DX9 part out in the 7900 cards. Nvidia isn't very competitive now, and their GTX2xx cards are all EOL'd.

Back then AMD had no DX10 parts out and had nothing in sight. Right now AMD has their entire lineup of DX11 parts out. Right now Nvidia should be doing anything they can to get a potential customer to hold off on buying an AMD part and wait to see what Fermi has to offer.

Because Nvidia didn't have to worry about AMD's DX10 parts before the 8800 launch, they could be tight lipped to keep the 7900's selling. They didn't have to worry about rumors regarding AMD's DX10 parts being better. With Fermi, many rumor sites are printing a lot of negitive information, high TDP's, high power use, low numbers of launch parts, fairly unimpressive performance compared to AMD"s current parts, etc. They have all the reason in the world to shout from the rooftops how wonderful Fermi is and why you shouldn't buy that AMD card and why you should wait for Fermi to arrive in a few weeks. But they aren't. They're being completely silent... it kind of makes you wonder why.

Hmmm I remember the xt1950xtx raping a 7900gtx? And the beating got worse with more shader heavy games.

I see your point but, with the shortage of 58xx series,and with the lack of challenging games (console ports). I guess it was easier to just sell the gtx 2xx series at a premium 375$ for a gtx 285? I guess people bought them ,they did make a profit this quarter ha?

Edit: I guess they figured they had time to refine its product and lose a few points of market share and will gain it all back and more, just like they allways do?

 

[mfenn]

Hmmm I remember the xt1950xtx raping a 7900gtx? And the beating got worse with more shader heavy games.

X1950 XTX vs. 7900 GTX

Faster, yes. But I wouldn't call it raping.

5870 vs GTX 285

That's what I would call raping.

 

[happy medium]

X1950 XTX vs. 7900 GTX

Faster, yes. But I wouldn't call it raping.

5870 vs GTX 285

That's what I would call raping.

Forgive me I went from a 7800gs AGP to a 8800gt. I was going by what other people were saying. I missed that era.

Yes that 5870 vs gtx 285 is a gang rape!

But dont let me pull out the 8800gtx vs the 2900...........()

 

[sandorski]

Nothing at first, Price Cuts when Fermi Supply is stronger, then finally a new line of Cards that outperform.

 

[ronnn]

I don't remember ANY positive rumers about the 8800gtx.
It just snuck up and bit us in the ass.

Guess we lived on different planets? http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4441

This one is subdued compared to most.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Hmmm I remember the xt1950xtx raping a 7900gtx? And the beating got worse with more shader heavy games.

I see your point but, with the shortage of 58xx series,and with the lack of challenging games (console ports). I guess it was easier to just sell the gtx 2xx series at a premium 375$ for a gtx 285? I guess people bought them ,they did make a profit this quarter ha?

Edit: I guess they figured they had time to refine its product and lose a few points of market share and will gain it all back and more, just like they allways do?

The x1950xtx was the better performer (especially with newer sharder heavy games) but the point was that the 8800 launch had completely different circumstances. Nvidia didn't have to say anything to hype up their upcoming 8800 or squish any negative rumors regarding it. They had no competition out before the launch, nor in the upcoming months after the launch, much less an entire line up of parts out to compete against before they had even a single 8 series card out. In short Nvidia could afford to say nothing about the 8800, doing so didn't lose customers or hurt them.

With Fermi, I just don't think it makes business sense to sit tight lipped while your competitor steals DX11 enthisast customers one after the next, unless Fermi doesn't do enough to justify hyping. If the rumors are true, what can Nvidia say?