The greater the truth, the greater the libel - Lord Ellenborough
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Nvidia's Fermi might be a boat sorely missed
THE GRAPHICS CARD INDUSTRY is an odd one, as counter to other parts of the computing hardware market individual products aren't always judged on their own merit. In fact for the most part, when weighing up which of the big two companies to pick from when choosing a GPU, most will go with the current market leader. However, the market leader isn't determined by which company makes the best card for your price point, but the one that produces the most powerful high-end card.
This creates a bit of a strange paradigm, as graphics card manufacturers have to push their top of the line performance products to be as fast as possible, while concentrating on the far more lucrative budget to mid-range cards. The vast majority of consumers can't, and won't fork out the several hundreds of pounds required for the absolute best card. This means that getting your mainstream GPU right while doing well at the top end is a strange balancing act that plays out with each new generational release.
Normally the new range launches from either camp take place around the same time, with a little bit of leap-frogging thrown in for good measure. However, with the current 'new' generation of GPUs, that isn't the case at all. ATI has a firm grasp on the market, beating out rival Nvidia to the release date by several months. Will Nvidia's long in-development Fermi hardware allow it to spring back and retake the market now dominated by ATI hardware, or is it going to be too little too late?
Performance numbers from the Green Goblin's camp have started to emerge, and without doubt Fermi appears to be rather quick on its feet, pushing maybe 50 per cent faster than Nvidia's current big boy, the GTX 285. Pretty impressive, and even compared to ATI's top of the line single card it fares pretty well until it comes face to face with the current monster from the boys in red, the 5970, which seemingly will walk all over it. Of course these performance numbers are all conjecture for the moment, but as more start to be released, it's expected that the results will be similar to those already unveiled.
Speculation aside, what we do know is that ATI has a very strong hold on the market place currently. Not only does it have the top performing single GPU card available, but the top dual chip card too. Not to mention mid-range performance parts by the truckload, including the 57XX range and the recently released 56XX and 55XX cards. Since we've already established that having a powerful top end combined with a solid mid-range is the key to money making in the GPU world, ATI appears to be in the perfect position to gain significant market share. Combine this with a release date from Fermi that's still at least a month away and poor availability on the current Nvidia top end cards, and its no wonder ATI proudly announced at CES this year that it had already sold over 2 million of its 5 series GPUs.
Martin Sawyer, sales manager at performance PC specialists Chillblast.com, has some harrowing sales figures for Nvidia. In the pre-Christmas rush the firm sold more than 20 ATi performance video cards for every GeForce, and with Nvidia stock now hard to come by the gulf between the two has only widened.
Despite all this, the green team might surprise us all and come out swinging with hardware that captures the market so well that those with new 5 series cards jump ship and go 4 series, and those waiting for the upgrade pay top dollar for the higher end cards; but it is unlikely. However Nvidia has made it clear that it'll be opening with the mid-range cards in an attempt to capture whatever is left of the soon-to-upgrade market, which could pay off. Though, if initial perceptions of the card aren't that it beats ATI's mid range, but are in-fact that the card "isn't as good as the top end", whether fair or not, it could mean that Nvidia will need to start thinking about Fermi v2 before long.
All this is nothing particularly new in the graphics game though, as the back and forth struggle between the big two has been ongoing since the early 2000s, which saw each company vying for position and desperately hoping that the other would drop the ball; as Nvidia seem to have done here. The earliest instance of the all important round object slipping through one of the player's grip was with Nvidia's ill fated 5 FX series which saw ATI walk all over it with the range of 9XXX cards; most favourite of all the 9800 pro.
Things evened out between the pair during the 6800/7800 vs X800/X1900 days, but ATI's popularity and performance crown took a nose dive when it came to facing off against Nvidia's monstrous 8800GTX card. It trounced the then redder than ever company for a whopping two years before it could counter that effectively.
Still, this sort of back and forth behaviour is what you and I as Joe consumer want. Competition is good, because it invokes product progression as well as price wars which mean cheaper products across the board. When Nvidia ruled the roost for a solid couple of years, prices didn't fluctuate that much as it had no need to sell itself to you on value; performance alone was enough. Hell, it took them over a year to release an affordable version of the GTX, the 8800GT.
From then on ATI clawed its way back slowly with the 3 series and eventually retook pole position for a while with the 4870s and 50s, leaving Nvidia playing catch up despite not being too far behind. We're now seeing something similar though a little more extreme, as Fermi has had its launch pushed back from November 2009 all the way to March, showing us the real effects of early market saturation leading to a dominant position in "next gen" trading. ATI clearly learned from their partnership with Microsoft when creating the 360 that getting your goods to market first pays off. The Xbox with its ATI powered graphics trounced the PS3 mostly by being available first. This allowed Microsoft to keep its hardware competitive price wise, completely undercutting the Nvidia powered PS3 at launch.
DirectX saw a resurgence as a viable selling point with the most recent ATI hardware, as it managed to coincide the unveiling of DX11 nicely with the release of its compatible hardware; this being compounded by the near release date of the supporting OS, Windows 7. Some enterprising Inq readers pointed out to me that Vista also supports DX11, but this doesn't take away from the fact that most of those moving to the new operating system will be doing so from Windows XP, meaning new PC builds bundled with a nicely compatible ATI DX11 capable GPU is going to sound much more attractive than one sporting an obsolete standard Nvidia card.
Time will of course tell how this quickly becoming current-gen battle turns out, but either way, Nvidia has to hope that Fermi provides a solid base to springboard to the next generation, as you know that ATI will already be more than hard at work developing its next Nvidia killer. µ
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"The 5970 is a dual-GPU solution (basically two underclocked 5870's on one board). Of course, it would be very hard for the Fermi to beat the 5970, it's not a fair comparison. But there's no logical reason why NVIDIA can't do the same thing and release a dual-GPU version of Fermi."
There are logical reasons actually:
1) Fermi uses a ton of power, 280 watts at peak I've heard. So, having two of them in your system means you've got 560 watts used before you even add a CPU, hard drives, or any other components. You'd be talking about 800-1000 watts peak load before any overclocking, and everyone knows you don't buy a PSU expecting it to always run at its maximum rating, you should ideally get one that is capable of 50% more at least. This will mean an *incredibly* expensive, loud, hot PSU.
2) Fermi, as you'd expect from using 280 watts at peak, runs incredibly hot. Everything in your case, as well as the room your case happens to be operating in, will be thusly quite hot. Nvidia is apparently going to be recommending special cooling solutions or special cases even - for a SINGLE "X1" Fermi card.
3) The PCI Express specification says that a single expansion card can't run at over 300 watts. Breaking the spec would be a very bad idea for various marketing-related reasons to begin with. So an "X2" variant is out of the question, you'd have to buy multiple cards, which means ATI would still keep the top spot.
4) Fermi cards are already going to be ridiculously expensive and available in small quantities. You would have to take out a mortgage to buy a hypothetical spec-breaking "X2" variant. On the other hand, a 5970 is supposedly going to still be less expensive than the top-end Fermi card. So if you buy two Fermis, you could just as easily have 2 5970s while spending less and getting better performance.
Charlie did an article on this recently, foretelling its doom again. According to him current yields for the wafers are less then 2% meaning 98% of the chips produced are defective and must be thrown out, and this is after disabling 2 defective portions of the chip and lowering the clock speed significantly. The end result uses 280 watts and should perform roughly %15 faster then the HD 5870 He goes one to say that this problem will take a long time to fix (~year), and may even need an architecture overhaul. The chip is estimated to cost $500 at the least. Note this is not the cost of the video card, only for the GPU chip on it. A reasonable selling retail price for the entire card would then be say ~$800 (break even) or $1000 (some profit). However its performance dictates that it is only worth around $500. Meaning that NVidia will end up having to sell it at a loss. I expect it to go for around $600 or $700 (plenty of people will buy it, even if it sucks, because it is 15% faster then the 2nd best).
I really hope they can get the problems fixed fast (though Charlie says not possible), cus i wanna pick up a cheap scaled down version for $200 or so and then program the hell out of it :)
and oh yeah b4 i forget...
THE CARD USES 280 WATTS, (300 IS THE LIMIT TO GET IT CERTIFIED) THERE IS NO WAY THEY CAN MAKE A X2 VERSION. PLUS, IT ALREADY WILL END UP COSTING AS MUCH AS AN X2 CARD, AND USING AS MUCH POWER.
nvidia is dead, upper prices, shithardware , renaming 8800 series is blast out!!! 3x 5770´s killer GTX 285 , in power comsuption and perfomance.
i hate nvidiots and his histories.
"I spent 9 months pulling my hair out with 3 4870X2's"
-Gumpty
"3 4870X2"
You're trying to 6 way crossfire.
You are retarded.
@TECHNO
So you're only attack on the comments I made is waiting for Amazon to give me my card for $260 (check the card at amazon, there are a TON of us waiting for them to give it at the price promised). Glad to see you realize there's no point in arguing with my data (which I gave links to prove what I said, unlike you). I'm waiting because I got it priced at $40-50 less than everywhere else and they owe me (and everyone else waiting) a freaking card. Check the discussion here:
http://www.amazon.com/Not-in-stock-Argh/forum/Fx120Z2HF6221CS/Tx3KAO4I35F7EFD/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&s=electronics&asin=B002Q4U5EY&store=electronics
I'm not complaining about AMD making me wait, it's CLEARLY AMAZON! Everyone else has it, amazon even has other places selling it through them. They just won't buck up and give us ours. Crawl back under your rock fanboy. I'm buying an ATI card for crying out loud. But that doesn't change anything I said about AMD pricing themselves to death, or why NV will continue to do well (no debt), or anything I said about DirectX 10/11. I guess they didn't like my last comment, it wasn't posted :) So here's another reply to you. At $260 I'll love my ATI. But I refuse to pay $310 for it. Amazon can just give me the one I ordered ages ago.
I`m not a fan of dual gpu`s so am waiting to see the performance and price of the new nv top single gpu and how it compares to the 5870 bang per buck wise.I`m in no desperate rush though as my gtx280 has served me well and still does in most games.5870s will surely take a dive in price too when nv gets their new un out.I feel they are overpriced since launch and were not a must buy product for someone like myself.
Sales figures are all good and fine but the fact remains that most people who work with graphics for a living lean towards Nvidia. Ati is notorious for being unstable with many high end 3d graphics packages, while Nvidia cards usually just work.
Now that Nvidia has acquired Mental Images who produce Mental Ray, we can expect to see even more innovation from this company in the area of serious graphics.
seriously, did you compare a new fermi to both 5870's and 5970's?
something like fermi beats the 5870, but the 5970 still owns?
the 5970 is dual gpu. if nvidia's next single core card could own a 5970, the price would have to be $800 or so. nvidia will undoubtedly release a gx2 version, which probably will be the top dawg again. hate to sound like an nvidia fanboy, but nvidia generally always has top performance, but also top price. ati is better price/performance ratio.
"4870 was NEVER MEANT to compete with GTX 280, it came way earlier and competed with the 8800gts(512)/9800gtx+ "
I hate to burst your bubble, but the 4800 series launched roughly a week AFTER the GTX 280 did and gave them a right spanking in terms of price / performance. The 280 launched June 16th 2008 and the 4870 came out on June 25 2008.
At the The GTX 260 was selling for over $399 dollars and the GTX 280 was selling for over $649. Then a week later the 4870 came out at $299 and completely embarrased nvidia with their pricing, eventually leading to massive price cuts on the GTX 200 series and a more competitive market for all gpu buyers.
Time to get your facts straight, your timeline is quite wrong. The GTX line did not come later, they were in fact launched before the 4870.
Launch prices taken from:
GTX 280 @ $649 - http://techreport.com/articles.x/14934/17
4870 @ $299 - http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990/16
1.: 4870 was NEVER MEANT to compete with GTX 280, it came way earlier and competed with the 8800gts(512)/9800gtx+
And it did this pretty well.
GTX series came later, and beat the 48x0 cards by a decent amount in most games, but let's not forget there are games which ran a little better on red team's HW.
2.: 5970 definitely IS a nvidia killer right now, because it beats every nvidia card on the market right now.
3.: It doesn't matter how many chips you need to solder to your pcb.
1.5 GB vram beat out 1GB? Fine!
2 GPU beat 1 GPU? Quel surprise! You don't say..
Whichever is fastest, is fastest.
End of story.
Just my 2 cents
Great work, comparing a single GPU card vs. a dual GPU card.
5970....mhhhh, delicious Crossfire micro stutter - even at 50+ fps.
Unfair comparison? Come on DerWahn, think again! nVidia's chip probably is more than 550 mm^2, ATI's Cypress just 330 mm^2. It is NOT unfair to compare one of nVidia's Fermi chips against two of ATI's Cypress chips because they cost the same. If nVidia is still having that much trouble with its production one Fermi chip might be even more expensive to produce.
The XFX 5850 is available in stock with loads of etailers...why on earth have you been waiting since Oct 2009??....that part of your argument and the rest are built of false representation....big wall of text don't make you right fanboy.
I'm in the boat that more and more are in. I don't CARE what Fermi brings, if it doesn't come in a mobile version. I don't plan to wait all year either. When DX11 comes from either vendor in a mobile GPU, then the other better be a month or two away or forget it.
Nvidia makes good mobile chips. They aren't rocket ships but they've been good with a great driver program.
But DX11 is here. And it's time to move, so either Nvidia gets the goods or they get the dump.
I wonder just how much of the market has already bought into the AMD 5xxx series and how little market Fermi will have not that it's taking the leftovers.
Oh well, if AMD is the only one with DX11 mobile chips, then they get the $$.
I've had ATI & NV cards in equal proportion over the years and I think the quality was about the same.
Right now I have a pair of 4890's in Crossfire. They work great, I do not expect to drop another $600CDN for some time.
"Well, what's gonna stop NVidia from releasing a dual GPU card... HEAT??"
Fermi might run a little hotter than 5870 (3 billion transistors vs. 2.2 billion transistors), but it's the same fabrication process. An underclocked dual GF100 should be very similar to 5970 in terms of performance/power.
"From then on ATI clawed its way back slowly with the 3 series and eventually retook pole position for a while with the 4870s and 50s, leaving Nvidia playing catch up despite not being too far behind."
Umm...4870/4850 never beat GTX280/GTX260 (price maybe, but not performance as you claim):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13
4870 won ONLY ONE game. Bioshock. Lost everything else. Total lies. The ATI choice didn't make Xbox take the lead either, a $300 Bluray player in PS3 put them behind the pricing 8ball. I remind you the PS3 has better graphics (but yeah, I bought Xbox for other reasons). I might remind you ATI is just getting to fixing their drivers (google this - ati grey screen crash). Still not fixed for all. I might also remind you they have never made more than 60mil or so from their graphics division while NV has made 200+mil/quarter for ages until this last year. Might also remind you AMD hasn't made money for about 4 years. No I don't count Intel's 1.25 payout as turning profitable (they lost 57mil without it). In fact if you add up since 1970 or so inception AMD to today hasn't made ANY money...LOL. But I'm still waiting for my 5850 from Amazon at $259 (ordered Oct 27th, still no delivery). What do being first with xbox360 and ATI have to do with PS3 getting trounced and priced competitive? Bluray made PS3 not price competitive, not ATI or being first to market. DX11 is still USELESS by the way (3 games out?...LOL whatever). DX10.1 hasn't proven to be useful either. DX10 even was shown by ZDNET (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2174223,00.asp) to be useless. Tons of articles from them about performance hits for nothing. AMD needs to charge more money for their cards or go bankrupt. I love AMD, but they're not too bright. Anyone complaining about Nvidia's cards (oh wait, they don't make any) having chip issues needs to call TSMC, the people that actually made them (currently having problems making ATI's...LOL, probably Fermi's shortly too). Nvidia's first comment was they'll sue for the damages when the TOTAL bill comes in (expect a lawsuit or TSMC to make NV chips for free for a while to pay them off). AMD has a great card for a good price right now (again, should charge more while they can) and the battle seems to go on forever. But get your facts straight instead of being another charlie. AMD should have asked Intel for enough to be DEBT FREE (3.x Bil) at least. They will never dominate NV as long as they lose money every quarter and owe debt (thus interest just to make a profit has to be paid first). If fermi beats amazon getting my XFX 5850, I'll switch. But not because I give a crap about either company as you so obviously LOVE ATI/AMD. Fanboys suck. Reality bites doesn't it? Oh and I'm not cancelling my 5850 order until proof is in that fermi costs the same or close and wins performance wise. Which I'm positive on performance, just not sure if I'll be able to afford it because NV is smart enough to CHARGE you for performance and make money while AMD charges too little (make hay while the sun shines or get runover by NV shortly AGAIN) and keeps the quarterly losses going...Idiots run that company. Like it or not NV is a well run company like Intel (in business to make money, not lose it). Raise your hand if you think AMD will be profitable for 2010 year? Now for NV? LOL. No contest.
@Gumpty - Really? A single GTX285 was more stable than 3 (3!?!) 4870X2s? How bizarrely strange. I'd scream bloody murder over that one.
I'm tempted to call BS on your post soley because you seemed to want performance enough to spend that much money on a CF platform (6 GPUs), but in the end you settled with a GTX285.
You're a dud.
Well, what's gonna stop NVidia from releasing a dual GPU card... HEAT??
And about being unfaur to compare a 2GPU card to a 1GPU card - All that matters is price/performace. If it delivers, it delivers.
"Pretty impressive, and even compared to ATI's top of the line single card it fares pretty well until it comes face to face with the current monster from the boys in red, the 5970, which seemingly will walk all over it."
The 5970 is a dual-GPU solution (basically two underclocked 5870's on one board). Of course, it would be very hard for the Fermi to beat the 5970, it's not a fair comparison. But there's no logical reason why NVIDIA can't do the same thing and release a dual-GPU version of Fermi.
Why don't we all just sit back and see what happens. I had a 8800GTX and it was beautiful. I had a GTX260, then a GTX295 and now i have crossfire 5850's. I wont buy the GF4xx because i dont need it.
Nvidia was my choice - i was waiting for the Fermi board to appear but the delays and FUD over it's actual possible 'non' appearance meant i bought what was available, the 5xxx series.
It is NOT even a debate - Nvidia grossly cocked up and 2 million DX11 ATI units sold is the result.
If NV got it right in November and Fermi was/is that good, i'd have bought it BUT IT WASN'T. So I bought Red.
Simple market economics.
And now on 24" screen i'm running any game at full pelt. My GPU temp on bioshock 2 with full eye candy is 50-55 degrees. Only Call of Pripyat pushes the temp up (68/75 for GPU1/2) again, full settings (No AA but tesselation on).
Ah....£400 well spent.
"Killer? They don't have a current "killer." Not until GF100 is out."
You sir fail, lol.
The ATi 5000-series stomping all over the Nvidia 200-series for about 1/2 a year, this is clearly a Nvidia killer card. The GF100/Fermi/400-series not beeing avalible just make it even more so, Nvidia is currently dead in the water. I know it blows, but live with it.
I will never forgive Nvidia for forcing games to revert back to DX10, just because they couldn't support DX10.1 and ATI was destroying them in that market. They never caught up to ATI's 4xxx series and been plagued with problems since. And using cheap parts selling defective units were just more fuel to the fire.
Nvidia, should do what ATI did, just put out good low/mid end cards, gain capital and then push out big bad cards. ATI were the strongest low mid range cards for years before their success with the 4xxx series, and it took them a while, but they made it to the top.
Nvidia if you don't get your act together, you better seriously consider selling out to Intel. And stop trying to dictate to game manufacturers how they should release their patches. I'm sick of being force fed your logo and your demands.
Is Nvidia aloud to import anything yet?Last I heard they were banned from importing anything into the US because of the RamBus fiasco?
I miss Charlie.....
I've bought both, I have no problem with buying either in the future.
I've had a buggy ATI (rage pro)
I've had a crappy Nvidia (6800 Ultra)
ATI wins this round because they have a quality product, with dx11 available.
Fermi meanwhile isn't even available. Of course we need to wait, but by the time it comes out, most likely not in stores before april/may (no counting an umpteenth delay which could still happen) it seems more and more like Nvidia missed an entire round.
ATI could come out with a 5980 or 5990 right when Fermi comes out, perhaps like a person who slows down so the fat kid can catch him, then speeds back up.
Good luck to Nvidia though, I don't want them out of the market, and as long as they stay in business they have just as good a chance to get my business as ATI.
But this time, 5850 was a great value, and it fits my new i7 setup quite nicely. I would've definitely considered Fermi, but it wasn't out.
No matter what Fermi can do, I'm impressed with what I have, meaning I won't be buying either for at least a generation. I'm sure a good portion of 5xxx purchasers will feel the same.
Geez, what's going on with the author of this article. It's like a twelve year old was trying to write like Charlie. Many of the paragraphs and points just plain don't make sense - they're totally stupid in other words.
"Some enterprising Inq readers pointed out to me that Vista also supports DX11..."
Someone had to tell you that? You get a fail for not researching before writing this. DX11 on Vista was known MONTHS ago.
"Nvidia has to hope that Fermi provides a solid base to springboard to the next generation, as you know that ATI will already be more than hard at work developing its next Nvidia killer."
Killer? They don't have a current "killer." Not until GF100 is out.
Oh, I guess this means another reader has to do your homework for you, because AMD has nothing new until 2011. Meanwhile, nVIDIA will be improving on Fermi while AMD sits on their hands for a year or more raising clocks on the current process a al the 4890 and AMD's Phenom II CPU's. AMD is the price/performance king for a reason. Because their cards aren't the fastest, but they are priced accordingly.
Why does Inq find it necessary to continually write some old durge just to keep Nvidia's Fermi in the headlines in someway or another. There is nothing new here...naada....zilch....zero!!!
And please be more objective:-
"Performance numbers from the Green Goblin's camp have started to emerge, and without doubt Fermi appears to be rather quick on its feet, pushing maybe 50 per cent faster than Nvidia's current big boy, the GTX 285. Pretty impressive, and even compared to ATI's top of the line single card it fares pretty well"
HaaaHaaaa ROFL.
Nvidia cherry picked a 60 second section of a benchmark which uses tesselation very heavily....as the flexible Fermi architecture allows it to throw all its shaders at tesselation when they are not in use this is hardly a fair comparison with cards that have fixed function dedicated hardware tesselators....and they still only managed a 50% improvement on their previous chip...5870 manages this over the 4870 without cherry picked results.
Remember when Mike would go on about airport closing in Protectorate of Burma or Pictures of 5 Socks. Heres latest to Visit Ultee' Sure its Waste of Space.
National Airport Reopens for Flights
Photo by anderthoThe airfield at National Airport reopened for flight operations as of 11 a.m. this morning, according to a message on its web site.
Passengers are urged to contact their airlines to confirm their flights before heading to the airport. And that assumes most people can actually get to the airport in the first place. The Metrorail system remained underground-only Thursday, and many streets have yet to be cleared.
Dulles and BWI reopened earlier this morning, though many airlines have yet to resume flight schedules.
Axio reminds me of booking homeflight, ending up in antartica, trying for hiwaii & prefectly content landed in caribean.
Now Here Bridge to Parody: CeBit is 2March & Nvidia is Letting 480GX Out of Cage For Visitors:
http://www.cebit.de/homepage_e
So Get There Between Storms, Plenty o' intrest in upcoming late spring release of 480. DX11. what was fermi again? whom is guarding airport & wheres Acapulco, Gr
You, sir, are a terrorist clearly trying to make my brain explode
numbers are all conjecture
Despite..; but.. However.. Though..
initial perceptions .. aren't that
vying
trounced the then redder
Argh!
Axiomatic,
The coin has two sides ... I spent 9 months pulling my hair out with 3 4870X2's - each one of the them failed (and had driver issues too); by the third time I just said forget it, give me a refund. Downgraded to a GTX285 and no problems since.
In my opinion it can be a bit of a lottery, and has little to do with brand.
... I just went through a 1 1/2 year stint with a nforce 790i ultra sli and two GTX 285's and finally gave up on it after the ridiculous driver and hardware stability issues.
I have since demoted that nvidia system to a HTPC and switched to a Intel X58 and two ATI 5870 crossfire configuration and my gaming PC is STABLE again. No more endless nights of tweaking the overclocks... it just works.
Yeah ATI still has some driver nuances as well but at least the hardware stability is there.
I'm done with nvidia for a while. The pain is still too fresh.