Fermi is out. Thumbs up or down you decide with poll!

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Yay or Nay. Alot of people won't post but like to lurk. So here is a chance for all to vote and see what the feeling is on Fermi.

 

[Genx87]

About what I expected or slightly faster. So I give it a thumbs up.

 

[reallyscrued]

vBulletin slow blow.

 

[Leyawiin]

Sticking with my GTX 260 for the foreseeable future. I believe this iteration of Fermi was nothing more than a marketing tool to get people off their back while they work on Fermi II. Eventually they'll come out with a decent chip (from a power and heat perspective), but in the meantime this is their version of the HD 2900 XT (only its actually faster than the competition).

 

[Arkaign]

I don't see an option that refers to me.

I think Fermi shows incredible promise, but this first iteration is definitely not for me. I'm not the guy that spends $300+ on a video card. I'm not the guy that wants to deal with anything more than a decent 500w power supply, and I'm not the guy who wants a loud PC.

That said, this first gen run will lead to better options in the future. What I'd like to see is an Nvidia card in the vein of a 5770 that overclocks well, has good drivers, and has all the typical Nvidia strong points in Physx/Folding/etc. It may take 3-6 months and a possible die shrink, but I think they'll get there. The question then is, will ATI already be prepping their 6000 series? Will the 6000 series be any good? Etc.

 

[MarcVenice]

It was what I was expecting, but also not I kinda knew that 50% more transistors wasn't a gaurantee for 50% more performance, but I most definately was expecting more then 15%.

The fact that I think Nvidia dropped the ball a bit, is because of the HD 5970. It outperforms the GTX 480, uses as much if not less power, and actually runs quieter. At a 35% (and sometimes even more) performance, it costs only 20% more. The GTX 480 costs 25% more then the HD 5870 but only outperforms it by 15%. So if you can live with the heat/noise, you might as well save up $100 more and buy a HD 5970...

The ONLY reason to buy Nvidia is if you actually have use for CUDA and/or have a 120Hz-screen and intend to use 3D Vision.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Sticking with my lowly HD4850 1GB until I need more HP.

 

[Arkaign]

It was what I was expecting, but also not I kinda knew that 50% more transistors wasn't a gaurantee for 50% more performance, but I most definately was expecting more then 15%.

The fact that I think Nvidia dropped the ball a bit, is because of the HD 5970. It outperforms the GTX 480, uses as much if not less power, and actually runs quieter. At a 35% (and sometimes even more) performance, it costs only 20% more. The GTX 480 costs 25% more then the HD 5870 but only outperforms it by 15%. So if you can live with the heat/noise, you might as well save up $100 more and buy a HD 5970...

The ONLY reason to buy Nvidia is if you actually have use for CUDA and/or have a 120Hz-screen and intend to use 3D Vision.

Good points. The only caveat for me is that multi-GPU setups never seem to work out as good as they sound on paper, and game to game can have dramatically different results. So the 480 is probably more predictable in performance, whereas the 5970 may run into oddball situations where it's not much faster than a 5870.

That said, if I had the $ and the desire for a high-end card at this time, it'd be a 5870.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My vote would be the missing middle option of "meh" -- not good enough for "pretty happy," not disappointing enough for "not at all."

The next version using less power, with less noise and for $200 less should be a great card.

 

[tviceman]

I was getting worked up yesterday reading AT's reviews and specifically noticing how the part they dedicated to the minimum frame rates showed Fermi doing extremely well. Then when they started talking about fan noise later on it zeroed out my desire to upgrade. I'm sticking with my gtx260 216.

I'm waiting until the fall refresh/new cards from both companies. At that point I will be looking to upgrade. If Nvidia doesn't get card noise under control, I will more than likely be getting whatever ATI is putting out with their refresh/next gen part.

 

[Rezist]

I'm sticking with my 4850, I'll reconsider when some prices start dropping.

 

[MJinZ]

2x GTX 480s are unrealistic unless you run a motherboard that separates the PCI-E 16xs like my Classified 760. Unless you like idling at 90Cs.

Since they are $500 high end cards, it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy one if you aren't going to get 2x, so for 10-15% difference, probably a better idea to get a 5870.

I will consider swapping my 2x 5870s for GTX 480s at some point though.

 

[zerogear]

Wait for Fermi 2? ;P

 

[evolucion8]

It wasn't exactly as I thought before; GTX 2x0 vs HD 4x00 series again, it was close though, but this time the performance difference is even smaller this time, with the ATi's HD 5850 being slighly faster overall than the GTX 470 and the GTX 480 being slighly faster overall than the HD 5870. Will an HD 5870 2GB change it?

If you see the HardOCP review, the impression is even worse than the already bad impression of the Anand's review, because in HardOCP they raised the image quality to the maximum possible with each card, and is fairly unimpressive what nVidia is offering now.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Thumbs down. Whoever engineered this thing forgot that efficiency matters just as much if not more than raw power.

 

[Bateluer]

Fermi is looking like a flop, a repeat of the Geforce FX series. Better to wait for the refresh of it before even considering buying one.

I'm still running a 4870 512MB, though I may be enticed to bump that up to a 2GB 5870, depending on its price.

 

[frostedflakes]

About what I was expecting. Pretty insane performance in some of the specialized tasks it was designed for (GPGPU, tessellation, etc.). Underwhelming performance otherwise. Performance per watt is also terrible.

 

[schneiderguy]

Down. Acceptable performance, but unacceptable noise/power consumption.

 

[SlowSpyder]

No option for already having a 5xxx card and not wanting Fermi?

 

[MarcVenice]

Good points. The only caveat for me is that multi-GPU setups never seem to work out as good as they sound on paper, and game to game can have dramatically different results. So the 480 is probably more predictable in performance, whereas the 5970 may run into oddball situations where it's not much faster than a 5870.

That said, if I had the $ and the desire for a high-end card at this time, it'd be a 5870.

Dual-gpu setups have gotten a bad name, first by bad scaling, then the completely overblown microstuttering nonsense. But I'd say dual-gpu setups are like Vista, sucked at first, and have since then come a long way. Been running dual gtx 285's, HD 5870's and now a single HD 5970, and I haven't had the slightest problem, except for some weird driver issues, that were quickly fixed and also occured with a single gpu.

I tested 10 games, and only in Metro 2033 did the scaling of the HD 5970 totally suck. In most other games, it would be 50% or so over the HD 5870.

 

[sisq0kidd]

I'm never in the high end market to begin with since my wallet refuses to pay more than $200 for a video card so I'll stick with my 4870 1gb. Other than that, I thought Fermi was just an okay card. I don't think it's as bad as people here on the forums depict it to be, but I don't think it's as good as it should be in terms of power draw.

 

[GotNoRice]

I have two 4870x2's and since even just one of them is already competitive with Fermi, I should be good to go for a while with two of them. Thankfully DirectX11 will run directly on 10.1 hardware

 

[n7]

Got my HD 5870 a couple weeks back.

 

[MegaWorks]

I'm not sure I'm in between keeping my GTX 260 or getting a HD58xx card!

 

[MrK6]

The poll needs a "Not at all. Sticking with my 5xxx series card." option . Considering the dual 5850's I have are cooler and quieter than the GTX480 and completely stomp it all while costing the same $500, there's no reason to consider Fermi.