Fermi retail cards still not in the hands of nvidia partners

v8envy

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Sep 7, 2002
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Well, considering the 26th was originally meant to be an announcement of the product launch (but was hastily re-branded as the actual launch due to negative reaction to the pre-announcement of an announcement of announcement) this isn't a huge surprise. I'm sure everyone involved at nvidia has been whipped into an appropriate frenzy.

As that announcement claimed, get one on launch day if you can or spend weeks regretting.
 

Piotrsama

Senior member
Feb 7, 2010
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So this was a fake/staged?
03270128.jpg

fullimage.php


http://www.guru3d.com/news/inno3d-teasing-with-gtx-470-and-480-box-shots/
 

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
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Fuad says the boxes and pictures are real, but boxes are empty. If you look closely that's possible -- the covers of those boxes in the box are open.
 

Piotrsama

Senior member
Feb 7, 2010
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Then we can call it staged :p

BTW, before people start bashing Charlie... it's fud!
 

lifeblood

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
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http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18082/1/

Fudzilla claims that nVidia's partner have their boxes ready but they still do not have the actual cards outside a few samples. The launch is supposed to be in less than 2 weeks so this pretty much guarantees a paper launch or another delay.
Ok, now I'm confused. Doesn't NV only supply the GPU and the partner actually makes the card? If NV makes the card and all the partner does is apply a sticker and box, then whats the point? NV should just sell is it direct under their name.

No, I have to call BS on this. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the card manufacturer actually makes the card from chips supplied by NV.
 

Dark4ng3l

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Sep 17, 2000
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Ok, now I'm confused. Doesn't NV only supply the GPU and the partner actually makes the card? If NV makes the card and all the partner does is apply a sticker and box, then whats the point? NV should just sell is it direct under their name.

No, I have to call BS on this. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the card manufacturer actually makes the card from chips supplied by NV.

Some partners don't make their own cards they just put stickers on card that they buy from other manufacturers or something.
 

vss1980

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Feb 29, 2000
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Hmmm, empty boxes...... better be careful before they end up getting shipped out along with some empty Core i7 boxes.

To be fair, they say they are waiting / not in their hands but that doesn't mean that any scheduled delivery has been missed.

There must have been a point some weeks ago when nvidia should have been sure that production was good and they would be available and subsequently contacted their partners and advised/requested how much inventory they required and all these launch dates, box production, etc., is based off of this.

If it's late now, it's not going to be a much of a delay compared to how late it already is.
That said, they aren't leaving themselves much time to rectify any bugs, etc..... I mean, imagine they need to recall some of the initial batches for some problem.... (has happened before in the PC industry, e.g. PentiumIII 1.13GHz)....
 

Dark4ng3l

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Sep 17, 2000
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Well the p3 1.13GHz was a major fiasco with Tom Pabst going nuts and blowing his load on Kyle and Anand but since Dell had shipped exactly 0 units anyways it was not a big deal in the end.

If there is a problem with these cards you know there will be thousands of really angry loyal nVidia customers. It would be a much bigger PR hit.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
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Ok, now I'm confused. Doesn't NV only supply the GPU and the partner actually makes the card?

It depends on the card. Nvidia has generally supplied complete cards for the high end, GPU/RAM bundles below that and GPUs-only for lower to mid range.
 

vss1980

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Feb 29, 2000
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Well the p3 1.13GHz was a major fiasco with Tom Pabst going nuts and blowing his load on Kyle and Anand but since Dell had shipped exactly 0 units anyways it was not a big deal in the end.

If there is a problem with these cards you know there will be thousands of really angry loyal nVidia customers. It would be a much bigger PR hit.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm referring to at this point. The first cards are no doubt going to go to review, and function as test samples. Hell, even ATI had to update card BIOS's that reviewers had. So no customer would be effected but that would stall the supply.
 

Dorkenstein

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Jul 23, 2004
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Not sounding good at all, even if rumor. I'm holding out for one of these but I'll probably regret it.
 

lifeblood

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
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It depends on the card. Nvidia has generally supplied complete cards for the high end, GPU/RAM bundles below that and GPUs-only for lower to mid range.
I assume at some point this changes? For example, you can now get non-reference 5800 series cards with different coolers. Or does ATI handle sales differently from NV?
 

evolucion8

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Jun 17, 2005
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Well the p3 1.13GHz was a major fiasco with Tom Pabst going nuts and blowing his load on Kyle and Anand but since Dell had shipped exactly 0 units anyways it was not a big deal in the end.

If there is a problem with these cards you know there will be thousands of really angry loyal nVidia customers. It would be a much bigger PR hit.

If you are talking about Coppermine, yes, it was a fiasco, but Tualatin went nice and smooth and reached up to 1.4GHz, beating the hell out of a Pentium 4 Williamette at 1.8GHz and tying up to a 2.0GHz Pentium 4 Northwood.

Back on topic, I know that nVidia only sells GPU's but I didn't knew that nVidia sells complete videocards like the high end ones to the OEM's. That may explain why they all look alike.
 

Dark4ng3l

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Sep 17, 2000
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If you are talking about Coppermine, yes, it was a fiasco, but Tualatin went nice and smooth and reached up to 1.4GHz, beating the hell out of a Pentium 4 Williamette at 1.8GHz and tying up to a 2.0GHz Pentium 4 Northwood.

Back on topic, I know that nVidia only sells GPU's but I didn't knew that nVidia sells complete videocards like the high end ones to the OEM's. That may explain why they all look alike.

Well obviously you were not around back then because you don't understand what really happened(of course we know it was coppermine). Hint: it was not really about the part itself just that Tom really exploded and cause a huge stir in the tech community and the irony of it all was that Kyle was the only guy that could corroborate what Tom was saying about his intel part made it pretty funny.
 

evolucion8

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Jun 17, 2005
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Well obviously you were not around back then because you don't understand what really happened(of course we know it was coppermine). Hint: it was not really about the part itself just that Tom really exploded and cause a huge stir in the tech community and the irony of it all was that Kyle was the only guy that could corroborate what Tom was saying about his intel part made it pretty funny.

Back then I was on basic training, so my internet access was none loll, but I did rode the article somewhere a long time ago and it was pretty interesting, it was comparable to the P4 670 issue except that it didn't burnt, I have a faint memory of it. I need to reformat loll
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
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It depends on the card. Nvidia has generally supplied complete cards for the high end, GPU/RAM bundles below that and GPUs-only for lower to mid range.

They do? My understanding was EVGA did this for them. I dont know how Nvidia would assemble the cards since they dont have any manufacturing capacity that I know.
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
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They do? My understanding was EVGA did this for them. I dont know how Nvidia would assemble the cards since they dont have any manufacturing capacity that I know.

ATI doesn't have any manufactering capabilities either, that's where PC Partner steps in.

I don't see where the fuss is about. From what I gathered from AIB's, is that they only had a few samples during the week of Cebit, in their offices in Taiwan. If AIB's allready have shitloads of cards, chances of leaks increase exponentially. If the cards reach the AIB's in a week, they slap on some stickers, and get it to their distro's, everything should be fine.
 

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
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There’s good news and bad news; the bad news is that the GTX 400 series has been pushed back to April 6th. The good news is that it’s only in reference to retail supply and not the actual NDA; so come the 26th of March we’ll all know what performance will be.


If you thought that you were going to pick one up retail that day though you where wrong, the original date for stock to be selling was the 29th but now it seems to be April 6th.


This morning we heard that NVIDIA had changed the strategy for sending samples; instead of partners sending them out NVIDIA are taking charge and sending out themselves. We’re not 100% sure why they’re doing this but it could be because NVIDIA doesn’t want any leaks on the results until the 26th. Quite often we see NVIDIA push a driver to us at the last minute and it’s possible that this could happen with the GTX 400 series.


If performance numbers come out on an older driver it’s possible that performance won’t be as good and in turn could seal the fate of the new series before it’s even officially released. Holding cards back from its partners though until launch means that it’s going to take a little longer for the cards to hit retail.


So while it’s not great news in the event you want to pick up a GTX 480 on the 26th it doesn’t change the fact that come 10 days time we’ll know how the model performs.
http://www.shanebaxtor.com/2010/03/16/gtx-400-series-date-pushed-back/
 

v8envy

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Sep 7, 2002
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While I prefer this to no launch at all, *THIS* is the exact definition of paper launch. No retail availability whatsoever for at least a week after product launch until you can buy the card.

On the bright side, I now expect the performance will be at the higher end of the leaks as opposed to the lower. It would make no sense for NV to go through all these theatrics if the 470 was consistently slower than the 5870.
 

vss1980

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Feb 29, 2000
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Well obviously you were not around back then because you don't understand what really happened(of course we know it was coppermine). Hint: it was not really about the part itself just that Tom really exploded and cause a huge stir in the tech community and the irony of it all was that Kyle was the only guy that could corroborate what Tom was saying about his intel part made it pretty funny.

Indeed, the PR fall-out from the previews itself is what was so spectacular despite the fact nobody (except Intel maybe) got burned by it.

Long story short for those that don't know: Intel and AMD racing to meet (and pass) the 1GHz barrier. Intel release 1.13GHz Coppermine P3, but it turns out its generating errors (there were validated platforms, but supposedly even these were a bit 'iffy'). Review sites make big fuss - Intel withdraws part until months later, and AMD are first with a proper working Athlon faster than 1GHz.

Back on topic, I suspect the current moves by nvidia are actually in an effort to stop this exact kind of thing from happening to the fermi release - maybe not so much with bugs (although lets not forget current driver issues), but probably for the performance numbers.

As for nvidia making cards - lets be honest, the 'reference' design even if it is manufactured by other board vendors has to originate from somewhere, so it makes sense to maybe pay for a proper production run of this, sell these to partners and get a product to market a little bit quicker.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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Well the p3 1.13GHz was a major fiasco with Tom Pabst going nuts and blowing his load on Kyle and Anand but since Dell had shipped exactly 0 units anyways it was not a big deal in the end.

If there is a problem with these cards you know there will be thousands of really angry loyal nVidia customers. It would be a much bigger PR hit.


If they really only have ~8k cards at launch theres going to be lots more than "thousands" of angry/disappointed loyal nVidia customers anyway.
 

sxr7171

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2002
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If they really only have ~8k cards at launch theres going to be lots more than "thousands" of angry/disappointed loyal nVidia customers anyway.

Well if one is loyal to a company for the sake of being loyal then they made their own bed.