GF100 question

[Dorkenstein]

I think GF100 is Nvidia's next GPU, corect? I know only a little about it. Is the release date still March? And if so, would it be good to get one for an upgrade over a 285? Or is there too much uncertainty about it to warrant early adoption? Thanks for any help.

 

[tviceman]

I think GF100 is Nvidia's next GPU, corect? I know only a little about it. Is the release date still March? And if so, would it be good to get one for an upgrade over a 285? Or is there too much uncertainty about it to warrant early adoption? Thanks for any help.

Release date is March, yes. The specs indicate that the architecture is very forward looking and it could be substantially better than a gtx285, but there hasn't been more than a few samples in controlled benchmarks so far.

In short, nobody knows exactly how fast it will be yet. Right now there is uncertainty, but the launch is getting close so we will know everything soon.

 

[toyota]

it will probably be a massive yet very expensive upgrade over your gtx285. the good news is that gtx285 prices are also very high so you could get a decent amount for it to offset the costs. I sure hope the rest of your system is very good as you will certainly want a good quad and 4gb of ram to fully justify the expense of going with a gtx480.

 

[Tempered81]

I think it will be a great upgrade. 60-70% faster than your 285. 20-30% faster than a 5870. and almost as fast as a 5970.

It has quadruple the geometry processing power when compared to all other chips - due to a revolutionary change in architecture. (Which makes it more powerful despite 384bit & 64 rops.)

I heard that there will be very little consumer cards at launch, so If you plan to get one, the first couple days may be your only chance. Price; I expect $499 for the 470 & $599 for the 480.

 

[scooterlibby]

Price; I expect $499 for the 470 & $599 for the 480.

If the 480 spanks the 5970, which is doubtful, than I see it a $599. If not, they will probably price it lower and make up for that undercut in the mid-range and entry level segments.

 

[tviceman]

I think it will be a great upgrade. 60-70% faster than your 285. 20-30% faster than a 5870. and almost as fast as a 5970.

It has quadruple the geometry processing power when compared to all other chips - due to a revolutionary change in architecture. (Which makes it more powerful despite 384bit & 64 rops.)

I heard that there will be very little consumer cards at launch, so If you plan to get one, the first couple days may be your only chance. Price; I expect $499 for the 470 & $599 for the 480.

If the 480 spanks the 5970, which is doubtful, than I see it a $599. If not, they will probably price it lower and make up for that undercut in the mid-range and entry level segments.

Nvidia has not disclosed prices, but have said the consumer card will be "surprisingly affordable." Should this turn out to be true, we have ATI to thank for the price wars.

 

[Soleron]

Nvidia has not disclosed prices, but have said the consumer card will be "surprisingly affordable." Should this turn out to be true, we have ATI to thank for the price wars.

Given that the die is bigger than GT200b, with poor yields according to most sources, the only reason why it would be cheap is if it didn't perform well enough to lead against the 5970 decisively.

Also since they admitted it's hotter than the original GT200, a dual card can't be slotted above it in the line up. This is their top card; they'll price it as high as they can.

Look at, for example, 8800 Ultra. If Nvidia could price their chip at $800 (because it destroys ATI) then they would.

 

[tviceman]

Given that the die is bigger than GT200b, with poor yields according to most sources, the only reason why it would be cheap is if it didn't perform well enough to lead against the 5970 decisively.

Also since they admitted it's hotter than the original GT200, a dual card can't be slotted above it in the line up. This is their top card; they'll price it as high as they can.

You are partially wrong on that last part. They've already said the x2 part will be out in May. It's codenamed GF104.

If Nvidia could price their chip at $800 (because it destroys ATI) then they would.

You are right, but we all know that isn't the case this time around. Nvidia won't have a chip that can destrory ATI and therefore cannot price it as high as they want. I quoted directly what nvidia said on their facebook page with my original message. The reasons, more than anything, that Fermi will be priced competitively are

A) ATI's card are really good right now and priced well AND
B) Fermi's inital profits in the HPC market will help subsize lower prices in their desktop parts until they can revise/shrink Fermi which has already been confirmed will happen this year.

 

[mhouck]

Get the 285 now if you have to buy something and go with a vendor that promotes step up like EVGA or BFG. You can do the step up as soon as they are available and only have to pay the difference between the amount you paid for the card and the amount that they set as the MSRP.

Edit: May have misinterpretted the OP but anyway everything is speculation. Price and performance are not at all verified or even disclosed. The only thing that isn't spec is the release time frame.

There arevideos showing the improved FPS in Farcry 2 on youtube over the 285 if you want to look at something with numbers. I think they are from CES.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Thanks for all the replies. It looks like not nearly enough is known yet about GF100. I should mention that I no longer have the GTX 285, I am waiting on a 5850. Not much of an upgrade, as I now know. If I get another GTX 285, is there any point to having a dedicated PhysX card, or is there not enough need for it? Sorry to de-rail my own thread but I need to figure out what to do.

 

[Shilohen]

nVidia blocked PhysX dedicated card with ATI cards at driver level, you'llhave to find and use an older version of the nVidia driver.

 

[cbn]

I think GF100 is Nvidia's next GPU, corect? I know only a little about it. Is the release date still March? And if so, would it be good to get one for an upgrade over a 285? Or is there too much uncertainty about it to warrant early adoption? Thanks for any help.

The white paper has already been released. The Top chip has 512 CUDA cores/384bit/GDD5 and 1.5 GB of VRAM.

Of course, we are still waiting for real world performance numbers.

 

[cbn]

You are partially wrong on that last part. They've already said the x2 part will be out in May. It's codenamed GF104.

It will be interesting to see Nvidia's power implementation for the X2 card considering HD5970 Cypress Cores are much smaller and need to be scaled back in speed (In comparison to HD5870)

Maybe will see MSI break out a dual x8 power connector card just for this reason. Or maybe one 6 pin and one 8 pin really is enough for 448 CUDA cores (x2)?

 

[zerocool84]

I think it will be a great upgrade. 60-70% faster than your 285. 20-30% faster than a 5870. and almost as fast as a 5970.

It has quadruple the geometry processing power when compared to all other chips - due to a revolutionary change in architecture. (Which makes it more powerful despite 384bit & 64 rops.)

I heard that there will be very little consumer cards at launch, so If you plan to get one, the first couple days may be your only chance. Price; I expect $499 for the 470 & $599 for the 480.

WOW you know exactly how much faster it'll be when there's no reviews or benches out other than that in house simulated one???

 

[Tempered81]

I just based that off the in house simulated one

 

[Dorkenstein]

Even if I wait until "release day" with cash in-hand, the odds of getting one are still pretty slim. They'll probably sell out everywhere within minutes. I'll hold off until March and try to get one, but I'm not expecting to succeed at the first try.

 

[Tab]

Nvidia has not disclosed prices, but have said the consumer card will be "surprisingly affordable." Should this turn out to be true, we have ATI to thank for the price wars.

Who said that?

 

[tviceman]

Who said that?

I believe it was in the bjorn3d preview/interview with nvidia on fermi.