What Happens If Fermi Turns Out To Be Awesome?

[DefRef]

There's no "what if." The leaked benchmarks are already telling of Fermi's performance, as is Nvidia's unwillingness to share numbers.

This is what I mean: Because nVidia is releasing information on THEIR timetable, they are being attacked and written off for dead based on "leaks" from sites with a clear ATI biases and/or funding. Here's how the lose-lose works:

1. nVidia DOESN'T put out numbers way in advance and various sites and fanboys call this proof that they've failed. "If it was so good, they'd be bragging about it."

B. nVidia DOES put out benchmark numbers way in advance and various sites and fanboys howl that since real cards aren't in neutral hands for testing, this means that it's all vaporware and proof that they've failed. "That's just what they say and they're using a benchmark specifically tailored to the one thing that doesn't totally suck on this hot, loud, power-hungry, late hunk of FAIL!!!"

We'll know tomorrow (or Monday) just what Fermi is or isn't. That so many are constructing arguments designed to make nVidia look like losers no matter what - "Only 50% faster than my 5870 for the same price? FAIL!!! Gonna buy another for CF. Buh-bye, green losers." - shows more than support for the current superior cards, but definite animus against the "other guys."

It reminds me of when 3Dfx fanboys used to retort to every new nVidia product with sneers of, "Oh, yeah? Well, Voodoo [next number higher] is gonna murder nVidia! You don't need 32-bit rendering! It's just marketing hype since no games use it; same for hardware T&L! Voodoo rules!!!" How'd that work out for 3Dfx anyway?

In a day or four, we'll know what's reality and what's FUD. Patience.

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

50% more ...
Voltage Tweak ...
If this is true, then Ati is toast...

More like a piece of bread I leave on the 480 is toast

*EDIT* oh god this POS was my first post?

 

[yh125d]

Nothing much. ATI never planned on competing with it with single gpu cards. Nvidia are 6 months late. If needed (say Fermi is actually available en masse) they just drop prices 50$ across the board. It's not like anything bad can happen.

Um, no. ATI never planned to compete with nvidia for the HALO single GPU card. To say they never planned to compete with single GPU cards at lesser than top end is silly

 

[Martimus]

If Fermi is bad ass and has good availability, it would be awesome as it would force AMD to drop prices on their cards. I don't expect either to happen, since it wouldn't make much sense considering what has happened thus far.

I don't see this place as a home of AMD shills any more than a home for nVidia shills. Most people are pretty logical in thinking Fermi won't be that great, because at this point it wouldn't make much sense for it to be very successful. Most of us are hoping that the refresh part is pretty close to production and that the Fermi parts will only be around for a few months before new parts are introduced.

 

[Seero]

I tend you agree with OP that this forum is filled with fanboys. However, a video cards and graphics forum without fanboys is good as dead. The thing about computer hardware is, user have some degree of customization, and different selection gives different results. While it is clear that ATI card has less function than Nvidia, but it is cheaper, and cheaper trumps all those extra functions.

Now I believe less than 10% of the people who post are computer engineers, yet things like die size and heat generation seems to be a big thing. Seriously, as long as the card fit into my case that I don't have a problem with it, and the die size has nothing to do with the dimension of the card. So clearly, those die size talk are just fanboisms.

Heat is another thing, if the card don't burn itself, and last for years, then I am fine with it. No high-end video card can work without heatsink, and the heatsink itself is the size, or even double the size of the actual card. It really doesn't matter if it is running at 30 degree, or 300 degree. As soon as it works, it is good. Again, this is another fanboism. The actual thing that people should be interest in is the noise level. Is it going to be a hair dryer? a vacuum? or a jet engine?

Number of shader cores is another thing. I personally care less. It begin saying that 5870 has higher shader count than 480, then we have 512 to 480 as if it is some form of tax that all computer user must pay. Again, the one that plays most games better is the better one in this category. Now resolution is one big thing. The performance on 1680x1080, and 1900x1200 as well as multi-display is what we should be looking at, not 87 FPS vs 84 FPS since you really can't see the difference.

Performance, function points, price and power consumption are the bases of any pc parts. Die size, heat, actual release date vs projected release date, shader count, and vendor should really not play a rule when it comes to selection. Availability has a direct relationship on the price, so we don't really need to care about it.

As to Fermi, It will be good IMO, but it won't be great. Look at the technical side of the comparsion, the Fermi series is a new design. There are things that does better compare to the 200 series, and there are things that doesn't. We need to wait until the official release to see the overall performance and whether the new tricks that Fermi brings actually works or not. Leaks or rumors can not be taken seriously because driver plays an important rules on it, and not even the engineers in Nvidia who works on the card know beforehand. As to pricing, it is pointless to argue about it if it will be different from the price in store. We all know there is a supply issue going on and ATI had to bump its price because of that. Nvidia is going to do the same, start at a low price which most people can't get it on, than bump its price by 50-100 USD depanding on supply and demand.

 

[Martimus]

This seems to be one of 50 useless threads about Fermi. It isn't even about Fermi, it is about people the OP considers fanboys of ATI. What is the point of this? This is a technical forum, not Doctor Phil.

I never quite understood why the mods were always so strict at keeping all information about new GPU releases under a single thread until now. People seem to have a whole lot of emotion invested in these inanimate objects for some reason. Even Keys, who used to be the most level headed moderator on this site, seems to be overly emotional, and seems to try to start fights now. I just don't understand it all. It is all just hardware, and it doens't really matter.

 

[Reincus]

Nvidia is far from dead. ATI is stealing market share, and if Fermi isn't awesome ATI will steal some more, but in the long run it won't make too much of a difference. From 2Q09-4Q09, ATI snatched up 3% more market share (From 17% up to 20%), Nvidia dropped 4% (From 31% to 27%) and Intel ate up the remainder (49% to 50%). http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/03/nvidia-results-analyzed/

ATI is still the underdog, and has a lot of ground to make up to beat out the Green Machine. The competition is healthy, drives innovation and keeps prices low. I'm not dedicated to either company, I buy the product that fits my needs and budget at the time. I suspect most PC builders are the same. The vast majority of people who use computers know nothing about them, and as such, have no brand loyalty. Thus, the vendors and their contracts have much more to do with market share and overall success of companies then do reviews, benchmarks and the breed of consumers that would frequent these boards.

 

[DefRef]

Another thing the "nVidia iz teh d00m3d!!!" people are ignoring is the workstation market where nVidia makes the REAL $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. The money isn't selling "Crysis @ 120 fps" cards, but 3D engineering app accelerator cards or video GPUs. (We freak out if a gaming card is $499, but corporate buyers will order 1000 workstations with $1200 Quadros without batting an eye.) A few months ago I saw a demo video for the next Adobe Premiere running multiple RED ONE 4K streams in real time with 3D rotations being applied to the windows, in addition to multiple other HD streams. All in real time w/o pre-rendering, running with CUDA or some such on the GPU. Really neat, but probably breathtakingly expensive for all by working production houses.

 

[ZipSpeed]

Well, you could call it BS, and I'd like to think it too but Fudzilla reports that Asus states their new GTX480 performs up to 50% more with Voltage Tweak....

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18175/1/
"Asus boasts this performance boost to be up to 50%"

If this is true, then Ati is toast...

I don't really pay much attention to Asus' box marketing when they come up with non-sensical slogans like "Rock Solid, Heart Touching".

 

[MJinZ]

BFBC2, Metro 2033, Crysis/Crysis WH, Stalker: Call of Pripyat - those 5 games actually benefit from 5870 CF, because you can play every single other game with a single card. I guess you bought the latter 3?

I bought none of those because they suck.

 

[akugami]

This is what I mean: Because nVidia is releasing information on THEIR timetable, they are being attacked and written off for dead based on "leaks" from sites with a clear ATI biases and/or funding. Here's how the lose-lose works:

ATI does the same thing. And many, including myself, have concluded at times that ATI is in trouble because of the rumors and leaked info. More often than not, the sum of the leaks and lack of info point towards issues ATI had. Why should nVidia be immune to this type of speculation?

And I remember a couple of years ago when the board was rampant with speculations of ATI's death. Were you then complaining about the AT board being a bunch of nVidia shills? And mind you, I bought an 8800GTS cause it was the best thing around at the time and ATI sucked and sucked hard.

1. nVidia DOESN'T put out numbers way in advance and various sites and fanboys call this proof that they've failed. "If it was so good, they'd be bragging about it."

Again, ATI said/did the same things when they had issues with their X1800. It also put ATI on a downward spiral as there was more spin coming out of the company than actual products. Not that I'm suggesting nVidia will have such a fall but things can snowball. There was also a lot of "leaked" info at the time on issues ATI was having. This is no different than the current situation with nVidia. And yes, a lot of people were trashing ATI at that time.

B. nVidia DOES put out benchmark numbers way in advance and various sites and fanboys howl that since real cards aren't in neutral hands for testing, this means that it's all vaporware and proof that they've failed. "That's just what they say and they're using a benchmark specifically tailored to the one thing that doesn't totally suck on this hot, loud, power-hungry, late hunk of FAIL!!!"

Guess what? I don't trust benchmark numbers from any company anymore. Not from ATI. Not from nVidia. Too much BS. I value independent verifiable numbers. With all that said, with all the hits nVidia is taking in the public and from the media, the smart thing would have been to release teasers. They could have released a short demo of a PR guy with a monitor next to him showing how they got 78fps with a Fermi in GameX while ATI's Radeon 5870 only got 50fps. Don't even need to release any relevant settings info to keep it ambiguous but it does throw a little hype into the marketing campaign. We haven't even gotten that. We got an announcement that they were going to make an announcement about a product that was half a year late. Of course people are going to ridicule nVidia. It's human fricking nature.

And that one benchmark you alluded to? There have been problems pointed out with tessellation because the Unigine Heaven benchmark is not a game, it is only a tech demo. There are other things the GPU might be asked to process and that could really kill tessellation performance on Fermi in "real" situations. The other issue that wasn't widely mentioned is the fact that nVidia used a customized version of the Heaven benchmark. There was no Apples to Apples comparison. This would be what people call shenanigans.

And in no way is ATI immune to this type of stuff. Just that nVidia's silence and lack of information to silence all of the negative press is confusing since it's driving a lot of people to not wait for Fermi and buy Radeon 5xxx's instead. I could see them being silent in January and February but as the launch date for Fermi grew closer and solidified, especially roughly one month before the actual launch, there was no way in hell nVidia's marketing department shouldn't be hyping nVidia up and making people wait one month for Fermi. Instead we still have a lack of information and people just looking for Radeon 5870's as they have grew tired of waiting. Is it any wonder people are questioning Fermi?

We'll know tomorrow (or Monday) just what Fermi is or isn't. That so many are constructing arguments designed to make nVidia look like losers no matter what - "Only 50% faster than my 5870 for the same price? FAIL!!! Gonna buy another for CF. Buh-bye, green losers." - shows more than support for the current superior cards, but definite animus against the "other guys."

Umm...all indications point to the nVidia parts being more expensive and slightly faster. Just like the last round. At least after ATI forced nVidia to massively drop prices. They were not the same price and 50% faster. One of the major reasons ATI has been gaining ground with enthusiasts lately is bang for the buck. Your argument here doesn't make sense cause the rumors and leaks don't point to "50% faster at the same price" but rather "10% faster at a higher price". This seems like a contrived argument.

It reminds me of when 3Dfx fanboys used to retort to every new nVidia product with sneers of, "Oh, yeah? Well, Voodoo [next number higher] is gonna murder nVidia! You don't need 32-bit rendering! It's just marketing hype since no games use it; same for hardware T&L! Voodoo rules!!!" How'd that work out for 3Dfx anyway?

In a day or four, we'll know what's reality and what's FUD. Patience.

Your argument doesn't match up because it was those in favor of nVidia that kept arguing about how tessellation is useless (right now) and how DX11 is useless (right now) and that the GTX 295 still kicked ass. And what they are saying would be true, the GTX 295 is still a damned good card and tessellation and DX11 are still not really relevant. Though DX11 is gaining steam fast. If anything your argument applies more to nVidia fans. So does that mean that nVidia fanboys are the new 3dfx fanboys who will watch their company go up in flames? That would be ironic on many levels. And I was one of those early nVidia fans.

 

[konakona]

This forum turned into an "ATI fanboy club" because ATI has had the best products out for a while, its obvious really

Back in 2006 when the 8800 launched everyone recommended it as well, was the forum a Nvidia fanboy site then?

So yeah, of course people will flock to whatever company offers the best products, duh... But everything points to fermi being disappointing at best

It's more about nv fanboy wagon blowing its wheels and getting stuck in the puddle of mud Too bad their mastermind company hasn't been feeding them something worthy of shilling for a looooong time.

Honestly, I can't think of a single competitive nvidia product barring oddball rebate deals ($80 rebate on GT250) and gtx260 that oscillated from being decent to a bit pricey for what it does.

Think about it; it's just natural for people support a company that makes products that work better and provide better value. Nobody liked ATi (except for very few diehard fanboys) back when they only had 2x00s.

 

[Avalon]

It has done this since day 1. It isnt that big a deal really. I spend so little time on my computer now anyways. I just think the card itself is really loud.

Poor contact to the GPU or bad thermal paste. They barely put any on there, and it dries up quick. It's really worth a look, because mine did the same thing and now it's whisper quiet in Windows no matter what I'm doing. In games, it's audible but not loud.

I had a reference, stock, Visiontek 4850. There was barely any thermal paste between the GPU and heatsink, and what was there, was extremely dry and brittle.

 

[konakona]

And that one benchmark you alluded to? There have been problems pointed out with tessellation because the Unigine Heaven benchmark is not a game, it is only a tech demo. There are other things the GPU might be asked to process and that could really kill tessellation performance on Fermi in "real" situations. The other issue that wasn't widely mentioned is the fact that nVidia used a customized version of the Heaven benchmark. There was no Apples to Apples comparison. This would be what people call shenanigans.

Kinda ironic, it's much analogous to the whole physx debacle; probably has some future prospect, but has no tangible immediate benefits. Just like physx does things inefficiently for the sake of putting in physx there, the unigine benchmark overdoes tessellation for the sake of tessellation AFAIK.

And in no way is ATI immune to this type of stuff. Just that nVidia's silence and lack of information to silence all of the negative press is confusing since it's driving a lot of people to not wait for Fermi and buy Radeon 5xxx's instead. I could see them being silent in January and February but as the launch date for Fermi grew closer and solidified, especially roughly one month before the actual launch, there was no way in hell nVidia's marketing department shouldn't be hyping nVidia up and making people wait one month for Fermi. Instead we still have a lack of information and people just looking for Radeon 5870's as they have grew tired of waiting. Is it any wonder people are questioning Fermi?

I think we can safely assume at this point NV couldn't be playing possum. If so, they have done enough damage to themselves and need to do something about their marketting team.

 

[Skott]

I haven't read the thread. Just the OP. What will happen? First, 5xxx prices will drop as people flock to Fermi. Second, ATI will counter with lower prices maybe while they get their next series out the door. This leap frogging has been going on for many years. I expect it to continue.

 

[blanketyblank]

Actually I don't think up to 50% is impossible. These cards were originally supposed to be 512 based on all the rumors so if NV didn't have enough good chips to launch 512 cards it's possible some of those ended up in the 480 line. I'd expect just those cards would have a decent OC, but once they start binning chips for an actual 512 line if they haven't already that will come to an end.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I hope that fermi is all that and storms onto the scene tomorrow. I for one will purchase if fermi performs well and is not overpriced. I am noticing that people are snapping up the 5870's from newegg right now.

 

[legcramp]

If the GTX480 is faster than my HD5870 by at least 25% consistently, I'll get one and get an HD5450 for my HD audio purposes

Right now I am killing 2 birds with one stone, great graphics performance + HD audio bit-streaming in one card.

 

[Apocalypse23]

I don't really pay much attention to Asus' box marketing when they come up with non-sensical slogans like "Rock Solid, Heart Touching".

Well, ...I kinda liked the warm fuzzy "Rock Solid, Heart Touching" logo on my Asus mobo boxes...then I felt safe when giving the mobo all sorts of voltages, and it was "rock solid" after and stable...lol

 

[Rhezuss]

Is it really tomorrow that the GTX4xx series make it's way on the shelves?

 

[taltamir]

It probably won't. But if it does, then AMD drops prices to compete, hopefully NVidia does the same in turn, and we have a return to competition, and everybody benefits.

this is pretty much right on the money.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Well, you could call it BS, and I'd like to think it too but Fudzilla reports that Asus states their new GTX480 performs up to 50% more with Voltage Tweak....

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18175/1/
"Asus boasts this performance boost to be up to 50%"

If this is true, then Ati is toast...

The power grid will also be toast :awe:

But hey, competition is good. I hope Fermi kicks some ass. That means cheaper 5xxx series AMD cards. Win/win.

 

[soccerballtux]

well what if amd releases a part that is awesomer?

 

[tweakboy]

I think it will churn out to be a amazing card as soon as people can get their hands on it. Not out yet,, only on review sites,, sighs,, didnt they say end of march, but looks like it will be April 12 I think,, I hope the pricing is competitive...thx

 

[Will Robinson]

Even Keys, who used to be the most level headed moderator on this site, seems to be overly emotional, and seems to try to start fights now. I just don't understand it all. It is all just hardware, and it doens't really matter.

OMG he said something negative about Keys