If you thought last week was bad for Nvidia rumors, this week could be even worse as we get nearer the March 26th launch date. The rumor of the day is that the GF100 yields are below 50% at TSMC. This is an improvement over the 2% yields reported last year. 50% yields are in line with what was reported for ATI last year.

Since TSMC’s 40nm yield currently is still lower than 50%, Nvidia will block some of the graphics cores with problems on the card. As a result, the GeForce GTX 480 will only have 480 cores and GTX 470 only 448, the sources noted.

And if you want more leaked photos of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480, you can go here.

via Nvidia initial batch of GeForce GTX 400 series to have fewer cores than expected.