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We have posted rumors about the yields for the GTX480 and GTX470 in the past. One rumor was 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.

Nvidia recently held the Nvidia Game Festival (NGF) in Shanghai, China. This festival was to promote the launch of its GeForce GTX 480 and 470 graphics cards. Digitimes is reporting that NVidia is happy with the yields that they are getting. Of course, they do not say what those yields actually are.

Commenting on recent market rumors the Nvidia’s GTX 480 and 470 GPU yields are only about 20%, Drew Henry, Nvidia general manager of MCP business, refuted the rumors saying yields have met company expectations.

via Nvidia holds gaming festival in China to promote GeForce GTX480/470.

Hardware fermi, geforce, gf100, gtx470, gtx480, nvidia

Since the GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla products are all based on the same graphics chip from Nvidia, one of the things that people have done is to buy the lower cost product (GeForce) and use it like a higher cost product (Quadro and Tesla). Sure you may have to give up on a few features, but not everyone needs them. Sure you may have to give up some of the extra memory, but it may be worth the price. This is a trade-off that purchasers have to make. Hexus has found yet another trade-off, and one that I had not heard of yet. The GeForce GTX 480 will have ¹/₈^th of the speed as it does in single precision. That may not be a deal breaker to some people. After all, the GeForce GTX 285 had a similar problem. But for those expecting the double precision speed to have increased to ½ that of single precision, it does make a difference.

As much of a general-purpose computer as a GPU, the parallel architecture is also designed for the high-performance computing segment in mind. The enhanced cache structure, detailed above, helps with general computations, and GF100’s adherence to the IEEE 754-2008 floating-point standard means that it can run high-accuracy tests (double-precision support) at an increased rate when compared to anything NVIDIA has designed before.

Delve a little deeper, handily not mentioned in any briefing, and NVIDIA is limiting the double-precision speed of the desktop GF100 part to one-eighth of single-precision throughput, rather than the one-fifth speed of the Radeon HD 5000-series. We’ll have to wait for the Tesla parts before that’s restored to the one-half speed the GF100 is capable of.

via HEXUS.net – Review :: NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480 finally unleashed. Reviewed and rated. : Page – 3/17.

Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx470, gtx480, nvidia

Nvidia has released footage of their keynote presentation where they announced the GeForce GTX 480 and 470. The second part of the footage is after the jump.

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Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx470, gtx480, nvidia

r34p3rex recorded the presentation of the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 at PAX East and has posted it to YouTube. Enjoy.

Recorded at PAX East 2010 in Boston. This was Nvidia’s introduction of its code named “Fermi” line of GPU’s, the GTX 400 series. The GTX 480 and 470 were the only cards announced at PAX.

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Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx480, nvidia

Nvidia has posted a video on YouTube where they interview developers for Battlefield Bad Company 2, Just Cause 2, Metro 2033 and more. They talk about 3-D Vision, and using CUDA in the latest games. The video is 8 and a half minutes long, and has some bloody violent parts to it.

via : YouTube

Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx480, nvidia, video game

Nvidia is set to release the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 graphics cards at the Pax East conference in the main theater from 6pm to 7pm EDT. You will need to be there early since seating is limited. They will have a live blog of the unveiling of the cards during this time, for those who cannot make it to the event.

The Nvidia booth will be in Exhibit Hall D, Booth #1003. Here you will be able to play with the GeForce GTX 480, as well as play in 3-D. They will have some Tegra-powered mobile devices on display, as well as will be giving out prizes.

On the third floor, they will have a 300-person Bring Your Own Computer LAN. That is not all as they will also have a 400-station PC free-play/tournament area. If that is not enough for you, they will also have:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – Battle for PAX $10,000
Championship Finals
Sunday, March 28, 2010 – 11:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Dominate your foes in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, in top notch online all-out warfare in what Game Informer calls, “the best tactical multiplayer action on the planet.” Compete in the online ladder to win travel reimbursement to the finals at Penny Arcade Expo East, BYOC seats in the GeForce LAN, and top seeding in the $10,000 championship finals. Details for the online ladders can be found here. If you already have tickets to PAX and just want to compete in the onsite qualifiers, details will be coming soon on how you can sign up for the onsite qualifying rounds.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – 3D Tournament (It’s the World’s First!)
Saturday, March 27, 2010 – 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM

The world’s first 3D PC gaming tournament featuring NVIDIA 3D Vision, this tournament on Saturday will feature its own set of exciting prizes. Stay tuned here for details on prizes, rules and how to sign up for this tournament.

via : NVIDIA is Heading to PAX East
via : PAX East 2010

Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx480, nvidia

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 is not even available yet, and we already have Atomic magazine pulling it apart to see what is in it. The memory chips are Samsung GDDR5 chips with the laser etching of KNG10325FF for the model number. To cool the GF100 chip, Nvidia is using a fan made by Delta Electronics that uses 21.6 Watts of power. While Delta fans are known to be loud, I suspect that Nvidia will not be running the fan at full load. Atomic magazine has 24 pictures available for viewing at the site linked below. From their on-line article:

The GTX480′s reference heatsink is unique compared to a huge array of more common designs; first and foremost due to its external radiator that vents heat directly off the surface of the card. While it still features a squirrel-cage intake fan at one end, and passes most of the air outside the rear of the chassis, this radiator hints at a heat load that is atypical of most high-end cards.

via NVIDIA GTX480 Disassembly Guide @ Atomic MPC.

Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx480, nvidia

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.

Hardware fermi, gf100, gtx470, gtx480, nvidia, tsmc

SemiAccurate (just gotta love that name) is reporting that XFX will be releasing a custom chip based on NVidia’s Fermi core. Now you have to color me very skeptical on this one. Think about how much it would cost to run a special batch of chips just for XFX. Why would NVidia do it? Could XFX afford it, and make a profit? Next, take a look at the card itself. As SemiAccurate points out, this will not fit in a regular ATX case, so it must be made to run on an open system. From the article:

The so far unspecified GPU is clocked at what appears to be a fairly slow 666MHz, but this custom chip from Nvidia has no less than 666 stream processors (also known as shaders) which should allow it to beat just about any card on the market when it comes to GPGPU performance, although with that many shaders we’d expect the card to perform extremely well in most games. The GPU has been paired up with 4GB of GDDR5 memory using a 666-bit bus and the memory operates on a 666MHz quad pumped bus which results in the equivalent data rate of 2,664MHz, which blows the competition away.

It will be interesting if this thing actually shows up. Do not expect it to be available in large quantities, and the price is rumored to be $1,390. Again, color me skeptical, but visit the article to learn more.

via SemiAccurate :: Sweden gets world exclusive GeForce Fermin card.

Update (Randall, 2/28/2010): Ok, this one is a funny story.  Seems the online store that SemiAccurate points to in the article, www.inet.se, was running an online contest.  They placed one phony product in their store, and the first person to find it won.  Guess what the phony product was? the “GeForce Fermin”.  Visit the page now and you’ll see “Visit our FaceBook page for more contests soon!”.

I thought it seemed pretty far fetched.  Lots of convenient 666′s in the specs, and the name (“Fermin”) just didn’t mesh.

Hardware fermi, gf100, hoax, nvidia, xfx

SabrePC.com has listed a XFX Geforce GTX 480 for pre-order for the amazingly low price of $679.99. You save $20 off the retail price of $699.99! What a deal! The Geforce GTX 480 comes with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. There is no picture of the card on the site, but then again, most graphics cards all look the same.

via : XFX Geforce GTX 480 2GB

Science 480, fermi, geforce, gf100, nvidia