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Posted on January 8th, 2010 by Mike Jennings
Where on earth are Nvidia’s Fermi GPUs?
Running a graphics card Labs once a year makes sense for several reasons. For a start, it normally coincides with ATI and Nvidia’s major line refreshes, and it’s a chance to get every single available GPU into the Labs for a one-off shootout: a chance to see, once and for all, which card pushes pixels like no other.
We had planned to test throughout December, since ATI’s Radeon HD 5000-series cards have mostly been released, but Nvidia’s put a stop to those plans. Despite assurances that we’d have cards before Christmas, Fermi parts are proving as elusive as some private time in the Celebrity Big Brother house.
And now that Nvidia’s big CES press conference has passed with barely a murmur about the new GPUs it looks like we’ll be postponing the test for a little longer. The firm has even conceded that Fermi isn’t a priority for 2010, with the Californian company instead concentrating on Tegra 2, in-car technology and 3D products.
So, why not do something constructive while we’re waiting – take bets on when Fermi will turn up!
After all, the clues point to a variety of dates. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said during the press conference that some Fermi products are “ramping very hard” at the moment – but failed to give a specific time frame. We’ve also spoken to several of Nvidia’s board partners, and a handful reckon that Fermi chips won’t be made available until the end of February “at the earliest” – though none of them knew precisely which cards they’d be receiving.
A couple even said that they wouldn’t be surprised if the new chips were held back for a big reveal at CeBIT, which takes place in Hannover at the beginning of March – four months after they were originally slated for launch.
There’s even an outside chance they could be delayed even further. While Nvidia remains bullish, a representative from one manufacturer suggested that he had no idea when he’d get his hands on the new chips.
The jury’s out, then, on the arrival of Fermi GPUs – which, let’s face it, will have to be astonishingly good to make up for the lost time. Personally, I don’t reckon we’ll see them before CeBIT – but what do you think?
Leave your thoughts, along with a date, in the comments below, and the person closest when we recieve some real Fermi silicon will win a tasty morsel from the PC Pro treats cupboard – or whatever we can find lying around, anyway.
UPDATE: We found a Fermi card, as the picture above illustrates. Honestly. Keep guessing, people!
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January 8th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
I go for April 1st…
January 8th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Got to be February 16th at 11.37pm and 15.46 sec’s.But that’s just a rough guess
January 8th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Oops!! i meant Am .Not sure you work all hours of the day and night.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
February 14th – That should keep the legions of retarded fanboys happy
January 8th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Just a reminder that Jen-Hsun Huang did say at the company’s GPU Technology Conference last September that the official Fermi launch would “likely be on a Tuesday”…
January 8th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Got to be 23rd of feb, it’s a tuesday, and the number 23!! (if you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand)
Tues 23rd of feb, i’m thinking around midday.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
It’s too late for nVidia – just ordered my first ATi card as I’m not prepared to wait any longer. I’m now looking forward to receiving my Sapphire HD5770 Vapour-X card in the next few days.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
If you believe SemiAccurate http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/12/21/nvidia-castrates-fermi-448sps/ they may have significant problems…
Of course when he said “ramping very hard” Jen Hsun may have meant “having a hard time ramping”
January 8th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
March 10th. Duh.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
As a general time scale, I would say September 7
January 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
1st May. If at all.
January 8th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
March 5th at 16:30 pm
But then the drivers will probably suck hehe.
January 8th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Still running my Geforce 8, it copes very well with all games. Until games start to stutter I see no reason to replace it. Going on 3 years now!!! It’s the longest I’ve had a card, I used to replace them almost every 10-12 months.
January 9th, 2010 at 12:16 am
My bet is on the 24th of march!
January 9th, 2010 at 7:02 am
No. Actually, you’re ALL wrong! March 2nd. That’s a Tuesday, not to mention it’s also the opening day of CeBIT. And murmurs of that date are circulating too. For me, this one is so obvious. I mean, come on. I say, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a DUCK!!!!! March 2nd. Has to be March 2nd. T-minus 52 days and counting… Prepare for pure AWESOMENESS!!!
January 9th, 2010 at 10:26 am
March 1st?
Me want e mobile one…
January 10th, 2010 at 3:26 am
If they have any sense of humour about the whole affair it will be Aril 1st, which is also a tuesday… honest.
January 10th, 2010 at 3:30 am
Whoops, jokes on me! Didn’t see the first comment, typical! 30th March it is then!
January 10th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
51 days ’til all you AMD fanboys, nVidia haters, and all other criticisers of nVidia are all put to shame by the revolution that is Fermi… I can’t wait.
January 11th, 2010 at 8:03 am
Do we really need Fermi?
The new integrated Intel chipsets are good enough for fluid Windows Aero desktops, even dual-headed with 24″ monitors and they’ll still play back HD video without stutter…
With game developers looking to consoles for big releases and the gaming PC becoming a niche market, is there really a need to push R&D so hard on high end graphics cards any more? Or should they be concentrating on technologies which are high volume and will bring in more money?
The die-hard PC gamer has always been a very small percentage of the market and it is an ever decreasing segment.
For companies like AMD/ATi and nVidia, it is more prestige than money earning, especially in a recession. Why spend more on a graphics card than on a complete console, which will play on a 1080p TV and won’t suffer from the usual compatibility problems?
The last 5 PCs I bought had integrated graphics, two were nVidia 9400 chipsets, but don’t show any advantage in day-to-day use over the Intel HD chipsets.
My old desktop has a passively cooled 8600GS card in it, which is overkill.
I think AMD/ATi and nVidia should be looking at reducing power consumption, like Intel and AMD did for processors half a decade ago…
January 11th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
@David Wright
What you say makes quite a bit of sense, but you’ve neglected the growth of GPGPU applications. In the next few years, it seems likely that mainstream applications like Photoshop will make heavy use of GPU.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I’d guess on or around 27th January.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
The day after tomorrow…
Still going strong with an 8800gtx from a few years back!
I think we have to thank the never ending extension of life the consoles get, so that the developers still make games for old hardware…
January 18th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
30th April… my birthday!
January 26th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Fermi better be fast, and anything short of blowin me and massaging my berries will be unaccaptable!@!!
February 1st, 2010 at 7:31 pm
march 2nd i agree with.im also still running on my 8800’s.im looking forward to the new technology.people are too dam impatient these days.this is part of the future of game developement as well so dont be so pigheaded.most of you that bought a radeon 5000 series whom arent strictly red team will more than likely buy one anyways.march 2nd FTW
February 4th, 2010 at 1:48 am
Finally someone agrees with me.
Anyway, I just hope I’m right on that date. See you guys later!
Rick Buller, your comment is not only disgusting, it doesn’t even make sense! How can a graphics card mess with your… uuuuuhhhhh… unmentionables!?
Anyway, yeah I maintain my position of March 2nd. Some say end of this month, but I say close but no way. I don’t understand why anyone can expect FERMI before March when nVidia has already had so many delays getting it out. And like I said, so many dates AND rumors line up. I’ll say it again: if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, then it’s probably a DUCK! I’m so confident here that I have a countdown timer in my iPod. T-minus 27 days. If I were, well, pretty much any person participating in the stock market, I’d be pumping every extra dime into nVidia (NVDA) shares. It’s not just FERMI that’s going to skyrocket their profits though. What about their work with Audi to put their chips in luxury cars? Or 3D Vision that might go into the upcoming 3D TV’s or the new 3D Vision Surround? Or the TEGRA 2 that’s going to drive the tablet revolution? It all adds up to a huge profit for nVidia, maybe bigger than they’ve ever seen.
Hopefully they can get that FERMI out there March 2nd. I want two dual-gpu cards for a friend’s build this summer and who knows? Maybe another one will be my pay.