Back in the middle of January I blogged about the possibility that Nvidia’s latest round of GPUs, codenamed Fermi, might darken the door of the PC Pro Lab sometime in 2010, even though we’d been assured that the new chips would be ready for a graphics card Labs in December.

The blog attracted a fair few comments, mainly because I’d offered a prize: guess the date when we take delivery of Fermi cards, and I’ll send you some assorted gubbins from the deepest, darkest depths of the Labs.

Now, though, the competition seems to be heating up: Nvidia’s UK PR manager, Ben Berraondo, has revealed that the two first Fermi parts out of the door will be the GeForce GTX 470 and 480. We’re relieved to see that Nvidia hasn’t decided to tinker with its naming scheme again and, if the firm’s previous form is any sort of indicator, these will both be reasonably high-end parts.

So, does this mean that the GPUs will be appearing soon or is this merely a tidbit designed to stave off crowds of folk hungry for graphics cards that aren’t emblazoned with ATI logos? Of course, only time will tell – although Berraondo did tweet that we’re “oh so close” to seeing parts appear in the wild.

It’s also interesting to note that Nvidia is jumping from the GTX 200-series to GTX 400-based cards and almost skipping the GTX 300 entirely – even though everyone, naturally, assumed that Fermi parts would carry this chronologically accurate moniker. Instead, the firm has released the GeForce 310, which is merely a GeForce 210 with a new sticker which, in turn, used to be sold as the GeForce 9500 GS. And that card was based on the G92 core introduced with the 8800 GS back in the mists of January 2008. I’d hope that the guy who originally designed that particular core works on commission.

At this point, it seems wise of Nvidia to abandon this altogether and skip a generation of names for its new parts. At least they’ll seem shinier when they eventually turn up.

What this all means is that we’re probably a little bit closer to getting our hands on real Fermi silicon. If you’ve already entered our competition, though, it doesn’t mean that you can change your guess as to when these mythical beasts will arrive.

Still, it’s an interesting development compared to the radio silence of the past few months – but do you think it indicates their imminent arrival, or will we still be waiting until CeBIT and beyond?