More Fermi Rumors - Not Good

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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NVIDIA had a big get-together in Hong Kong last week where a lot of the NVIDIA upper brass was on hand. It is being rumored that the first "Fermi build kits" were supposed to be prepped to go out to AIBs but NVIDIA missed the mark on having its Fermi tech ready to pass off to builders. We also heard the "Gemini" name being batted around as well and this seems to be connected to a dual GPU Fermi card. We still feel as though NVIDIA is aiming for getting Fermi shipping by the last week of February, but still think it will miss this mark. HardOCP's best guess right now is late March with any quantity to speak and we are still giving NVIDIA about even odds of marking March. April 2010 is looking more reasonable to us at this time.
 
It better be good for the wait...they dropped the ball on those cards and are losing market share galore to ati.
 
This is a shame really, AMD needs the competition right now, with production shortcomings, slim pickings this holiday season, and inflated prices when the HD 5000 series are available, competition would have been welcomed.

In the meantime, this only gives AMD more time to optimize drivers, optimize for DX11 games coming out soon, and work on delivering some kind of "Fermi killer" when the time comes.
 
Not good on nvidia's part, this is going to put them a good 6 months behind ATI on "current" gen hardware... ATI stockholders might see a nice little bump in stock here.
 
Man I bet Nvidia never envisioned being in this position same time last year.
 
What I laugh at is the fact that nvidia had plenty of time to make this card. The geforce 9 series was the 8 just renamed. So what the heck happened? Were they sitting back and watching ati suffer and not start making a new card?
 
And with this news I expect ATI's cards msrp go up another $25.

Darn it.
 
If Global Foundries could produce at an acceptable node before TSMC, would nVidia turn there instead? That would be fun to watch. :p
 
is this a repeat of 2001? is'nt this the kind of the same thing that happened to 3dFX when they floundered? granted nV has more going for it then 3dFX did but not that much.. ION can't be the savior once video is integrated onto the CPU die for all of those low power pc's.
 
hackztor said:
What I laugh at is the fact that nvidia had plenty of time to make this card. The geforce 9 series was the 8 just renamed. So what the heck happened? Were they sitting back and watching ati suffer and not start making a new card?
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They probably were really trying, but poor chipset developments (Intel QPI thingy), and some unexpected pressure from ATi (5xxx series from a 'dying horse'!? No way!), probably caught nVidia by suprise, and forced them to put more time into developing a true killer card, not just a 'catch up' card.

Hence, the delay. (I think / I hope)
 
I think the current AMD pricing increases is a good indicator of how much we need both of these companies (at a minimum) to be competing with each other. I personally hope nvidia comes up with something that challenges AMD to out do them; but it sure as heck is not looking good.
 
RumpleForeSkin said:
is this a repeat of 2001? is'nt this the kind of the same thing that happened to 3dFX when they floundered? granted nV has more going for it then 3dFX did but not that much.. ION can't be the savior once video is integrated onto the CPU die for all of those low power pc's.
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It reminds me of NV30, which was the catalyst for changing the entire way we evaluated video cards.
 
jstnomega said:
If Global Foundries could produce at an acceptable node before TSMC, would nVidia turn there instead? That would be fun to watch. :p
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I suspect TSMC will be out soon enough. They've really screwed Nvidia lately and from the shortages with the 5800 series I'm suspecting ATI will be out soon as well. GF should have a lot of new buisness coming it's way, hope they are ready for it.

As far people thinking Nvidia is dying or dead, I highly doubt it. Considering the INSANE profits they are making on Tesla and Quadro cards, I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.
 
vengence said:
As far people thinking Nvidia is dying or dead, I highly doubt it. Considering the INSANE profits they are making on Tesla and Quadro cards, I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.
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Yeah, this is far from a death blow, but it isn't good no matter how you look at it. Nvidia may be sitting on a mountain of cash, but they have to perform to keep investors happy.
 
Oldie said:
I think the current AMD pricing increases is a good indicator of how much we need both of these companies (at a minimum) to be competing with each other. I personally hope nvidia comes up with something that challenges AMD to out do them; but it sure as heck is not looking good.
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I thought the price increases were the work of the indiviual retailers and AIBs?
 
NVIDIA also has Tegra, which is supposedly going to do quite well in the mobile market. They're suffering in the consumer graphics market a bit, but this market's always been quite a roller coaster as far as dominance is concerned.

The fiasco that is Fermi is giving AMD time to earn some much-needed profits, and although we're getting the short end of the stick right now, it's going to put AMD in a better position to compete further down the road when NVIDIA's ready to get back in the fight.
 
Regardless of where the increase happens, it's happening due to a serious lack of competition and demand exceeding supply. Those two factors are the perfect storm for increasing the price paid by the consumer. I don't blame any retailers for doing so, I'm just hoping the supply increases soon to bring prices back down.


MH Knights said:
I thought the price increases were the work of the indiviual retailers and AIBs?
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I wonder if this is a lame attempt at price fixng again. This keeps ATi cards high for the holiday season and lets Nvidia release in time for the summer game releases thereby keeping their prices high.

Just thinking outloud here since I find it weird Nvidia dropping the ball this bad on Fermi.
 
Brent_Justice said:
It reminds me of NV30, which was the catalyst for changing the entire way we evaluated video cards.
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Yeah, I don't think it's as serious/dire as 3dFX's situation just yet. Both ATi and Nvidia have had some lousy cards [relative to each other] in the past, but they seem to always bounce back within a generation or two. That's a good thing for us consumers. :)

I don't think Nvidia "underestimated" AMD/ATi either. How could they after 4800 series (or previous generations like the R300/9700PRO)? I think they just didn't anticipate so many problems delaying their own cards, while for AMD is has been smooth sailing (other than the TSMC problems).
 
Brent_Justice said:
This is a shame really, AMD needs the competition right now, with production shortcomings, slim pickings this holiday season, and inflated prices when the HD 5000 series are available, competition would have been welcomed.
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Bingo on all counts. This seems like the *perfect* time for Nvidia to drop a new card, esp. if it could get AMD/ATI to stop jacking their MSRPs up. Only problem is that Nvidia would pretty much *have* to be able to drop a sustainable stock of the new cards onto the market, which I wouldn't see happening at all. If they didn't have a good stock, they would be in the same boat as AMD/ATI.
 
Nvidia needs to get it's act together. We need the competition to drive the price of cards down.
 
So in like 3 years, we can have fast CPU (Intel) plus medium graphics (Intel) or medium CPU (AMD) plus fast graphics (ATI) all on 1 chip. Or we can have a science cluster, phone or rendering farm (Nvidia).
 
I don't really see Nvidia's competition right now would really change the pricing of the video cards right now much since most of the hold up has been at TSMC. If Nvidia released their card now we'd probably see higher prices and less cards available from each side. At best it would be the same prices it would be now. I really doubt ATI is in the right place in the market to leverage high prices for better as Nvidia has a lot more die hard fans and ATI needs to build up its name in terms of regular buyers. This would need to be done by getting more cards out there so people can see what an ATI card experience is like.
 
to the dooms day people: I would not be writing them out yet. I am sure this next cycle is going to be rough and I doubt the first gen is going to be anything like they hope but give them a chance to work out the bugs. even Intel fucked up on a couple of cycles. it was AMD kicking their ass that made them man up finally. I think they may yet do the same. just need to get rid of most of their brass
 
If I were hurting for performance this news would annoy me but since I'm not and I suspect most here aren't either, there's really no problem for us. Those of us waiting for Fermi, that is. If you feel the need to get the best you can right now then buy a 58/5900 series card, if you can get 1. I somehow don't think this rumor is completely accurate though. I suspect Nvidia will get a small quantity to market sometime in jan. Then mass quantity sometime in March. The thing I think is off about this is that Nvidia won't have any supply for sale before March? Nah.
 
Oldie said:
Yeah, this is far from a death blow, but it isn't good no matter how you look at it. Nvidia may be sitting on a mountain of cash, but they have to perform to keep investors happy.
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Of course it's not good. The profit margins on the professional cards (Tesla and Quadro) are disturbingly absurd. Even at a 2000$ price tag for a GTX 280 based Tesla card, it is still insanely competitive (~1/10th cost) against CPU based super-computing alternatives.

Climber said:
I wonder if this is a lame attempt at price fixng again. This keeps ATi cards high for the holiday season and lets Nvidia release in time for the summer game releases thereby keeping their prices high.

Just thinking outloud here since I find it weird Nvidia dropping the ball this bad on Fermi.
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I'd suggest not thinking out loud in the future then. :D
Seriously though, if Nvidia and ATI wanted to price fix, ATI just had to come to market at 550$ with the 4870 and it would have worked.

bh192012 said:
So in like 3 years, we can have fast CPU (Intel) plus medium graphics (Intel) or medium CPU (AMD) plus fast graphics (ATI) all on 1 chip. Or we can have a science cluster, phone or rendering farm (Nvidia).
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Nvidia isn't going to get out of graphics. If anything getting into the science cluster market will provide more R&D money to make a faster graphics card.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
... esp. if it could get AMD/ATI to stop jacking their MSRPs up. ...
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Maybe I've missed it, but I don't remember seeing any news source that has claimed that they have "Jacked up the MSRPs". They haven't dropped the MSRP, but then they are under no pressure to do so.

Any price increases I've seen have come from the RETAILERS. It's a supply vs demand thing. It's currently a sellers market, and the retailers are taking advantage of it.

I've seen the same thing in the automobile business. I remember when the RX-7 Mazda came out. People were standing in line to pre-order them, and paying as much as 5,000 OVER MSRP. I once sold an Isuzu Trooper for 2,500 over MSRP, and the guy that bought it drove over 300 miles to get to our dealership. Why? Because it was the last Turbo Diesel East of the Missippi River.
 
RumpleForeSkin said:
is this a repeat of 2001? is'nt this the kind of the same thing that happened to 3dFX when they floundered? granted nV has more going for it then 3dFX did but not that much.. ION can't be the savior once video is integrated onto the CPU die for all of those low power pc's.
Click to expand...

You're kidding right? 3dfx was little more than a startup when they went under. Not much more going for it? lol......
 
Oldie said:
I think the current AMD pricing increases is a good indicator of how much we need both of these companies (at a minimum) to be competing with each other. I personally hope nvidia comes up with something that challenges AMD to out do them; but it sure as heck is not looking good.
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As they say let your wallet do the talking, No one is forcing anyone to buy the cards, if people haven't got the will power to back off and let the price drop thats their problem, especially if they admit to knowing why the price is going up. The only reason its good for competition is the advancement in technology. Economics 101 says if their is a glut of merchandise on the shelves the price will go down, you don't need two companies for that to happen,so keep the wallet shut for awhile.
 
vengence said:
I suspect TSMC will be out soon enough. They've really screwed Nvidia lately and from the shortages with the 5800 series I'm suspecting ATI will be out soon as well. GF should have a lot of new buisness coming it's way, hope they are ready for it.

As far people thinking Nvidia is dying or dead, I highly doubt it. Considering the INSANE profits they are making on Tesla and Quadro cards, I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.
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I doubt this is all TSMC problem.

IIRC, GF isn't even producing the 40nm chip right now, which probably means they have the same problem.

if TSMC are the one that needs to be blame, then ATI/nVidia already switching to others.

Most likely all other silicon manufacture are having the same problems.
 
http://www.vizworld.com/2009/11/nvidias-fermi-sc09/

What Nvidia is not saying yet, publicly, is how fast the clock is. However, Nvidia is showing a demonstration program on the floor of Supercomputing 2009 in Portland, Oregon. On one HP Z800 computer, we have a Tesla C1060 running a CUDA n-body demonstration. This well-known CUDA program is running a 20,480 body interaction in double precision. There are 1.47 Billion interactions per second, and a frame rate of 3.5 frames per second. On the other HP Z800 computer, we have a Fermi running the same program at a rate of 9.11 Billion interactions per second, at a frame rate of 21.72 frames per second.

In other words, the Fermi GPU is running 6.2 times faster, whether you look at interactions per second, or frames per second. Nvidia says that Fermi can run double precision up to 8x faster. Double precision is running at half the speed of single precision in Fermi. In the previous generation, the G200, double precision was running one-tenth of the speed. That is because in the G200, double precision was handled by one dedicated unit per SM, while it had eight single precision units (SP).

Will Fermi be faster in gaming that the ATI 5870? What about the 600 lb. gorilla from Intel called Larrabee? We do not know, for certain, yet. One thing is sure, it will be an interesting ride.
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The troubles TSMC is having ramping up 40nm production is one thing slowing down Fermi cards' production. It's the same fab that makes atis current 40nm GPU's, which is why they are in somewhat short supply. Cmon' you tiawanese semicoductor manufacturing company, get your chips together already.

6.2x faster is nothing to sneeze at. Time will tell how that translates to game performance.
 
RAF_OldBuzzard said:
Maybe I've missed it, but I don't remember seeing any news source that has claimed that they have "Jacked up the MSRPs". They haven't dropped the MSRP, but then they are under no pressure to do so.

Any price increases I've seen have come from the RETAILERS. It's a supply vs demand thing. It's currently a sellers market, and the retailers are taking advantage of it.
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A simple search for "5850 price increase" would show that AMD indeed jacked up the price, *not* the retailers. From Xbitlabs:
Price War Reversed: ATI Increases Pricing of New High-End Graphics Card.

ATI Radeon HD 5850 Gains Price Due to “Overwhelming Demand”
[11/02/2009 10:24 AM]
by Anton Shilov

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, on Monday said that it would increase the price of its ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics processing unit (GPU) by $20+ due to overwhelming demand towards the new graphics cards as well as increased costs of components and logistics.

“Due to the accelerated ramp of the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series products to meet overwhelming demand at a time when a recovering computer industry is limiting supply on some parts, AMD is incurring higher component, memory and logistics costs. While many of our products are impacted by these increased costs to varying degrees, we are only adjusting pricing on the ATI Radeon HD 5850 product at this time,” said Jay Marsden, a spokesperson for the company.
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And how is that the retailer jacking up the price?
 
Why would logistics costs have gone up? Does that make sense to anyone else?
 
^ AMD raised their MSRP by $20, to $279 for their HD 5850. Cards are going for up to $319 right now. Both retailers and AMD have jacked up prices, yes.
 
Wait, did someone seriously put nV in the same sentence and structure as 3dfx in regards to "being in trouble"? Oh and I thought here I had seen everything... :rolleyes:
Are you kidding me? I mean are you really frickin' kidding me man? :rolleyes: :mad:

Uncle said:
As they say let your wallet do the talking, No one is forcing anyone to buy the cards, if people haven't got the will power to back off and let the price drop thats their problem, especially if they admit to knowing why the price is going up.
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QFTMFT. People want to open a 2nd mortgage to buy a price inflated ATi card right now, I say "go right ahead". Have fun with your new cards. When you complain about prices, look in the mirror because you are a part of the problem.

Are people forgetting that nV is not the only one having TSMC issues? ATi is as well, just not as grave as nV's, because ATi actually has physical product being sold right now, and their yields are nowhere near as low.
 
It's about time ATI got ahead really. I know how everyone says "Oh, this isn't good for Nvidia..." but look at it in the long run. NV has been running circles around ATI until recently. ATI really needed a chance to be in the limelight for awhile.
 
Nvidia you clever bastards timing your release with income tax refund season instead of what by all accounts will be a very poor holiday shopping season. Just when we all get our nice income tax refunds (State of California residents need not apply) Nvidia will saturate the market and undercut AMD's pricing. Bravo Nvidia.
 
3dfx? Nvidia purchased them, and then somehow they died off.
Aureal? Creative Labs bought them and you know what happened afterwards.
It's like there's something about big companies buying small competitors and offing them just for the sake of getting them out of the way, wierd innit?

I'm happy AMD gets to reap fine as hell profits for another 4-6 months, they've earned it for playing the game nicely in the face of infinitely richer and resourceful opposition with scumbag tactics and anti-competitive business behaviour from all over.

I thought Nv would have learnt something from the 200 series before going onto this. Or was it the jump to 40nm, or was it biting off more than they could ever dream of chewing? When the boss says it would be cake to add DX11 to current G200 parts, in the face of a catastrophically delayed DX10.1 part with new architecture and doesn't even bring up Femri in that same interview, I'm thinking of a disillusioned Ken Kutaragi.
 
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