Why is demand so high??

Lorien said:
AMD has had no problem selling over 3 million 40nm DX11 GPUs

Nah, they just didn't learn anything from their mistakes in designing their first 40nm chips (you know, all those rebrands gt3xxx series) as opposed to ATI which identified the problem and engineered their chips around the shortcomings of the 40nm node.

I will say it again, AMD has already sold 3million+ 40nm DX11 GPUs.

Nah, only AMD was smart enough to identify the problem and doubled up on via's where Nvidia just yelled publically at TSMC to have 0 defective vias. Yelling at your manufacturing partner does not fix a defectively engineered chip. Pointing fingers at TSMC to try and save face is laughable at this point in time. The ones who need to get their shit together should be Nvidia's engineers.
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So I see a lot of text about how everyone's wrong about the TSMC supply problem but I don't really see your opinion on the problem. So what about it. What's the reason?
 
jwalk6 said:
So I see a lot of text about how everyone's wrong about the TSMC supply problem but I don't really see your opinion on the problem. So what about it. What's the reason?
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What problem? Parroting the same fallacy will not make it true. In engineering there are no insurmountable problems, there are only design challenges. Tackling those challenges is what an engineer is paid to do. Please read this. http://www.semiconductor.net/article/438968-Nvidia_s_Chen_Calls_for_Zero_Via_Defects-full.php
AMD had the same problems that Nvidia is facing today with Fermi. AMD engineered their way around it. Nvidia apparently did not because they publicly pointed the finger at TSMC but the truth is TSMC did not design Fermi, Nvidia did.
If you showed up at a summer marathon wearing skies and after losing the race you blame the organizers for not holding it in the winter people would simply laugh at you.
 
jwalk6 said:
So I see a lot of text about how everyone's wrong about the TSMC supply problem but I don't really see your opinion on the problem. So what about it. What's the reason?
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TSMC's 40nm process was far from perfect. ATI learned this on their first 40nm product before 5xxx that they put out as part of the learning process.

They re-engineered a workaround to deal with the defects of TSMC's 40nm process which was major leakage with the vias and doubling up all the interconnects.

Nvidia obviously didn't do this and just wanted TSMC to make 40nm chips without defective vias but it wasn't possible.

The situation is sort of like a box factory that has a problem with their expensive machinery that they are not able to change easily without losing millions of dollars and months and months of downtime and work. Every box is not as strong as it needs to be to hold whatever it's supposed to hold. So ATI learns about this and just doubles up the boxes or adds in glue during the process to make them stronger. Nvidia instead, yells at the box factory to just make perfect boxes and when the factory cannot because the machinery cannot be easily changed, end up losing 6 months and a high defect rate.

ATI learned it's lesson with a smaller product that was not as important to their overall business plan. Nvidia learned the hard way by having this problem intersect with their first major product refresh in a long time...but now that both have learned their lesson, they will both try engineering redundancies or learn to predict the failings of a foundry ahead of time or reduce their risk by having more than one foundry (making going to Global Foundries).
 
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it'll always be high when demand is high. I just tend to wait a while before attempting to buy a new one.
 
and to think of all the petulant grumbling that went on when the 5970's debuted at $620. as if users actually felt entitled to pay no more than $400 for a top end video card.
 
NKD said:
very true, Biggest problem here is TSMC, totally unreliable ever since they made the shift to 40nm, that is one reason Nvidia is suffering with fermi, 8800gtx was big and power hungry but they had no problem with those at all, but with 40nm TSMC has dropped the ball big time. The yield issues are still present with ATI and ofcourse worse with Nvidia. If TSMC had their shit together Nvidia would be in much better shape and ATI would be in even better shape. I think AMD and Nvidia are working around TSMC problems faster then TSMC themselves, LOL.
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nVidia isn't quite working around those issues very well, they're trying the bull in a china shop approach. Hence why 480 yields even with volt increases are far below even piss poor, GF100 needs a complete retape spin before it will be anything near commercially viable at current 40nm TSMC processes.

TSMC has hooped the pooch and pretty much just sabotaged ATI's 'Northern Islands' refresh by cancelling bulk 32nm gate-first process, bye bye half a year of work..
 
DarkStryke said:
nVidia isn't quite working around those issues very well, they're trying the bull in a china shop approach. Hence why 480 yields even with volt increases are far below even piss poor, GF100 needs a complete retape spin before it will be anything near commercially viable at current 40nm TSMC processes.

TSMC has hooped the pooch and pretty much just sabotaged ATI's 'Northern Islands' refresh by cancelling bulk 32nm gate-first process, bye bye half a year of work..
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well how come ATI worked around it and got better yields?

moreover ATI and TSMC talked about the 32nm process not working well so thats why ATI will be sticking one more year witht he 40nm while either TSMC gets their shit together on 32nm or ATI goes to Globalfoundries.
 
DarkStryke said:
nVidia isn't quite working around those issues very well, they're trying the bull in a china shop approach. Hence why 480 yields even with volt increases are far below even piss poor, GF100 needs a complete retape spin before it will be anything near commercially viable at current 40nm TSMC processes.

TSMC has hooped the pooch and pretty much just sabotaged ATI's 'Northern Islands' refresh by cancelling bulk 32nm gate-first process, bye bye half a year of work..
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Yeah, people are forgetting that ATI got screwed as well. Nvidia was late to this party but all that extra time might be wasted as well for ATI since they couldn't use that time to put anything into production because of TSMC problems. They had to switch to Plan B and make a stop-gap Southern Islands.
 
Nirad9er said:
Im fed up with all the gouging and greedy vendors. Just sell the damn things for MSRP like everything else in this world!! :mad:
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Do we have guns to our heads forcing us to buy? Don't buy at these prices and wait for prices to go down. Neither you or I are entitled to lower prices if the market dictates that the damned goods should go higher than MSRP. It stands for Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price, after all. :rolleyes:
 
Lorien said:
What problem? Parroting the same fallacy will not make it true. In engineering there are no insurmountable problems, there are only design challenges.
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Not that I disagree with the rest of your assertion, and I'm willfully taking you out of context, but oh how I wish you were right about no insurmountable problems.

One fusion reactor? No problem sir. $10 genome sequencing? Yes please. 84% efficient solar cells for $1/sq foot? Coming right up.

:D
 
Derfnofred said:
Not that I disagree with the rest of your assertion, and I'm willfully taking you out of context, but oh how I wish you were right about no insurmountable problems.

One fusion reactor? No problem sir. $10 genome sequencing? Yes please. 84% efficient solar cells for $1/sq foot? Coming right up.

:D
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They aren't insurmountable, just our technology hasn't advanced that far yet. Maybe once we get quantum computers going we can figure out these things.

Faster than Light Travel however - that I'll give you as an insurmountable problem.
 
Well the good news is that more AIBs seem to have 5970s out on the market

Bad news is, most of them aren't in stock and are of course, marked up heavily since Nvidia can't compete

To think that those who got this card for $620 at release walked away with a steal...
 
and yet another article coming out

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D9F4AEQ01

NEW YORK (AP) - Nvidia Corp. shares fell Friday after Needham & Co. downgraded the stock to "Hold" from "Strong Buy," saying the company's new graphics chips are beset by problems.

The stock fell 90 cents, or 5 percent, to $17.11 in afternoon trading. The stock has ranged from $8.33 to $18.96 over the past year.

Needham analyst Rajvindra Gill wrote that checks in the supply channel indicated that new chips based on the so-called "Fermi" architecture are difficult to produce, and only 20 percent to 30 percent of the chips that are made are fit for use. That means Nvidia has less than 10,000 chips available, Gill wrote.

The Fermi chips, which made it to the market in new high-end PC graphics cards recently, consume more power and produce more waste heat than competing products from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Gill wrote. That means Nvidia could lose market share in the second half of the year, he concluded.

Gill removed his price target on the shares, previously at $22.

Nvidia representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Spare-Flair said:
These firms should just hire us forum posters to tell them what to invest in ;) $17.11 is still marginally higher than what I sold my Nvidia stock for.

Actually to be fair, a friend's brother worked as an Nvidia engineer but then bolted to Wall Street to be an analyst to do this sort of thing.
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nvidia still has a chance to recover but with samsung rumored to have dropped the tegra chip line well it doesnt bode well for them
 
STILL F'ING OUT OF STOCK EVERYWHERE! Looks like Im skipping this series of cards. Everyone keeps eating up all these cards when most people like me have a life and have to work and would have gotten one under normal circumstances by going to newegg and placing an order and getting it shipped to me cause its actually in stock....but it OOS 24 damn 7 and ATI is gouged to $%@#%$ and NVIDIA is OOS 24 damn 7 too. People now are like OMG HOLY #@$% ITS IN STOCK!!!!11!! pick up 5 and sell them for $200 over MSRP so normal people cant get one. <-- this annoys me more than anything.
 
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