Nvidia Fermi - A [H]ard Look with real numbers

[TheGeekRedneck]

The NDA on Nvidia's new "Fermi" based cards are out and [H]ard|OCP is one of the first sites to offer us a real look at the hardware and numbers (both performance and power/heat wise).

The "Fermi" architecture (The chip is officially known as GF100) will be hard launched as the Geforce GTX 480 and Geforce GTX 470 at $499 and $399 pricetags respectively... as usual markedly more expensive than AMD/ATI's flagship counterparts. Do these cards deliver an experience that blows away the competition and will sway users away from "the red team"?

I won't spoil it for you, I'll let you read it for yourself:

[H]ardOCP Review of the Nvidia GF100 based cards

Read the article and tell us your thoughts here!

[TheGeekRedneck]

I guess my next card will be on the red side of things, even though I hate that damn driver software. After making us wait an extra six months Nvidia has delivered us a set of polished turds. EXPENSIVE polished turds.

Honestly the only folks who are going to buy these things at the price they are asking are diehard Nvidia fanboys, or fat wallet newbs who don't know any better.

When it comes time to replace my slowly aging Geforce GTX 280 I'll be going with something in a nice shade of red.

[Sorce]

I own a Radeon 5850, so I was interested to see how Fermi stacked up against my card. It's nice to see that the comparable nVidia isn't as good of a card (overall), if only because I didn't want to feel like I "wasted" my money by going Red.

Yes, like ol' Nox, I am (was) a big nVidia Fan. From the very first GeForce card (the Accelerator Pro) up to the 6-series, I was personally behind them. I haven't owned anything since my 6600 (lolbroke), but I always recommended nVidia over ATi as a video card. For my current rig, I looked damn hard at the GTX/GTS series... and was disappointed when ATi's 5-series was released and consistently whooped it's ass (overall). Of course, being more of a gaming fan trumps having any kind of loyalty to a computer parts company, so I have not regretted my purchase one bit.

I think Fermi was a big misstep on the part of nVidia; it delivers near-parallel performance to ATi, but at the cost of more power and heat (not to mention cash up front). That's not a good thing, obviously. I still would like to see the 480 in SLI though, since despite the costs, it looks to be the new "Big Dog" in gaming performance/experience.

[Neocorteqz]

I will recommend to each his own, but if you go with an AMD chipset, I will be more likely to recommend ATI over nVidia. Certain chipsets used in the past, behave better with certain card Vendors, thus is not really the case these days. Most boards now support both Crossfire and SLI. I said my peace in the other thread where it was mentioned.

don't jump to conclusions just yet, they a virgin cards with virgin drivers. Meaning nVidia hasn't had time to optimize the drivers yet. Or on the other hand, they have had time, but just didn't do it.

I agree ATI is still kicking ass, but don't count them out yet.

The disappointment I have with them is the thermal and wattage. I'd expect something different, since most of your mainstream clients are looking for cool and quiet.

[Sorce]

I think part of the problem was that Fermi wasn't necessarily designed for gaming, but nVidia has kind of shoehorned it into that role because that's what everyone was clamoring for. The end result being it has to "work harder" to get to where ATi's 5-series is naturally.