News - Leaked slides expose NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 "Fermi" GPU

[Pob255]

How can they justify having world's fastest GPU as a ticky box category

Forget that, how about interactive ray tracing, a picture of a car vs a red X ??
How the does that work?

Although the marketing boy got something right, the Advanced Physics engine, What's the most noticable thing about the physX logo?


EDIT: and isn't cuda c and cuda c++ the same thing?

I'm beginning to think nvidia employ Rumpelstiltskin in their marketing department.

[Terbinator]

Well one thing that is certain is that it will have higher memory throughput than the 5870 won't it ?

[GheeTsar]

Na they will sell like hot cakes, the marketing techniques might be scrutinized and ridiculed by us with a trained eye but all the regular peeps out there dont know any better.

Very true. I just hope the regular punters are adept enough to check the power requirements before they buy and make sure their PSU is up to the job. I'd wage most average punters won't know if their PSU could output at least 42A on a single 12V rail.

[scaryjim]

Big fat chip on TSMCs crappy 40nm process? Easily going to have significant yield problems.

Educated speculation is that yields are going to be low. Rumour is that there's going to be less than 10k top-binned chips available. It might turn out that they've managed to bin 20 - 30k chips. Although the just under 10k figure seems more likely - which means that, as far as the average consumer is concerned, there's next to no chance of actually buying a GTX480 until late summer - and that's assuming NVidia's hoped production ramp goes well...

Well one thing that is certain is that it will have higher memory throughput than the 5870 won't it ?

Yes, considerably. 384bit DDR5 will easily outstrip 256bit DDR5, even if NVidia run it at their typical low DDR5 clock (the DDR5 GT240s tend to ship with a 900MHz (3600MT/s) memory clock, as opposed to the (up to) 1200MHz (4800MT/s) of the ATI cards...)

[jim]

I'd wage most average punters won't know if their PSU could output at least 42A on a single 12V rail.

To be fair, I don't either. My policy is to buy a decent brand power supply of a decent wattage, and I trust them to use sensible values per rail.

I think the problem, more than anything, is that power supplies have no obvious function, and in that way are almost unique in a PC. Whatever PSU you get, it will never upgrade your computer... it won't be faster, or better in any noticeable way. So typically people buy the cheapest one they can find with the right aesthetics, and also assume that wattage is the only thing that matters.

It's like with SSDs, where sequential read/write became the de facto standard by which to compare them, even when it's a terrible metric to use when considering boot drive performance. The only figure 90% of people look at on a PSU is the number of watts, and when CIT and Q-Tec and whoever else can do an 850W PSU for £30, the obvious conclusion is that it's far better than a 600W Corsair/Enermax at £100 - and hence a great saving.

As usual, the graphics card boxes will spec ridiculous wattage requirements to compensate, but nonetheless I agree... I'm certain that there are a few out there who'll unwittingly fall victim to their power supplies before they've enjoyed their new GTX for too long.

[dangel]

So apparently it has 480 shaders..

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18143/1/

Or is it 512?

[GheeTsar]

To be fair, I don't either. My policy is to buy a decent brand power supply of a decent wattage, and I trust them to use sensible values per rail.

I had to look mine up too. Here're my PSU's specs:



So not good enough as far as my untutored eye can tell. That's with a reasonable PSU manufacturer too (OK, it's not an Enermax, but Tagan is not a budget brand).

No doubt the requirements specified for the GTX480 are OTT, but my suspicion is that most PSUs out there don't meet the 42A on a single rail requirement.

[Percy1983]

It is true with the power supplies, as I do use a winpower 850w £30 thing. But on the flip side I did know what I was buying. Off the top of my head it has 4 12v rails with 22a each which isn't bad for £30. As you wuld expect it runs my system just fine.

[aidanjt]

EDIT: and isn't cuda c and cuda c++ the same thing?

Yup, the only difference is 'CUDA C++' has C++ bindings and abstracts for the 'CUDA C' library functions. It's a ridiculous warping of reality which only a marketing bod could come up with.

[kalniel]

No doubt the requirements specified for the GTX480 are OTT, but my suspicion is that most PSUs out there don't meet the 42A on a single rail requirement.

Surely that's 'if you have single rail, you need 42A'?

But I've not seen any actual requirements yet so I could be wrong. I can't see how it'd need 42A as that would be a total draw of 500W, the limit is probably more something like 300W, so it should only need 25A in total. If 75W comes from the PCI-E slot (v1) then that just leaves 18.75A to come from the extra connectors in total, so as long as your 8pin rail can provide 19A I'm sure you'd be fine. Two rails at 20A would probably be enough in total.

[jim]

Surely that's 'if you have single rail, you need 42A'?

But I've not seen any actual requirements yet so I could be wrong. I can't see how it'd need 42A as that would be a total draw of 500W, the limit is something like 300W, so it should only need 25A in total. If 75W comes from the PCI-E slot (v1) then that just leaves 18.75A to come from the extra connectors in total, so as long as your 8pin rail can provide 19A I'm sure you'd be fine.

I would agree - even the 1500W Silverstone ST1500 doesn't have more than 25A per 12V rail.

[dangel]

I would agree - even the 1500W Silverstone ST1500 doesn't have more than 25W per 12V rail.

Mine (the 1kw corsair) manages 40A per rail. These requirements are bull - surely it's split between connectors anyway? The PSU is certified for quad sli FFS..

[scaryjim]

42A is utter bull, as far as the GPU is concerned. Perhaps if you put one with a top end CPU and "kitchen sink" motherboard, your entire system might need 42A across the 12V rails, but the GPU itself doesn't.

[GheeTsar]

Surely that's 'if you have single rail, you need 42A'? But I've not seen any actual requirements yet so I could be wrong.

The power requirements were from a pack-shot at CeBit I think and reported here:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/...irements-leak/

They could be wrong of course...

[mercyground]

Fermi. We made a card so good... you need your own powerstation! Isnt that cool? Have a ticky box!

/NV PR

[kalniel]

The box shot doesn't say anything about rails, the author of the piece is talking nonsense

"minimum 12V current rating of 42A"

So assuming two connectors on separate lines then you need a 22A rail and a 20A rail if you have split rails. Or if you have three 20A rails then use a connector to join two of them into one 8pin connector, heck that would probably work even if you had three 18A rails.

And as mentioned, it's almost certainly talking about suggested total system capacity.