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Is there going to be a dual fermi card?

3t3P

3t3P

3t3P

Soldato
Joined
20 Dec 2006
Posts
3,760
I tried googling this and some places say it is gonna happen, others not due to thermal limits and costs.

Does anyone know if there are fermi GTX295's in the works?
 
Snip from fudzilla

Fermi GF100 is a single chip GT300-based 40nm DirectX 11 card. Nvidia plans to launch two cards that will aim to replace Geforce GTX 285 and Geforce GTX 260 in enthusiast and performance markets respectively, while the high-end dual-chip Fermi card will come after.

We don’t know how much later the dual-GPU should launch, but it should happen within one to two months. If all goes well and it doesn’t get delayed, we can hope to see it by May. Around that time, ATI might be ready with its refreshed 40nm cards that might have more juice and could compete better. However, this is only after Nvidia finally launches its GT300, Fermi-based products.

It is definitely not fun to be in Nvidia's shoes, especially when it comes to the desktop graphics card market.
 
cheers,
did owners of GTX295's still get microstutter?
has microstutter been ironed out by both sides now?
 
Surely there's no way they could make a dual-fermi, it's power requirements would be far above the PCI-E standard 300W. The only way would be to clock it so low that it wouldn't be faster than a 5970, and there wouldnt be any point in making that. Even with manufacturing improvements they won't be able to get anywhere close IMO.
 
The fact that a Single version is at the limits of Noise, Power and Temperature would mean a dual card at the same clocks would far exceed those limits. If Nvidia decided to solve the temperature and power issues by revising the chips you might get a Dual GPU version but thats 6 months work.
 
I agree. I think that Nvidia saying there will be one is a smoke screen. You just can't take two fermi gpus and run them at the same clocks as a gtx480 as the heat and the power requirements would be too much.

AT the moment the gtx 480 is fed as follows:

75W from the slot
75W from the 6 pin
150W from the 8 pin.

A dual fermi would need the following

75W from the slot
75W from an 6 pin
150W from an 8 pin
150W from an 8 pin
150W from an 8 pin

So that's 3 x 8 pin pci-e and 1 x 6 pin pci-e to feed the beast.

Additionally it would require a cooler double the size of the current one so it would have to take up 3 slots at least in your pc.

Then weight would be an issue as that would be a huge amount to hang off one slot so either supply a support bracket or make it fit into two slots. If two slots then you may as well buy two gtx 480's and SLI them.

So however, you look at it, unless the do a revision/refresh of the gpu then it will never arrive.

They can't even release a Fermi with 512 SP either because of power/heat or chip issues.

Now if the gtx480 had been what it was originally meant to have been:

512 SP
800 core
1500 to 1600 shader speed
250W power consumption

Then it really would have blown the 5870 out of the water as a single card and may well have allowed them to make a cut down dual card version which would have being made of the equivalent of two gtx480 specs now.
 
I can't imagine there will be an official nVidia product with the current revision, but I'd be unsuprised if one or other of the brands came out with their own EVGA seems to be on a roll with extreme engineering atm :D
 
A dual Fermi card could be made requiring 400W. Typically the 480 is draw not much over 200. On a dual board some power can be saved and a slight downclock would make it run fine.

SLI on the GF 100 scales better than cross-fire from the benchmarks I have seen, and remember the 5970 is not a dual 5870 but a dual 5850. I am pretty sure SLI 470 beats the 5970.
 
They'd like to , specs don't matter, heatsink size doesn't matter, they could stick a 5 slot cooler on it and get one "out there" but they won't. We're looking at probably thousands, maybe not even reaching the tens of thousands at all, 480gtx's ever. THe 5970 isn't in massive supply, but there is a supply and AMD can continue to make the cores at a profit. Nvidia "probably" won't ever put it in large scale production, they definately aren't in production now, it takes 6 weeks to get from wafer going into TSMC, to wafers leaving the plant, A3 taped out VERY early Jan, full production would have seen supply building 6 weeks from then with a steady supply ever week, not a 2 month delay till the 2nd batch.

So the question becomes, if they don't have any 480gtx chips at all, where would they find even more to make a dual gpu part?

Frankly, why would even EVGA waste one of there very few thousands, testing and creating a dual version. They'd burn up 50 chips on test products and prototypes before they even were able to make a final version, they'd need it to be reviewed and tested, it would take more chips to design and get it ready, then they have spare, let alone releasing the part afterwards.

By the time it was ready, a likely 6xxx part will be out, with a dual part which would blow a full 2x512sp part out the water, let alone a 2x massively cut down Fermi part.
 
Look at some of EVGA's product line up - they don't make financial sense* but they still seem to make money on them somehow. So I wouldn't put it past them once supply opens up a bit.



* GTX275 "coop" PhysX edition, dual CPU socket 4-way SLI boards, etc.
 
It strikes me that they'd probably have to use two GTX '460's (i.e. sub-600MHz with 384 cores or thereabouts) to keep its heat output in check which is probably unlikely to compete with the 5970. Ergo they'll probably find a few 480-binned cores that can run as a 470 at 150W-ish and give those to reviewers and then never say anything about the product again other than 'we have the fastest thing out!'
 
We havent seen a dual top end x2 card for years now. 5970 isnt 2x 5870 nor was 295 2 x 285, I expect we will see a 495 but it will be 2xgtx460 clocked as high as they can to come under 300W
 
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