In stock doesn't mean its not EOL, though more for the low end, it can take months, even half a year to sell out all the stockpiles of cores after a card is EOL'd.
It would have to be a really dodgey design that means a core as small(still big, but relatively small) as the gf104 can't yield any full shader parts, and its without doubt a 384shader part. So in reality they are stockpiling 384shader 4xx gtx's to sell at some point soon. Considering it will be faster(its a full 48 shader bump, thats more efficient than the gf100 shader for shader) than the 470gtx and considering the 470gtx prices, theres no chance in hell Nvidia is simply stockpiling fully working versions, or selling every full working card with shaders cut.
When 470gtx supplies are out, what is widely expected to be called a 475gtx is due to come out. Considering the quite ridiculous expense ofa gf100 wafer, when they can't sell any derivitives anymore(what sense would the 470/465gtx make?) then they would only be able to sell almost fully working parts, and bin the rest. Lets say for arguments sake that a GF100 wafer has 100 candidates, 3 work with 512 shaders, 10 work with 480 shaders, 20 work with 412 shaders, and another 30 work with however many the 465gtx has, I forget. The 465gtx is dead already, thats lost cash, the 470gtx makes no money per sale, its just a loss minimising part, the 475gtx based on the GF104 could make Nvidia a massive profit, and really be their only profitable gaming card. But you kill the 470gtx and suddenly a $5k wafer is only yielding 13 cores, at $384 a core just to break even, no profit and no covering any R&D expense.
Move the 470/465gtx's over to quadro's makes sense, they can be sold for £500 and £800 and make an actual profit, they will both without question dissappear from the gaming market.
I wouldn't be surprised if they kept making gf100 wafers, the fully working parts launch at insane wattage as a 485gtx, everything thats a 480/470gtx gets sold as quadro's, because they can make a profit, and they sell 384shader 475gtx's and overclocked versions in the gaming market.
The 285gtx was EOL'd and didn't run out of stock......... yet. Yes they bumped the price up because they had nothing to replace it with for 6 months, the second it did the 285-260gtx were on sale everywhere very very cheap.
They aren't eol'ing the 470gtx in the same circumstance, they don't want it on the shelf, they want it off the shelves as quickly as possible to get the gf104 high end part out.
Honestly, what would you do, sell 470gtx's that lose you money on every sale, or EOL it in that market, sell a few as quadro's, and sell 475gtx's, full GF104's, for a similar price but instead of a £100 loss, they make a £60 profit, I know what I'd do
http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-114-OK
These for instance, haven't been in production since Sept/Oct 2009, cards in show isn't proof a product isn't EOL.
, both worke out cheaper than a 5850 at the time, yep they use a bit more power, bu they cope pretty well with any game that i play. I did consider a switch to a more modern single card, but tbh the gains arent really that signifigant at present.