Nvidia CEO Talks Fermi Shortages, But Feels Good
Jen-Hsun Huang's goal is finally realized with the release of Fermi this week.
Last week Nvidia held an investor meeting where company CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took over the microphone to speak on several interesting points.
One obvious point was the launch and critical reception of the Fermi-based chips, the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470. Even casual onlookers will see that the first wave of GF100 GPUs is in short supply. While the first batch of retail cards will be hitting this week, they're still two weeks behind the media launch from March 26. The Nvidia CEO admitted that his company can't take manufacturing advances for granted.
"From a supply perspective, we wish we had more 40-nm capacity," Huang said, according to Venture Beat. "We are working with TSMC really closely. They are doing a fab job. Yields are improving. Capacities are improving. But we are finding it hard to keep up. Everyone is clamoring to have Fermis out the door. We are working really hard to get Fermis out the door."
Nvidia is now taking additional steps to ensure that such a lag will be avoided in the future by dedicating several engineers to manufacturing issues. The company hopes that this will help it ease through the next manufacturing transition that it expects to occur in 18 months.
Even with the problems at the 40nm process, the Nvidia wants to transition its full product line for the sake of higher margins – a positive aspect that comes with process shrinks. The company has a gross profit margin of around 30 percent for 55nm chips, while the 40nm products will result in a 40 percent profit margin.
Despite Nvidia's technical achievements, the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 cards have been met with some less-than-stellar reviews, at least in light of AMD's success with its current ATI GPU offerings. According to Venture Beat, Huang blames some of the criticism on the fact that Nvidia didn't give reviewers enough time to evaluate the product.
Nevertheless, the CEO feels a lot better now that Fermi is out the door. "What’s different now is Fermi is in production," he said. "Two years ago, I was just fantasizing about it."
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Bring on the competition, folks! Cheaper GPU's for everyone.
Wait... A vast amount of people wants an inferior product right out of the gate? Where did common sense go?
@Silmarunya *cough*iPad. But yeah fermi is a disapointment. And even the people who want it cant get their hands on it. So nice job nvidia.
But then, he ALWAYS feels good...
So giving a Fermi proper review time somehow improves its performance? I don't think so - it'll just reinforce the reviewers' opinions.
"They are doing a fab job"
Puntastic
it's quite funny to see ATI fanboi up there saying "inferior product" but i think he should wait until nvidia have had 6 months driver updates like ATI have had with the 5970...
..hell i mean most of the benchmarks dont even use the 470, 480's features yet as the drivers and support are incomplete, soon the single chip 480 will "wipe the floor" with the 5970 (two core) in most scenario's (it's a ridiculously powerful beast under the hood).
the issue is mor- if people want powerful beasts right now ... most GFX enthusiasts do .. so that answers the issue really...
good to se a pricewar finally coming .. that will stop ATI puttign up the prices unfairly further at least!
people always go on about drivers. drivers might fix some issues, add maybe a frame or two, but never more than that,
typical nvidia fanboi trying to re assure himself that drivers will save the gpu.
and for reference im not a ati fanboi, i have a 8800gt.
Like it or not, if you want decent opengl support for 3d apps on a consumer card - you're buying nVidia.
Like it or not, if you want decent opengl support for 3d apps on a consumer card - you're buying nVidia.
actually if you look at bit tech's retest of the 480 forcing the settings on with the dirt 2 ini files, it completely outclassed the 5970, its a much better card .. you will see later
people always go on about drivers. drivers might fix some issues, add maybe a frame or two, but never more than that,typical nvidia fanboi trying to re assure himself that drivers will save the gpu.and for reference im not a ati fanboi, i have a 8800gt.
sorry wrong quote lol .... i meant this guy ^^ (sorry jldevoy)
it's quite funny to see ATI fanboi up there saying "inferior product" but i think he should wait until nvidia have had 6 months driver updates like ATI have had with the 5970.....hell i mean most of the benchmarks dont even use the 470, 480's features yet as the drivers and support are incomplete, soon the single chip 480 will "wipe the floor" with the 5970 (two core) in most scenario's (it's a ridiculously powerful beast under the hood).the issue is mor- if people want powerful beasts right now ... most GFX enthusiasts do .. so that answers the issue really...good to se a pricewar finally coming .. that will stop ATI puttign up the prices unfairly further at least!
yes and in 6 months ATI will have a new better series of cards out. 6 months is a long time for nvidia to have lost and tbh they need those driver updates next week as for the price of their cards they are not competitive at all. Also the lack of cheaper cards from nvidia will really set them back and i suspect its all to do with the poor yields and you have to wonder if nvidia will ever even be able to sell fermi in large quantities
As someone who buys both nvidia cards and ATI cards. I can say that Fermi is less than impressive. TBH this was a given when they felt the need to release box art! You could tell by all the hype they were having problems. This round without a doubt goes to ATI & AMD. Bring on the next round!
As someone who buys both nvidia cards and ATI cards. I can say that Fermi is less than impressive. TBH this was a given when they felt the need to release box art! You could tell by all the hype they were having problems. This round without a doubt goes to ATI & AMD. Bring on the next round!
Fermi is not tested properly yet , so unless you have one and have ensured the driver/testbed are setup to use ALL features, the opinion hols "less clout".
The box art was manufacturing releases not Nvidia's
Only one accurate test on bit tech for Fermi has happened out of ALL the sites... and it confirms that it has more power as a single chip that the two monsters in the 5970 have ... (quite dramatically so).
In sayign that i also see the negatives of the HUGE power consumption, so i am personally gonna let it all settle and let the pricewar take it's effect before i make an informed purchase.
It's all just a bit suspicious at the moment, for ATI with its price increases "cause it can" (bit like apple) and with all the disabled "cores" on the fermi because of thermal threshold.
So in short i personally am going to wait for a decent set of drivers for the fermi, a decent cooling system (so they can re-enable some of the cores) and then i will see where it is at.
i jsut feel the ATI fanbull is all called a little to early (same with the calls of fermifail ... it's all to eaely to tell).
i think next time, nvidia will have the better cards, but for me, heat, noise, power consumption are vital aswell as the power ofc. I always have preferred nvidia due to driver support and there seems to be less problems with their cards compared to ati.
I was going to get 5870, but the results fermi got with tessellation shows what it can do and how superior it really is even if its hot etc. next time they will get it right i hope.
Same as when ATI launched the 2 series with its new arch, exactly the same was coming from the ATI side back then."just you wait untill games get coded to suit the archetecture etc etc" That never happened in the lifetime of the card and i dont expect it to happen in the lifetime of this one.
After a die shrink and a good few months 6-12 working out the kinks i do beleive Fermi will be a very good card. A lot depends on what ATI do between now and then and also where games and the devs take us as far as what is required of a GPU by then.
Me im happy with my 4 series ATI card and dont see a need to upgrade to anything just yet.
Mactronix