Nvidia Geforce GTX480 Release
Graphics card giant Nvidia have had a difficult time of late. After dominating the market in the past with their massive selling Geforce 8800 series, they arguably rested on their laurels somewhat as their major rival in the market, AMD floundered, unable to compete with Nvidia in both price and performance. Over the past couple of years the tables have turned and now AMD, with their ATI Radeon graphics cards are enjoying dominance in the market and it is now Nvidia playing the part of the troubled underdog.
With their existing range of graphic cards in trouble, Nvidia have been hard at work with a new series of products to reinstate themselves as market leader. The new technology now under the label 'Fermi' has now finally arrived on the market for home users with two new cards now available - the top end Geforce GTX480 and the mid range Geforce GTX470. There has been huge speculation over recent months about the price and performance of these cards, with rumours abound of Nvidia being plagues by performance and design issues along with poor chip yields (the percentage of chips produced which are deemed to be useable from any given manufacturing batch). Through this fog of internet speculation the new cards have finally arrived. With reviewers and consumers finally able to test the cards out for themselves it is time to see whether Nvidia can regain their crown.
The GTX 480 is aiming squarely for the goal of fastest graphics card on the market, the card comes with a hefty price tag and is competing with ATI's 5870/5970 cards. Benchmarks of the GTX480's performance show that in one respect it has achieved its goal. Out of the box it beats the ATI cards in most games and benchmarks in terms of performance. This is only one part of the battle in winning over consumers however and there are factors which may push the GTX480 out of favor. The first problem is the price - although faster than the ATI cards the Geforce costs more. The performance lead is there but somewhat negligible- the extra cost is not. In a time when peoples purse strings are tight, many people will be willing to save a few dollars at the expense of a marginal performance increase. The card is also large, uses a lot of power, is noisy and runs very hot, even at idle. These are not factors which set well with gaming enthusiasts.
So has Nvidia turned the war around? Not yet. The technology in the new cards shows promise but the newly released cards are not yet in a position to start taking chunks out of ATI quite yet. It will be interesting to see what Nvidia can do in the next few months as it refines its production processes and begins to release mid range cards with more competitive price tags on the market. But for now at least, ATI remains the graphics card king.
With their existing range of graphic cards in trouble, Nvidia have been hard at work with a new series of products to reinstate themselves as market leader. The new technology now under the label 'Fermi' has now finally arrived on the market for home users with two new cards now available - the top end Geforce GTX480 and the mid range Geforce GTX470. There has been huge speculation over recent months about the price and performance of these cards, with rumours abound of Nvidia being plagues by performance and design issues along with poor chip yields (the percentage of chips produced which are deemed to be useable from any given manufacturing batch). Through this fog of internet speculation the new cards have finally arrived. With reviewers and consumers finally able to test the cards out for themselves it is time to see whether Nvidia can regain their crown.
The GTX 480 is aiming squarely for the goal of fastest graphics card on the market, the card comes with a hefty price tag and is competing with ATI's 5870/5970 cards. Benchmarks of the GTX480's performance show that in one respect it has achieved its goal. Out of the box it beats the ATI cards in most games and benchmarks in terms of performance. This is only one part of the battle in winning over consumers however and there are factors which may push the GTX480 out of favor. The first problem is the price - although faster than the ATI cards the Geforce costs more. The performance lead is there but somewhat negligible- the extra cost is not. In a time when peoples purse strings are tight, many people will be willing to save a few dollars at the expense of a marginal performance increase. The card is also large, uses a lot of power, is noisy and runs very hot, even at idle. These are not factors which set well with gaming enthusiasts.
So has Nvidia turned the war around? Not yet. The technology in the new cards shows promise but the newly released cards are not yet in a position to start taking chunks out of ATI quite yet. It will be interesting to see what Nvidia can do in the next few months as it refines its production processes and begins to release mid range cards with more competitive price tags on the market. But for now at least, ATI remains the graphics card king.
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