14 DAY TRIAL // NVIDIA has definitely been keeping quiet about pretty much everything concerning Fermi, which means that most details on the upcoming GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480 are little besides rumors. One subject of speculation was the eventual price point which, until recently, was believed to be somewhere around 600 Euro. Now, reports indicate that Fermi might just be less expensive than originally assumed.
The GF100 Fermi graphics processing unit has been described as complex, large and highly capable by the GPU maker. As such, it was assumed that, combined with the needed amount of GDDR5, shaders, CUDA cores and the cooling mechanism, the cards would cost around $600.
Fudzilla, however, seems to think that, in fact, the price point is, while still rather high, significantly lower than that. The upcoming GTX 480 is now expected to have a price tag of around 450 Euro including VAT, with the 600 Euro price expected to be carried by certain, upcoming dual-GPU models.
A 450 Euro price point would indeed improve the chances the GTX 480 has against the Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards. The various ATI Radeon HD 5870 models, for instance, are priced at 375 Euro. This means that, if it is as significantly more powerful as NVIDIA claims, the Fermi card might do quite well for itself.
Fudzilla also says that “Nvidia might have plenty of cards to launch on the 27th.” What this means is still unclear, but since the two GTX 400 cards are the only ones known of, it is unlikely that other models will be launched at the same time. More likely, the cards will be made immediately available for purchase or NVIDIA might preview some future, as of yet unknown, project.
Of course, what remains to be seen is if the GTX 400 cards are good enough to justify the price difference between them and the HD 5870.