14 DAY TRIAL // Even though humanity, along with the Earth, has entered the week of April 12, there is still no available GeForce GTX 470 or GTX 480 at any global coordinates. The general expectation is that they should start selling in about two or three days. In the meantime, however, NVIDIA didn't slack off and journeyed to the other side of the world and held the NVIDIA Game Festival (NGF) in Shanghai, China.
The event saw the participation of several top-end graphics card makers, game developers and PC suppliers and was the Santa Clara-based GPU maker's way to celebrate, and, of course, promote its first DirectX 11-capable adapters.
Somewhat similar to what occurred at PAX 2010, where the two devices were first showcased and experimented with, the festival included a formal presentation of the cards and, obviously, demonstration of their various capabilities, such as easily handling games (with or without tessellation) and operating in Stereoscopic 3D Vision Surround dual-GPU setups. This enthralled the many Chinese end-users that attended, but, for the rest of the world, there was one other vital bit of information that was disclosed.
According to Digitimes, some of the latest unfavorable rumors dealing with Fermi were finally squashed (or so it seems). With the many delays, and the fact that the adapters are still hiding under the rock of their choice, despite the April 12 week being in full swing, rumors started circulating that the GF100 GPU yields were only at 20%. In answer, Drew Henry, NVIDIA general manager of MCP business, bluntly stated that yields are in line with company expectations. Hopefully, this means that chip stocks are sufficient and not that NVIDIA expected yields to actually be so low.
Nevertheless, if anything, consumers at least got to participate in several gaming tournaments, thus easing the stress of prolonged waiting for the products to finally reach stores.