Fermi GF100 Facts and Opinions

Big deal- as long as the "Console port to PC games" keeps taking place it's irrelevant until the next generation consoles take advantage of all that power.

This is true.

And next generation consoles aren't coming out for a while. I'd be really surprised if it's any earlier than 2012.

So, how will one card handle Crysis at 1080p with all enthusiast settings? That's all that really matters to me right now. Well, that and its performance with the upcoming Mafia II.

I am interested in the multi monitor support esp for the older Gt200 series cards when the new drivers are released with Fermi. I am really getting tired of the various hiccups with the 5870 in Eyefinity. Those occasional stutters are annoying when you are in a middle of a race. Even when using a single monitor set up, the ATI cards just do not perform better then the 295 for many racing games. If I didn't spend so much for the three monitors and the various other things to make Eyefinity work half decent I would shelved the 5870 just as I did with the 4870 previous. Just hope Nvidia do not screw the pooch with the drivers. If Fermi is even near as good as some of these p/reviews are indicating then I am back to Nvidia exclusive for sure. Just hope its not going to cost two arms and two legs for a SLI setup just to run multi monitors . But at least I can run dual 295's or dual OC'd 280's to support three monitors at hopefully a decent frame rate .

That's my point- all indication is that Fermi is not what they initially wanted. It looks like it will draw a lot of power and heat. By the time software/games take advantage of the new features the second or third generation of Fermi will be out. I think we are at an unusual crossroads with video cards in general. Companies have to come out with features beyond just graphics- like AMD/ATI did with Eyefinity- ONE card with 3 displays. Fermi still can't do that.

Check this out- if this is accurate, Nvidia has quite a bit of problems to solve:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/01/...anufacturable/

Eyefinity, yes if you have at least one DP monitor else you are going to need a costly active DP-DVI adapter so you can support three DVI monitors. Currently DP monitors are not cheap. Ideally you want all three monitors to be identical so the color and brightness match would be close between them. If you can afford three DP monitors or at worst just one then its not an issue.

This is something I think is pretty common in videocards when a radical new architecture is released. By the time games come out which take advantage of the card's features, it does not have enough raw horsepower to handle the games in question. This is what happened to me when I bought a first gen GeForce and that is why I have stayed away from the high end cards ever since.

I kind of disagree. If you want to run a 1920*1200 or 2560*1600 with more than 2XAA, one of the current high-end cards is nice to have. For 1200p, usually one will do it, but for 1600p you need all the power you can really get.

I'm gonna wait for the dual chip and see how it stacks up agains a true sli combo.

I would love to see how nVIDIA is going to engineer the dual-chip variant. It will probably need a three-slot cooling solution that sounds louder than a jet taking off. People will get noise-induced tinnitus from the card's cooler rather than their speakers.

What ????? Did you say something ??????

I can't hear it over the sound of how awesome it is!

I think that it would definitely require going with a vapor-chamber cooling solution, like the 5970, though. The 295's (original) cooling solution was very good, but I don't think it'll manage this time, though.

I like the "sandwich" configuration myself. The second iteration of the 295 vented at least half of the waste heat into the case itself, and on a single PCB the GPUs can be unevenly heated if all heat goes out the back.

I still wonder if they will break 300W...I think at that point they can't call it PCI Express anymore, and conform to the specification (though I don't know the official rules or anything).

It's rumored to cost +$500. That's over $1k just for SLI, no thanks.

That's kind of the point SKoprowski was making. I don't want to pay $500+ for a card just so I can get a resolution bump. Resolution is nice but it's not the only thing. But right now it sure feels that's all we are getting.

I'd love to see a game which actually uses these features to make better graphics. Back in the day (the late 1990s) you'd buy a fancy 3D card (Voodoo 2 SLI) to run games impossible on the consoles of the day. Now, you buy a fancy 3D card to run console games at a higher resolution and some nicer textures.

In other words, I want more games that push the envelope like Crysis. I know why it's not happening, but that's also why I don't want to spend tons of money on high end equipment.

yes, but if it is only 30% faster for that price, it is a horrible value proposition today.

Its livable.... Since thats about what it cost me orginally for the SLI'd 6800 ULTRAs, 8800GT's, 8800GTX's (a lot more), 280's and 295's .

I hope MSI continues its SuperPipe cooler line for the Fermi cards. Despite being in a cramped HTPC case with three hot hard drives, my overclocked SuperPipe GTX 285 stays shockingly cool under load with no noticeable increase in fan noise.

Sure, heat gets circulated throughout the case, but low noise is important for HTPC applications and nothing has melted yet.

After a certain point, I think the games out there arent really needing so much power. Accoriding to an article at tomshardware, 2 4890s in crossfire is about all you need to enjoy any game to its max. 4890s don't have directx11, physX, or 3D, but all of that imho is stuff you really don't notice when your playing. And since most games are optimized for consoles, it is toally correct to assume that this will be the plateau for games to come for at least this generation. Heck, even add another year to that until games can take advantage of the new hardware. I have a 4870x2, and my screen is 58" 1080p, and I have never noticed a difference going from 2x AA to 8xAA, nada.

This is a great read if you can get through some of the tech stuff. I'm not trying to trash nVidia, so don't kill the messenger.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/01/...anufacturable/

Off with DrCrawn's head!

It will certainly be interesting to see how things actually turn out for the green crew.

So, I shouldn't sell my stock in NVIDIA based on what ol' Chuckie said?