Fermi will not make it in March - report

Whispers confirm suspicions

Cards sporting Nividia's upcoming Fermi technology are unlikely to be available in any volume at the end of March, Digitimes reports having been tipped the nod by makers of the cards.

The cards will be called Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 and 480 and Nvidia said it will be showing them of at the PAX East 2010 on March 26th. It hinted cards may be available to buy on that date, but only at the Expo, if we read the notice correctly.

It seems many AIBs have not yet received a reference card from Nvidia with which to fiddle in order to make their own versions. Fermi has been subject to long delays already and the manufacturing capabilities at chip fab TSMC have been called into question.

According to Digitimes Nvidia is prioritising its favoured friends in doling out chips for the cards. Amongst these are XFX and PNY the Taiwanese newspaper notes.

Some outlets are already offering cards on pre-order but there's no indication of when they might be delivered. We note that this one has had 11 pages of "reviews" removed, which is a shame.

It has a GTX 480 priced at around $680 (£442).