Nvidia finally unleashes GTX 470 and 480

It’s the Fermi countdown

The gruelling wait for Nvidia’s first DirectX 11 GPU is finally over. The company has now officially unleashed the GeForce GTX 470 and 480 at PAX East 2010; nearly six months after it first unveiled the Fermi architecture last year.

So what was the hold up? We put the question to Nvidia’s PR manager Ben Berraondo, who told us that “a part of the reason why there have been delays and delays is to make sure that we have enough chips to satisfy demand at launch.”

However, Nvidia is confident that it now has enough 40nm chips in order to satisfy demand. “There will be tens of thousands of cards at launch,” Berraondo assured us, “and we’re confident that during April that there will be enough cards.”  

Why are there only 480 stream processors?  

It looks as though supply hasn’t been the only issue either. When Nvidia first lifted the lid on Fermi back in September last year, it said the architecture supported up to 512 stream processors. However, the flagship GeForce GTX 480 is launching with just 480 stream processors. What happened to the extra 32?  

“Fermi as an architecture obviously was built with 512 stream processors in mind,” explained Berraondo, “and all the GPUs that come off that will be various derivatives. Right now, in order to ensure we balance price, performance, and thermals, we decided to go with the 480 cores on the GTX 480.”  

We’re not entirely convinced by this, and suspect that there may well have been problems getting sufficient yield of 40nm chips with the full 512 processors. Whatever the reason, though, we’re only getting 480 stream processors at the moment. Is it possible that a Fermi card with the full count of 512 stream processors could be launched in the future? We asked Nvidia’s senior technical marketing manager Lars Weinand, who confidently told us that “yes, it’s very possible,” although the company said it couldn’t comment on unannounced products.  

The raw specs  

On to the big question, what exactly do you get in terms of specs on a Fermi card? Let’s start with the GeForce GTX 480, which has 480 stream processors clocked at 1,401MHz, while the graphics core is clocked at 700MHz. The GPU will also be partnered by a buffer of 1,536MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1,848MHz, which is addressed via a 384-bit memory interface. The card has one eight-pin power connector, and one six-pin power socket, and it measures 10.5in across – the same length as ATI’s Radeon HD 5870.

Then, a notch down, we have the GeForce GTX 470, which has 448 stream processors clocked at 1,215MHz, while the graphics core is clocked at 607MHz. GTX 470 cards will also come with 1,280MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1,674MHz, which will is addressed by a slightly narrower 320-bit memory interface. These cards are a bit smaller than the 480s, measuring 9.5in across, and they only require two six-pin power connectors.