Being realistic it will most likely be on par performance wise with ATi but higher power consumption. Nvidia's driver team will make it scale better in SLi than CrossfireX scales with the 5xxx series. I'd assume Nvidia will sell at the current price/performance that ATi is selling at right now. Then ATi will most likely drop prices within a week to a month of Fermi's launch to keep the upper hand. But of course nobody knows for certain as I am just guessing based on trends, and not rumors from idiots like "Charlie the douche".
Trends maybe but based on a now "old" G80 design from nVidia. Since Fermi breaks from this design, trends can't be relied upon. As Mussels says, generations changes have broken that and nVidia will need to prove they can do with the Fermi generation what they did with the G80.
Either way, I just want 5870 prices to drop. March is too far away. Maybe I can pick up a couple of GTX 260s or 285s to play with for a little. Havn't had a nVidia card since TNT.
edit: How about a little editorial from Guru3D, Hilbert, himself?
nVidia and its troubled GeForce 400 series
I see a few things that stick out to me in this. Derivatives will be here soon than everyone thinks. This seems to give credence to the "256 shader" Fermi I keep reading about on XS, B3D, etc.
Here's what we think is going to happen, during March we'll definitely see the launch of GeForce 470 and 480, though with low allocation and volume available until Q2. Once we hit Q2 expect a lot, seriously a lot of derivative DX11 class products for the midrange, entry-level and low-end spectrum as well. Why ? Well NVIDIA is late to the market, real late .. roughly six months ago GeForce 480 and 470 should have been released and the other planned products overlap that timeframe. The summer is going to be busy for NVIDIA, either that or they will be re-scheduling their product releases.
Mostly 470s initial availability and clocks lower than expected? (Tech Report suggested 725/1450 in their Fermi article)
Last week NVIDIA's board partners finally got samples of Fermi based products. This means a finalized package - with perhaps some clock changes at best. Most of the partners received a GeForce GTX 470....................What I will tell you is that the clock frequencies on these boards surprised me, the GeForce 470 seems to be clocked at roughly 650 MHz, that's lower than I expected. And that indeed will have an effect on performance. I think it's safe to that the GeForce 470 and 480 will be worthy competitors towards the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870.
Is he suggesting a 5890 version is coming?
But is it important for NVIDIA to deliver a knockout to the competition ? Well they would hope so, but no .. not really, as the current performance levels that ATI for example offers simply are superb already. Being six months late to the market does pose an issue, ATI will already be respinning and binning their upcoming products, clocked higher and they could match NVIDIA in either price or performance.
I think he confirms a lot of what Charlie has been saying without all the drama and easy to read on the eyes.
.
