NVIDIA's Fermi: Architected for Tesla, 3 Billion Transistors in 2010
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The graph below is one of transistor count, not die size. Inevitably, on the same manufacturing process, a significantly higher transistor count translates into a larger die size. But for the purposes of this article, all I need to show you is a representation of transistor count.
See that big circle on the right? That's Fermi. NVIDIA's next-generation architecture.
NVIDIA astonished us with GT200 tipping the scales at 1.4 billion transistors. Fermi is more than twice that at 3 billion. And literally, that's what Fermi is - more than twice a GT200.
At the high level the specs are simple. Fermi has a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface and 512 cores. That's more than twice the processing power of GT200 but, just like RV870 (Cypress), it's not twice the memory bandwidth.
The architecture goes much further than that, but NVIDIA believes that AMD has shown its cards (literally) and is very confident that Fermi will be faster. The questions are at what price and when.
The price is a valid concern. Fermi is a 40nm GPU just like RV870 but it has a 40% higher transistor count. Both are built at TSMC, so you can expect that Fermi will cost NVIDIA more to make than ATI's Radeon HD 5870.
Then timing is just as valid, because while Fermi currently exists on paper, it's not a product yet. Fermi is late. Clock speeds, configurations and price points have yet to be finalized. NVIDIA just recently got working chips back and it's going to be at least two months before I see the first samples. Widespread availability won't be until at least Q1 2010.
I asked two people at NVIDIA why Fermi is late; NVIDIA's VP of Product Marketing, Ujesh Desai and NVIDIA's VP of GPU Engineering, Jonah Alben. Ujesh responded: because designing GPUs this big is "fucking hard".
Jonah elaborated, as I will attempt to do here today.
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SiliconDoc - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
Nice rebuttal to page 2: " Another kind of LAUNCH "--
write it down, nvidia launched today....(according to lunatic lying red roosters)
tamalero - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
weird.. they still said its "coming soon", I dont see any GF300 firm chips.when ATI said "we present the 5870" they were already on newegg.com
Silicon, let's face it, you're the biggest pro-nvidia troll I've ever seen.
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
You are also the person that went into a tirade about nvidia not replacing laptop gpu's with the faulty substrate and instead puttig on a heftier fan.You waxed on about how much you hate nvidia, and how they harmed the children (you claimed to be a teacher of some sort) then you screeched about nvidia reps, wished violence upon them, and claimed you'd love to show them how to do their jobs correctly.
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That's YOU tamalero.
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Now it's pretty amazing I tell the simple plain truth, you deny it a week late, lying for ati, have you public hate and rage on this board for nvidia, and yet claim it is I that is a fanboy.
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One Q, has your raging hatred for nvidia receded, or does lying about the 5870 release give you a sense of vengeful pleasure ?
tamalero - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
what truth?you're just inventing random crap your brain somehow imagines in illusions.
and what the hell are you talking about?
I never claimed to be a "teacher", wished violence? what the hell are you smoking?
harmed the children.. jesuchrist... are you on some sort of scientologist brainwashing group ?
SiliconDoc - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Since you have lied, I will get the link and your quotes.SiliconDoc - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
no they wre not already on newegg - listed and greyed out- the first one available in a trickle -and only today have those listed appeared available, before that it was on for a few seconds, card gone - all GREYED OUT again.---
Sept. 23rd was launch, this is 7 days later.
They were a WEEK of paper. (no one can fairly count a sickly 1,2 or half dozen trickle)
tamalero - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
they were grey, because they sold out, note..., there were on amazon and tigerdirect.com as well. I woudlnt be surprised if newwave and other sites had the 5870 as well.you're just a person with mental problems who cant really accept anything outside your tiny world.
SiliconDoc - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
TigerDirect was pre-order, as well as Amazon was reserve - you just haven't got clue one.fikimiki - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
In Poland, (it is Europe cause you don't know for sure)it is available in shops.
Also you can grab one from newegg.com
bobvodka - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
I woke up on HD5870 launch day.I logged onto a website in the UK.
I ordered an HD5870.
It shipped the same day.
I had it the next day and have been enjoying it ever since.
Looks like a non-paper launch to me.