Tech Olive

Wow, it seems like yesterday when Nvidia released its first-generation Fermi cards, and now a year later, here we are admiring the second coming of Fermi in the form of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. This hunk of a beast boasts 384 CUDA processing cores, 822 MHz graphics clock, 1.6 GHz processor clock, 4.0 GHz memory clock, and a full gig of GDDR5 memory. Prices will start at $250 at numerous online retailers. Coincidentally, AMD lowered the price of their HD 6870 to $220 and the HD 6950 down to as low as $270. AMD also outed a new, different model of the HD 6950 to directly compete with the GTX 560. The price on that card will start at $260.

Hot Hardware has an in-depth, 12-page review of the new GTX 560 here. It’s worth the read if you’re considering such a card, but if you’re pressed for time, here’s their no-nonsense summary:

“The GeForce GTX 560 Ti, whether in its stock or overclocked configurations, performed very well throughout out testing. In comparison to its closely related cousin, the GeForce GTX 460, it’s no contest—the GeForce GTX 560 Ti smokes the GeForce GTX 460 across the board. It’s harder to summarize the 560 Ti’s performance versus competing cards from AMD, however. In some circumstances, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is actually faster than the more expensive Radeon HD 6970 (Far Cry 2, Lost Planet 2). Other times the GTX 560 Ti hangs right alongside the new Radeon HD 6950 1GB (Unigine, Just Cause 2). In the rest of the games and apps we tested, the Radeons came out on top. Suffice it to say, the new GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a strong competitor to similarly positioned graphics cards from AMD.”

[Press Release]

Yesterday at PAX East, Nvidia finally announced their first two cards for their next-gen GTX 400 lineup. These cards are Nvidia’s first to support DirectX 11. The GTX 480 sports a 700MHz graphics clock and a 1,401MHz processor clock, as well as 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1,848MHz. The modest GTX 470 has a 607MHz graphics clock and a 1,215MHz processor clock with 1.2GB of memory running at 1,675MHz.

The GTX 480 will be priced at $499, while the GTX 470 will be $349. Both cards will release on April 12th.

The guys over at HotHardware have a humongously huge 17-page review for those that want to learn this thing inside and out.

Using Facebook to reach out to their customers, Nvidia posted the launch date of their upcoming Fermi-based graphics cards, dubbed the GTX 470 and GTX 480. They’ll be launching March 26th when Nvidia will be at PAX 2010.

For those that don’t know, Nvidia’s Fermi cards are the company’s first DX11 cards and are said to sport a 40nm chip. These cards originally were going to launch last November, but they’ve hit multiple delays. It’ll be nice to have Nvidia finally caught up with AMD.

via [Hot Hardware]