View Full Version : XFX Won't Produce GTX 470 or 480
mattspalace
03-30-10, 02:53 AM
Came across this article while doing my usual morning check of all my favorite review sites. Found this to be particularly interesting, yet a bit puzzling as well..
Ripped from Hardwarecanucks:
"XFX chooses to “skip” NVIDIA’s GTX 480 and GTX 470 in favor of ATI’s high-end cards. Could still release budget conscious Fermi derivatives in the future.
When NVIDIA launched the GTX 480 and GTX 470 on Friday of last week, we were bombarded by the usual influx of press releases from board partners announcing their Fermi-based cards. There were two which were oddly absent; one of which was the long-time NVIDIA favorite ,XFX. This was particularly odd simply because we had seen and posted images of XFX cards a few weeks ago. And according to our sources, those pictures were legit and the decision to avoid the GTX 400 series for the time being was made only within the last few days. We followed up at the time and didn’t receive a response until today. The news isn’t good for those of you who wanted to buy a GTX 400-series card with XFX’s signature Double Lifetime Warranty.
In our conversations with them regarding this subject, it has become clear that XFX will not be releasing any GTX 480 or GTX 470 cards. This is not limited to the North American market either and will affect every market worldwide since the decision was taken on a corporate level. The exact reasoning behind this is not clear but in the shady world of GPUs, very few things can be said with any certainty and for all intents and purposes we will probably never know. One way or another, this is a blow for NVIDIA and their fans.
There is however a glimmer of hope as XFX has stated quite clearly that they intend to continue support NVIDIA’s more budget-oriented cards. That means there is a good possibility that once cut down versions of the GF100 architecture are released, we will likely see cards brandishing the XFX logo."
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/video/xfx-jumps-gtx-480-gtx-470-ship/
probably for the better, would you want to deal with all those rma and failures?
mattspalace
03-30-10, 03:55 AM
Got to be something behind this decision - I'm curious what it is. Hopefully we'll get more scuttlebutt in the next few days. EVGA is probably happy. ;)
Sounds like either MSI or Gigabyte (or both) may also pull out of the GTX 470 & 480. It must have something to do with profit margins being too slim.
Neural Net
03-30-10, 05:44 AM
Got to be something behind this decision - I'm curious what it is. Hopefully we'll get more scuttlebutt in the next few days. EVGA is probably happy. ;)
Sounds like either MSI or Gigabyte (or both) may also pull out of the GTX 470 & 480. It must have something to do with profit margins being too slim.
Well Nvidia only offers a 1 year warranty on the GPU as opposed to the standard 2 years doesn't it? This could mean XFX's standard warranty is simply too expensive for them to offer with the 470 and 480, so rather than change that just for Fermi, they chose not to sell them. It makes sense in XFX's case though as they also sell ATI cards; the 470 and 480 just aren't competitive at the moment, but from what has been rumoured about the midrange Fermi cards, they could be great products, if the prices come down.
From Tweaktown (http://www.tweaktown.com/news/14646/nvidias_next_mid_range_entry_level_vga_plans_detai led/index.html):
It's believed that there are three cards in the works dubbed the GeForce GTS 450, GTS 440 and GTS 430, all of which will use NVIDIA's 40nm GF104 core that carries with it up to 256 shader cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit memory bus.
The GTS 450 and 440 are both said to use GF104 to the full extent, whilst the lower grade GTS 430 will be cut down with 192 shader cores, 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs and run on a 192-bit memory bus.
Pricing was also mentioned with an expectancy in the region of €200-230 for the GTS 450, €160-180 for the GTS 440 and €130-150 for the GTS 430.
Following on from the launch of these cards, it's been made apparent that NVIDIAs next point of focus will be cards based on their GF106 and GF108 cores which cater to the lower-mid and entry level market segments.
Of course, given the early nature of this information, be sure to pinch some salt.
Firey_chasm
03-30-10, 06:20 AM
very interesting.
1stly because they state they aren't going ATI exclusive, as they might well release NVIDIA cards later - this excludes the possibility of ATI having made some exclusive deal with them
2ndly, because of the other factors that could cause this:
1. price - not enough possible profit per card - not good news because it means that this thing is crazy expensive to make and NVIDIAs current prices are probably based on the minimum they can sell them at, not what they think they can get away with - so dont expect cost cuts until at least the next revision if this is the case.
2. reliability - to offer their warrenty they will have stressed these cards to their limits and they frankly don't believe they are reliable long term, so RMAs would leave them out of pocket.
3. this isn't something some minor tweaking can fix (i.e. custom heatsink etc)
4. overclocking potential not good - so can't release expensive overclocked versions (i.e. cards they make lots of profit on)
These are the main 4 that would cause them to pull out. Probably a combo of them all. So at the end of the day we can conclude long term (as they are probably one of the few companies/people that will have stretched these cards to their limits (i.e. to see where and how often they break - to justify their warrenty plans etc)) that the 470+480 are probably too unreliable to justiy the cost/effort.
and to say how many fanboys NVIDIA have who will blindly buy irrelevant, this must be a big deal to not release anything.
my very 1st ATI card is on its way :D so happy I made this choice now (I have been NVIDIA boy all my gaming time before, geforce 2,4,6800,8800GTS and now they lost me to ATI)
I don't see that as an issue - as a gamer. As long as there is 1 brand out there selling those cards and supply demand, I am happy.
-D
very interesting.
1stly because they state they aren't going ATI exclusive, as they might well release NVIDIA cards later - this excludes the possibility of ATI having made some exclusive deal with them
2ndly, because of the other factors that could cause this:
1. price - not enough possible profit per card - not good news because it means that this thing is crazy expensive to make and NVIDIAs current prices are probably based on the minimum they can sell them at, not what they think they can get away with - so dont expect cost cuts until at least the next revision if this is the case.
2. reliability - to offer their warrenty they will have stressed these cards to their limits and they frankly don't believe they are reliable long term, so RMAs would leave them out of pocket.
3. this isn't something some minor tweaking can fix (i.e. custom heatsink etc)
4. overclocking potential not good - so can't release expensive overclocked versions (i.e. cards they make lots of profit on)
These are the main 4 that would cause them to pull out. Probably a combo of them all. So at the end of the day we can conclude long term (as they are probably one of the few companies/people that will have stretched these cards to their limits (i.e. to see where and how often they break - to justify their warrenty plans etc)) that the 470+480 are probably too unreliable to justiy the cost/effort.
and to say how many fanboys NVIDIA have who will blindly buy irrelevant, this must be a big deal to not release anything.
my very 1st ATI card is on its way :D so happy I made this choice now (I have been NVIDIA boy all my gaming time before, geforce 2,4,6800,8800GTS and now they lost me to ATI)
Very well wrote, I think your logic is very sound. There has to be 1 or more reasons as to why XFX is staying out of making the 470 or 480's at the moment. Regardless of the reason it is not a good sign for these cards. Even the NVidia 5800 was produced by all of its board partners.
Bobnova
03-30-10, 08:59 AM
Those were my thoughts too, especially the warranty.
I wouldn't want to be in charge of an RMA department when a card that routinely ran within 10*c of it's throttle point.
Here is the scoop, from Fudzilla.com
Nvidia won't provide
We have heard and confirmed from multiple independent sources that XFX won’t have Fermi cards at launch.
Nvidia is punishing this highly successful brand by cutting them off from Geforce GTX 480 and 470 launch cards, and this is a direct result of XFX's last year's decision to to start selling ATI. Since Nvidia’s sales department doesn't know any better, this is the action the green company decided to take.
Nvidia refuses to see that this might be a bad thing for the whole company as XFX has a very loyal fan base who will probably start standing up for themselves when they realize they won’t get a decent launch quantity of these cards.
In the meantime, XFX’s answer to Nvidia’s cut-out deal is bringing the fastest ever Radeon HD 5970 X2 cards with super specs, and we will try to get as many details as we can.
mxthunder
03-30-10, 10:38 AM
Very interesting indeed. I would think that XFX would know what there doing, but then again who knows.
Maybe they didnt want them because their own cheapo PCB's wouldnt power the chip :p
Wow this is quite a surprise. My video card is from XFX I love the double lifetime warranty. It's not a bad looking card either. Could Nvidia really be that petty? Will they be able to sell the lower end cards?
Grosjambon
03-30-10, 11:40 AM
MSI seem to make them
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=12980BD4080&vpn=N470GTX%20M2D12-B&manufacture=MSI
mattspalace
03-30-10, 12:15 PM
That Fudzilla report is a load of B.S. No commercial industry would conduct business in that manner unless said company was led by a 6th grader.
TimoneX
03-30-10, 12:22 PM
Seems to me as though nV has a habit of conducting business as though led by a 6th grader.
killem2
03-30-10, 12:51 PM
probably for the better, would you want to deal with all those rma and failures?
They deal with a normal amount of those same things with ati cards and nv cards they currently make, can you explain this statement? :shrug::shrug:
{PGA}AfterShock
03-30-10, 02:29 PM
could very well be that nvidia is just having a tantrum over xfx selling ATI cards but if I was xfx I would want my business to include the brand that is wearing the crown for fastest vid card which still isn't nvidia. Who knows what is really running through the heads at nvidia but this makes them look like little kids if the story ends up being 100% true.
killem2
03-30-10, 02:43 PM
When i think about it, the only possible reason for this might be, if they are scare of the rumors about yields and if there happen to be any rmas, then most of thier policies are to replace them with equal or higher, but what do you do with the fastest card when you have no replacements? Pay out?
SeanBest
03-30-10, 02:55 PM
Doesn't XFX usually go non-reference for their cards? Maybe the 470 and 480 don't really have an option as far as that goes, it would be too expensive or something. Maybe making the 470 and 480 non-reference just doesn't make sense to them this time.
don'tknow
03-30-10, 03:43 PM
In the meantime, XFX’s answer to Nvidia’s cut-out deal is bringing the fastest ever Radeon HD 5970 X2 cards with super specs, and we will try to get as many details as we can.
Lol, mistype on their part? I think they meant the 5970 4GB, there is no such as the 5970 X2 (makes it sound like a quad-GPU card).
That Fudzilla report is a load of B.S. No commercial industry would conduct business in that manner unless said company was led by a 6th grader.
You know, its not the first time nVidia would do some hard headed / stubborn controversial business decisions. That is why the article did not appear as a surprising thing to me. Look: nVidia refuses to let intel use SLI on their boards and other things I have seen happen in the last while..
Seems to me as though nV has a habit of conducting business as though led by a 6th grader.
I disagree. It seems they have a habit of being mis-understood in the way they pursue business. Their ulterior motives are always somewhat hidden from the public. I just don't see nVidia making these decisions blindly - more like sacrificing a pawn to free their queen..
-D
Bon3thugz43v3r
03-30-10, 05:46 PM
All this speculation makes me giggle :clap:
Cmon people we all know why......MONEY ding ding ding
Bobnova
03-31-10, 12:35 AM
Intel used to, they didn't cut people off, just doubled the prices if they sold AMD based systems.
I can totally see nvidia doing that, too.
Can't exactly believe fudzilla without some backup though.
They deal with a normal amount of those same things with ati cards and nv cards they currently make, can you explain this statement? :shrug::shrug:
90-100C running temp. :rain:
exactly, I bet we see records with these cards, not only orb ones lol
muddocktor
03-31-10, 10:34 AM
Yep, and I wouldn't be surprised that we see failures down the road from people that do DC work with these cards too. Keep a 24/7 load on them for weeks at a time, plus the accumulation of dust, hair and other uglies that normally accumulate in the gpu hsf over time and I think that we will see overheating related failures. For the folks that plan to use this for DC work, the only route I see for cooling is with a good watercooled loop.
pwnmachine
03-31-10, 11:41 AM
Wow, shows how confident xfx is in their cooling tech. Another reason I don't recommend xfx cards, they are not bad by any means but they definitely are the lower tier.
90-100C running temp. :rain:
Can someone tell me why this is such a big deal? It's a 5-10c increase from last gen. I'm not seeing where this is an issue. It's well within safe range.
dark bishop
03-31-10, 12:04 PM
1. XFX has been the most reliable cards ive ever used
2. why have i already seen xfx model 480 and 470?
psionic98
03-31-10, 12:09 PM
XFX Leaked Pics of fermis (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/gf100-fermi-geforce-gtx-480-gtx-470,9939.html)
Unless these are fakes.. totally possible, but time will tell
muddocktor
03-31-10, 12:21 PM
Can someone tell me why this is such a big deal? It's a 5-10c increase from last gen. I'm not seeing where this is an issue. It's well within safe range.
I'll tell you what the big deal is. If these cards are running that hot when brand new and everything clean, then how hot do you think they are going to get 6 months down the road, with 6 months of dirt and fluff sucked up into the heatsink. You go add another 10-15 C of heat easily in that situation and then you start having stability issues and premature heat related issues with them.
Not everyone cleans out their case every month, believe me. The older heatsinks had enough extra cooling capacity to handle quite a bit of crap buildup in them before temps got the vid cards unstable, but I just don't think the extra reserve is there this time.
I guess time will tell all, and in a few weeks we will find out if this XFX rumor is true or BS too. :)
I dont know about you guys but my gtx 260 192core and 216 core, my gtx 280 and gtx 285 hell even the gtx 295 i played with briefly never hit 70c loaded out....
5850/5870 run even cooler.
killem2
03-31-10, 02:01 PM
Oh wait, I get it now, it makes since, XFX has always been a pioneer of the overclocking enthusaist and one of the few companies that supports overclocking under warranty so I can see them ditching this because of the temps because of people trying to overclock it, and as normal XFX always releases some sort of black voodoo look at me I'm faster than anything OC edition, and that might be hard with this series.
Lavacon
03-31-10, 02:30 PM
Wow, shows how confident xfx is in their cooling tech. Another reason I don't recommend xfx cards, they are not bad by any means but they definitely are the lower tier.
I would have to disagree. XFX is definitely not low tier. I don't think any of this has anything to do with their cooling tech. They could run reference cooling and Fermi would still be HOT. Did anyone mention that these cards are HOT??? I believe it is more of a business decision more than anything. It's really a matter of who made said decision... XFX or Nvidia....
i disagree also, if the cards reference it doesnt matter who the hells sticker is on it, and obviously all these 470 and 480 are reference. So the "cooling tech" is no ones but nvidia's lol
I do not like XFX's custom solutions though. That comment seeing how all are reference cards is pretty FALSE.
pwnmachine
03-31-10, 02:40 PM
I would have to disagree. XFX is definitely not low tier. I don't think any of this has anything to do with their cooling tech. They could run reference cooling and Fermi would still be HOT. Did anyone mention that these cards are HOT??? I believe it is more of a business decision more than anything. It's really a matter of who made said decision... XFX or Nvidia....
Sorry if my post was unclear, I meant their custom cooling solutions.
Lavacon
03-31-10, 02:46 PM
Custom solutions can be hit or miss. Some partners are trying to shave cost while others are looking for a better performance.
Neural Net
03-31-10, 03:11 PM
Wow, shows how confident xfx is in their cooling tech. Another reason I don't recommend xfx cards, they are not bad by any means but they definitely are the lower tier.
Oh please, the heatsink is large but nothing special and certainly not something out of XFX's reach. More like XFX don't want to offer their better than industry standard warranty on a GPU which only comes with a 1 year warranty from Nvidia itself instead of the standard 2 years like it was for the 200 series. Or that the profit margins make selling this card pointless when you already sell the competing, more profitable cards from the competition.
Archer0915
03-31-10, 09:36 PM
Could it have anything to do with this?
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/23/nvidia-forces-garbage-those-wanting-gtx480s/
im sure we will see a refresh pretty soon, they just had no choice but to release the current cards or they would lose too much market share.
within 6 months we will have a refresh 485, taking bets~!
lunchbox311
04-01-10, 09:37 AM
Could it have anything to do with this?
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/23/nvidia-forces-garbage-those-wanting-gtx480s/
Heh, that is the exact same practice as the gun industry.. well FN Herstal anyway. New model comes out... time to move the old crap off of the balance sheet.
Archer0915
04-01-10, 09:41 AM
Heh, that is the exact same practice as the gun industry.. well FN Herstal anyway. New model comes out... time to move the old crap off of the balance sheet.
But how often is a model replaced? The 45 ACP in 1911-A1 flavor has been that way forever but every year or two with PC stuff.
Bobnova
04-01-10, 11:05 AM
Maybe that'll drive the GTS250 down in price further (finally), it'd be a fantastic buy if it hit <$100 for a full clocked version.
darkknight187
04-02-10, 11:01 AM
Those were my thoughts too, especially the warranty.
I wouldn't want to be in charge of an RMA department when a card that routinely ran within 10*c of it's throttle point.
This has me thinking. How long before System sellers like dell/alienware, ibuypower, ect, ect have to drop these from their "budget" high end builds. With the average person who buys from these companies optimum cooling definately isnt on their mind and most of the reviews seen have probably been under optimum conditions. Me thinks it will be quite interesting to see if these companies start ushering these cards to their deaths in their pc builds. then again maybe a high end custom cooling solution could fix it? either way i see this as something better to keep on watch for in the coming months.
wingman99
04-04-10, 07:59 PM
This has me thinking. How long before System sellers like dell/alienware, ibuypower, ect, ect have to drop these from their "budget" high end builds. With the average person who buys from these companies optimum cooling definately isnt on their mind and most of the reviews seen have probably been under optimum conditions. Me thinks it will be quite interesting to see if these companies start ushering these cards to their deaths in their pc builds. then again maybe a high end custom cooling solution could fix it? either way i see this as something better to keep on watch for in the coming months.I did not think that the cooling is bad in the stock PC case. The sound was not much worse then the 5870.
This is a article on GeForce GTX 480 Real World Temperatures & Sound
LINK:http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/04/01/geforce_gtx_480_real_world_temperatures_sound
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