gf100 posts

On Monday Nvidia announced they would be holding a major launch event for their next-generation graphics chip at PAX East in Boston in late March. But was this just a preview event or an actual launch for their long awaited first DirectX 11 product (known as "Fermi" and also as GF100)? Now Nvidia's Twitter page has the answer.

The page's latest message states, "Apologies for the confusion around our most recent GF100 update. To clarify, launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010." Those two product numbers were previously revealed to be the first GeForce cards that would use the GF100 chip. All in all it looks like Nvidia is going all out to make their launch event at PAX East a huge deal and perhaps gain back some, if not all, of their lead they lost from AMD, who took the performance and feature lead with their first DirectX 11 graphics cards last October.

Nvidia's big announcement, teased on their Twitter page a few days ago, isn't quite what we had expected but it's still pretty cool. The PC graphics chip maker will launch their next-gen graphics product at the inaugural PAX East event in Boston on March 26-28.

In addition to a exhibit booth at the show where the new product will be demoed (and perhaps even sold) Nvidia will host a special theater event on the first day of the show and they promise that if you miss it, "you'll likely be spending the next few months kicking yourself!" Nvidia will also sponsor PAX East's BYOC and LAN rooms and will also raffle off a PC that will have dual GeForce GTX 480 graphic cards. Yep, that's the name of one of the cards that will use Nvidia's next-gen graphics chip. Finally Nvidia is sponsoring a Battlefield Bad Company 2 online tournament that will give its winner a trip to PAX East for a chance to win $10,000.

For the past several months, Nvidia has taken it on the chin as AMD and their ATI graphics card unit have been cranking out the only desktop PC graphics cards with DirectX 11 support. Now it looks like Nvidia may be getting ready to fire back in the latest salvo of the graphics card performance wars.

A port on Nvidia's Twitter page states, "ARE YOU READY? Check back here on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. PST for a major announcement!" Unless it's something totally out of left field, this is likely the official announcement of Nvidia's first DirectX 11 graphics card. It's been known by its code name "Fermi" and also by GF100. Last January, the company revealed some technical details behind the chip but kept back word on a launch date, clock speeds and the most important one: the price tag. Will the wait be worth it and what will AMD do, if anything, to keep their momentum going? Stay tuned.

Hardcore PC hardware junkies are dying to learn more about what Nvidia plans for its next-generation graphics product. However the company has been keeping details on their launch plans close to the vest. A couple of weeks ago it revealed some technical details on the graphics chip which is known both as Fermi and GF100.

Now Nvidia's Twitter web page has announced that the first official graphics chips that will be based on the GF100 will be named the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470. Once again that's all we know but Nvidia is expected to reveal the big details (launch date, clock speed, and cost) for their new products sometime in early March.

AMD is currently leading the next-gen PC graphics card race with its recent ATI Radeon products that support DirectX 11. However Nvidia has been hinting that their own entry in the race, known both as Fermi and the GF100, will also be a powerful chip. Today an embargo was lifted and a number of hardware based web sites got to reveal info they learned about the upcoming chip from Nvidia.

Unfortunately, Nvidia is still keeping some major details of the upcoming graphics chips secret including a launch date, clock speed, and the big one: cost. However it has revealed some technical details on the chip itself which suggests it will be twice as powerful as Nvidia's current champion, the GT200. Firing Squad reports that Nvidia claims the chip will run Far Cry 2 at 84.3 frames per second with 1920x1200 resolution with 4xAA/16xAF. Dark Void ran at 76.82 frames per second at the same settings. You can see a demo of in-engine graphics running on the chip above.