GF100 evaluation thread

Even in Europe one could say that the allocation meets the demand. - Make out of it what you want.

 

Newegg isn't the only US distributor, as others offer similar prices. The unreasonable prices appear to be an issue with European distribution.

In any case, the US prices and availability make it absolutely clear that 10,000 or so parts is completely and utterly unreasonable. nVidia is almost certainly in full production of the GTX 470 and 480 right now.

 

I suppose we'll have to wait till the next Nvidia conference call to see if they tell us how many cards they've shipped. Given that analysts recently downgraded Nvidia due to problems manufacturing Fermi and that Nvidia has to chop down the processors to get yields, I tend to believe the rumours more than the non-information that Nvidia has put out.

You can't claim a world-wide launch and everything is hunky dory when countries all over Europe are counting their unit allocations in hundreds.

 

The price/availability in the US seems to point to a distribution problem more than a manufacturing problem, however.

 

Possibly but surely demand cant be that low? There are plenty of NV fanboys who are willing to buy it despite the high-ish price and heat/power. Also if you can tell us what the allocation figures are that would help clear it up

They are related in a way tho, the allocation of cards in europe may be low as they simply dont have the required quantity of cards. They may have prioitized the US market for whatever reason. Everyone expected price gouging and cards being out of stock after launch. So it is a positive sign that its not happened(in the US at least)


Also unless im mistaken neither Tesla or Quadro variants have launched right? Neither does it look like GF104 release is close. Perhaps they'll launch at Computex. Its looking increasinlgy probable that by the time Fermi's derivatives are out they'll be competing with NI/SI/Hecaton whatever the next ATI series is

 

Yes, but my point is that the US market is big enough that a shortage of the magnitude of the rumors is just not reasonable.

 

So is the Eurozone, yet there is a massive shortage here. There's little to no supply here, so it seems obvious that we've lost out in order to supply NewEgg. It's not reasonable to assume that just because NewEgg seems to have stock, that Nvidia has suddenly overcome all their manufacturing problems at TSMC.

 

It's not just Newegg, but also other US retailers.

I'm not saying that the global supply is necessarily adequate. The European distribution issues may well be due to low global supply. I'm just saying that the magnitude of the supply shortage, if any, cannot be as significant as the rumors are suggesting.

 

Yep, the point isn't that there's wide availability. The point is that the rumour 10,000 units worldwide doesn't seem feasible. There is availability in the US and the US market alone is sufficiently large to have already completely absorbed such a woefully low number of parts in the three weeks since launch.

[edit] availability actually seems to be improving slightly in the US. Weak demand or more units rolling off the line? Hard to tell.

 

Imagine my surprise when I visited a couple of good old fashioned b&m computer stores here in holland today and actually already saw gtx470s for sale in 2 of em.

 

Online retailers are not willing to keep stocks of GF100 cards. They order a bunch, if the have a number of pre-orders, but they seem very careful not to overstock the cards.

The same scheme like a product which will soon go EOL.

 

You mean that the GT470 doesn't sell well at all?

 

Wouldn't surprise me if that were true. At the moment it is too expensive for what it does.

 

My local Best Buy, a store which has never carried Radeon 58xx to my knowledge, has a row of GTX 470 cards at $400/ea. I double-taked on that but there they sit.

 

Was at Fry's here in southern california earlier this evening. They had 5 gtx470s, and 5 gtx480s. Just came in I think.

 

A worldwide of 10,000 max cards is still feasible when you consider that they just might not be selling that well considering the initial reviews. Maybe the market that these are priced at don't like what they see and are willing to wait longer for either ATI's next offering or the next Fermi offering? Or they just decided to go with ATI.

 

That would only be the case if they're totally and utterly bombing in sales, which would seem to be very odd. No, the cards aren't that great. But the reviews have been much more lukewarm than, "These cards are total shit." I wouldn't expect great sales, but 10,000 seems a ridiculously small number. And remember, the rumor is only 10,000 cards available total until a respin can be done, so those would run out really fast.

I might believe 10,000 available in the first week, even if it's a bit unlikely, followed by many more soon after. But 10,000 total until the next respin? I don't think so.

 

The problem is that intial rumor/info was less than 10k cards at launch, worldwide.
Why would they not be getting a slow but steady shipment of cards out the door?

The 10k cards total before a respin is just a misinterpretation of the ~9-10k wafers, i.e. risk/hotlots.

 

~10k wafers would be more reasonable for the current availability, but then a GTX 460 would make no sense at all.

 

Im sure the chip is currently in production, they would not just do 10k wafers and leave it at that. The 10k cards might have been what was available at launch but for sure they have been producing more cards after launch. Remember they have to cater to the demand for the Quadro and Tesla as well, which are less price sensitive and hence demand will not be hit as badly in that segment. And the fact that these markets earn them a lot more money is another reason.

As to the GTX 460, if ATI could produce a Radeon 5830 out of Cypress and with Fermi being bigger and supposedly having worse yield you can be sure they have enough bad dies to do a GTX 460