NVIDIA Fermi Architecture Explained [Various Sources]

[gingerbee]

PCPer: PC Perspective - NVIDIA Fermi Next Generation GPU Architecture Overview

TechReport: Nvidia's 'Fermi' GPU architecture revealed - The Tech Report - Page 1

Anandtech: AnandTech: NVIDIA's Fermi: Architected for Tesla, 3 Billion Transistors in 2010

[muse108dc]

I think I've figured out nVidia's strategy for making new cards. Last jump from 9800GX2 to GTX280 was stick the 2 chips of the 9800GX2 together into one more efficient package. They seem to be trying to do basically the same thing here 2x GTX280 cores into one chip. This method while cheaper on R&D cant be the best path, transistor counts will rocket, power is going to go up, price will go up, and while performance will increase chips can only get so big.

If ATI's performance with the 5800s is close to the G300s with significantly fewer transistors, I would say that ATI had an advantage.

[FiXT]

ATI is about improving graphics, NVIDIA is improving computing.

From what I can see, NVIDIA's Fermi is far more of a leap forward, than what ATI is doing, which is merely enhancing their existing technology. If you go through the technological advancements in Fermi, you will see it is about a lot more than shrinking the mfg. process and adding transistors like ATI.