NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Review Comment Thread

[JayDeeHobbit]

I was nice and comfortable with upgrading my GTX260 to a 460 before reading this review. Now I hear the 470 calling to me.

Santa?

[heflys20]

Originally Posted by Gav

Thanks for the heads up. Will be fixed in a minute.

Still there. Starts at July 12.

Reviews | Hardware Canucks

But no biggie, just giving you guys a heads-up.

[nakano2k1]

What totally astonishes me is how NVidia does business. The whole 260 / 280 debacle where upon initial release they were SO overpriced that when ATI dropped the price by over 200 dollars. THEN they gave people the option to get some money back by having to go through a long drawn out process. Keep in mind that they didn't make it overly known that they were doing this, and also that they were only doing it for retail as well. This meant that anybody who bought it a pre-made system was SOL.

Now, just after 8 months they're essentially putting the screws to anybody who bought a 460 - 480 card by releasing what that card SHOULD have been in the first place. They released the initial fermi architecture cards SO half assed because of 1) Their ability to stick to a release date that was pushed back so much people were getting fed up and leaving the green camp 2) inability to live up to the hype first initiated by them 3) lack of caring for customes, knowing that the "REAL" fermi cards would be out later. I guess they basically took a page out of the Microsoft playbook with the whole Vista / Windows 7 fiasco.

Nvidia has just always seemed to be this evil entity to me because of the way they do business and the way they treat their customers in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I have issues with ATI as well... But with recent NVidia "sneakiness" they're the lesser of two evils.

[Phill]

First off great review Sky! Keep up the great work.

@ nakano2k1 how about you tell me what Nvidia should have done instead of releasing the 4XX cards? How about you rehash all the past events you just mentioned but then explain what a "moral" Nvidia should have done given the situation they found themselves in. What I find annoying is when people want to criticize (even if there is good reason) but fail to offer a viable alternative.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by nakano2k1

What totally astonishes me is how NVidia does business. The whole 260 / 280 debacle where upon initial release they were SO overpriced that when ATI dropped the price by over 200 dollars. THEN they gave people the option to get some money back by having to go through a long drawn out process. Keep in mind that they didn't make it overly known that they were doing this, and also that they were only doing it for retail as well. This meant that anybody who bought it a pre-made system was SOL.

Now, just after 8 months they're essentially putting the screws to anybody who bought a 460 - 480 card by releasing what that card SHOULD have been in the first place. They released the initial fermi architecture cards SO half assed because of 1) Their ability to stick to a release date that was pushed back so much people were getting fed up and leaving the green camp 2) inability to live up to the hype first initiated by them 3) lack of caring for customes, knowing that the "REAL" fermi cards would be out later. I guess they basically took a page out of the Microsoft playbook with the whole Vista / Windows 7 fiasco.

Nvidia has just always seemed to be this evil entity to me because of the way they do business and the way they treat their customers in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I have issues with ATI as well... But with recent NVidia "sneakiness" they're the lesser of two evils.

Wait a second here. What NVIDIA is doing is simply good business. Car companies release a new model every year, Intel releases new processors every ~6 months, etc. AMD would have done the exact same thing if they had been able to continue to tape out cards on TSMC's cancelled 32nm SOI process.

How are NVIDIA's practices any different from the ones mentioned above?

[nakano2k1]

I understand that from a "bottom line" aspect, NVidia's play on the situation was good for them, good for their shareholders and possibly good for the future of the company in the short run, but what about the people who buy the products that they produce? I know that product loyalty doesn't really exist in the PC world, but c'mon...

I know that the whole battle between AMD and NVidia is really symbiotic and that we need both of them in order to advance the process of GPU development and also to keep prices in check (Once again NVidia charging TONS of money for their 8 series cards when ATI's 3000 series were total flops). I know that ATI would most likely turn around and stab me and everyone else in the back if it proved to be profitable. I guess it's just been the recently that NVidia has been bugging me. Ever since the 8 series pricing, then the laptop GPU issues, then the 9 series rehashing, then the 200 series over pricing, then the wooden fermi "demo model", then the 400 series issue and now the release of brand new cards that are essentially rehashes of the old fermi's bit with enhanced cooling (vapor) and better voltage / wattage control.

Why didn't they implement these changes in the beginning!? They were already so far behind on their fermi roadmap. You would think that with all the delays and so on that they would have made it up to their customers by going a little extra and releasing something worth while? Not some overheating, power suckling monstrosity of a card that barely beat / stuck with ATI cards that were released months earlier.

[Iphikratous]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Wait a second here. What NVIDIA is doing is simply good business. Car companies release a new model every year, Intel releases new processors every ~6 months, etc. AMD would have done the exact same thing if they had been able to continue to tape out cards on TSMC's cancelled 32nm SOI process.

How are NVIDIA's practices any different from the ones mentioned above?

I don't think its due to the fact that they're releasing these new cards so soon after the original Fermi launch, its more that they released the 400 series while (most likely) working on the "500" series, and basically getting people to buy into a chip that they (nVidia) couldn't control and therefore couldn't get an adequate launch date.

I think if they had decided not to release the original GF100 at the time it was released, we would have seen what is now the GTX 580 a couple months ago, as the GTX 480.

[sswilson]

Unfortunately, that's just the nature of the GFX card market. If you don't produce something you lose out on a large block of possible purchases.

You've pretty well gotta go with what you've got, or your only choice is to drop your prices below cost just to keep competetive.

[SKYMTL]

That isn't the way the semiconductor industry works unfortunately. The development time needed to refine their GF100 architecture into the GF110 took months and months and months. It was already on their internal roadmaps quite a while ago but likely at the 32nm process. Since 32nm ended up in the gutter, they likely brought forward GF110 in order to leverage the Christmas shopping season into market share gain.

Development cycles are measured in years, not weeks or months. I am sure NVIDIA was working on Fermi's successor more than a year or maybe even two before that product even launched. Much like AMD likely set up initial designs for Southern / Northern islands during the HD 4800 days. A company doesn't arbitrarily decide to screw over their customers with their design cycles. And that's what they are: cycles. One can't just be skipped because it will end up being released nine MONTHS after the initial product.

People seem to forget that in the "good old days" of the GPU industry, products were refreshed at MOST once every 9 months. Take the X1800 for example. It was launched in October 2005 while it's replacement the X1900 series was introduced in March 2006. In those days, this ~6-month turn around was the norm so why is a 9-month cycle suddenly bitch-worthy?

NVIDIA needed to get products on the market and in my opinion, the GTX 400 series stood up very well and will continue to do so even after the HD 6900 series sees the light of day.

[_dangtx_]

well, no bitching on the performance front, they took the cake. shortcomings aside, is the amd review(s) ready or almost? ;)