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.   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 with the company 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 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.

This has also been reported by Legit Reviews.