Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti Not Coming Until Q3 '12?

[matt_b]

Would this mean that production is really that imperfect, and/or was the 680/690 release really released too ahead of schedule? With yields alone on the mysterious flagship cards, it makes one wonder if it was just a race to reclaim the crown with what few production models there were - all while what most of us would really buy in the first place (and overly-patiently waiting) being well behind in Nvidia's R&D rearview mirror. HD8xxx series will be too close by then, so then where are we again?

 

[zooted]

[citation][nom]frombehind[/nom]The low yeilds that people speak of is because when Nvida makes the cores, they sort them... since they are only making 1 version... the ones that come out right become 680's the ones that come out FLAWLESS, they get shelved, destined to go into a 690 card with a well-matched partner... or sometimes get sold to card manufacturers to become an "overclocked 680".The mistakes... well, if its only 1 bad part - those will become 670's with the faulty silicon disabled. 2 mistakes makes a 660, and so on. If it comes out too messed up, it gets meleted down and recycled.So yes, its realistic that it will take them 6 month's to make enough mistakes to have a decent supply of the "lower" cards at launch. This is a common practice among chip makers, and saves them money on manufacturing then say printing 6 different chips - they just print 1 version and the "slight defects" get sold as lower models.[/citation]
While this makes sense in its own right, why can't they keep the 680's in stock?

 

[sanirudh]

I can wait till Q3. Lets hope 560Ti/6870 prices drop by then. I don't think I can afford the 660 Ti when it comes out - assuming its the 6xx series counterpart of the 560 Ti. Till then its good ol' HD2000 for me.

 

[ChiefTexas_82]

What ARE they thinking? That is one hell of a delay. Perhaps they want to clear out their 5xx series stocks first. Sure sucks for us.

 

[sweatlaserxp]

Hope the non-Ti 660 costs a bit less. $250 is a bit steep for a "mid-range" card.

 

[dfusco]

[citation][nom]frombehind[/nom]The low yeilds that people speak of is because when Nvida makes the cores, they sort them... since they are only making 1 version... the ones that come out right become 680's the ones that come out FLAWLESS, they get shelved, destined to go into a 690 card with a well-matched partner... or sometimes get sold to card manufacturers to become an "overclocked 680".The mistakes... well, if its only 1 bad part - those will become 670's with the faulty silicon disabled. 2 mistakes makes a 660, and so on. If it comes out too messed up, it gets meleted down and recycled.So yes, its realistic that it will take them 6 month's to make enough mistakes to have a decent supply of the "lower" cards at launch. This is a common practice among chip makers, and saves them money on manufacturing then say printing 6 different chips - they just print 1 version and the "slight defects" get sold as lower models.[/citation]

Ahhh, I see, nvidia is making sooo many PERFECT chips! That's why the market is flooded with 680/690's right? Eeehh...wait a minute...it's not and you're full of it.

 

[Lord Captivus]

Coming in Q3, and available at stores in Q2 2013.

 

[sykozis]

[citation][nom]pharoahhalfdead[/nom]Even though I don't agree with AMD's extreme price gouging, Nvidia's option of focusing on the top end first kind of allows AMD to do whatever they want. I do understand Nvidia needing to say they have a faster card, that's simply a part of marketing. On a side note, if AMD doesn't have record sales in the gpu department for 2012 H1, then something is clearly wrong![/citation]

Why is it only price gouging when AMD's prices are higher due to lack of competition? nVidia has done the exact same thing in the past and would do it again if they were in AMD's position now.

 

[sykozis]

[citation][nom]frombehind[/nom]The low yeilds that people speak of is because when Nvida makes the cores, they sort them... since they are only making 1 version... the ones that come out right become 680's the ones that come out FLAWLESS, they get shelved, destined to go into a 690 card with a well-matched partner... or sometimes get sold to card manufacturers to become an "overclocked 680".The mistakes... well, if its only 1 bad part - those will become 670's with the faulty silicon disabled. 2 mistakes makes a 660, and so on. If it comes out too messed up, it gets meleted down and recycled.So yes, its realistic that it will take them 6 month's to make enough mistakes to have a decent supply of the "lower" cards at launch. This is a common practice among chip makers, and saves them money on manufacturing then say printing 6 different chips - they just print 1 version and the "slight defects" get sold as lower models.[/citation]

Except you got at least some of your information wrong there....

With Fermi, GF100 only went into 3 cards. GF104 was a completely different chip from GF100, as was GF106.

 

[alphaalphaalpha]

What's with this price gouging non-sense? The 7850 costs about $250 and performs between the 6950 2GB and the 6970, yet is priced like the 6950 2GB. That's the correct price position for it right now. The 7870 costs another $80 or so. It's a little pricey, but not by much. It hangs with the GTX 580 which goes for about the same price right now, but the 580 uses a huge amount more power.

This is all comparable to the best price per performance high end cards such as the 6950, GTX 560 TI, and higher end cards such as the GTX 680. The 7870 can be bought for the same price as the 6970, so it's better price for it's performance than the 6970 is because although they have roughly the same price (in many cases), the 7870 is significantly faster.

Prices as the cheapest common prices at newegg last I checked.

Even if they were a little overpriced, you can make up the difference in the savings from the lower power usage (especially with the 580 versus the 7870).

 

[sp0nger]

These foundry issues are seriously screwing over Nvidia.

How is AMD dealing with the foundry issues? They oviously have a diffrent supplier but jesus christ Nvidia move your operation to samsung already

 

[erunion]

[citation][nom]Achoo22[/nom]On the contrary, the yields are so good that they don't have to disable sections of the chip and package as a low-end card. It's the same reason Intel doesn't sell three-core chips.[/citation]

Then why can't they ship more than a handful at a time?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709&IsNodeId=1&Description=gtx%20680&name=Desktop%20Graphics%20Cards&Order=BESTMATCH

 

[jay2tall]

Whelp... I guess this means the 700 series will be pretty far out. Which is fine with me. I can sit on this series for a while. Not sure what the surprise is here, it always takes them a while to fill in behind the top end cards. Although Q3 is kinda far away. I wouldn't have expected the 660 until mid summer.

 

[Cazalan]

Yields must be abysmal. When in doubt blame the foundry. I guess the stock holders are still fooled by those statements.

 

[frombehind]

They cant keep them in stock because everyone and their cousin want to buy one... or several =)

And since (reportedly) only ~25% of the chips coming off the assembly line are deemed to be worthy to go into a 680... the rest being either shelved to become other cards, or get melted down due to being too defective.

That's a massive demand and supply is just getting its butt kicked. These cards are a first generation in a massive Die shrink. They are just not used to working with 22nm size silicon - I'm sure it wont be as bad in the next few generation of cards as they get more used to working with this size process. However when they shrink again, I'm sure we will see abysmal supply issues again.

 

[erunion]

Yet AMD's recent launch had none of the availability issues, and they transitioned to that same massive die shrink (and at the same foundry) even earlier.

None of those thing are atypical, they exist for every launch, yet this launch has atypically low availability. Something else is going on here.

Its 28nm, by the way.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

560ti costs $250 so it is not more expensive than last time around. I think with the 690 and the 670 coming out within a roughly a weeks time there will be price wars. So no I am not mad at nvidia, I got my 680 the day it came out.

 

[mojorisin23]

nvidia will be hurting if this is true.... must have production/ supplier issues.

 

[tuffjuff]

[citation][nom]Horhe[/nom]If it turns out to be a new 8800GT, then I don't have any problems with the waiting.[/citation]

It sounds like a significantly OC'd 460 with more cores, if I'm reading this right.

My 448 core 560 Ti's come in at I want to say 820 core 1050 memory stock, and in SLI they're both running at 900/1100, with perhaps a bit more room to grow on the memory side of things. This 660 has beefier shaders, a base core speed about 200Mhz (25%) faster and base memory speeds 500Mhz (50%) faster. That's not bad, assuming this comes in at the same price.

That being said, this news is making me consider WC for my SLI setup more and more, considering it looks like I won't be replacing them for a good 3 years or so, and by the time their direct replacement will have come out it will have been nearly a full year...

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]sarcastic_lynch_mob[/nom]Yes, let's crucify AMD for their high prices! Who cares that Nvidia is selling a $1000 GPU, and that AMD lost money last quarter, those b4stards have no right to sell the 7800 for so much![/citation]
It doesn't matter to us as consumers if they lost money. What matters to us is the price we are paying. It is not about whether it is AMD's right or not to sell at that high price, it is about the customer's perception.

 

[Guest]

I was hoping for a 660 too, got sick of waiting and got an OC 7850. I'm very impressed with the performance for the price, shame nvidia had nothing in this segment.

 

[pharoahhalfdead]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Why is it only price gouging when AMD's prices are higher due to lack of competition? nVidia has done the exact same thing in the past and would do it again if they were in AMD's position now.[/citation]

It's not only AMD, Nvidia is just as guilty. But for next gen Gpu's AMD has the monopoly going on so they're in the position to take advantage of the current market. If the script was flipped and Nvidia was in AMD's position, I have no doubts that Nvidia would do the same thang. Look how long it took to drop the price of th GTX 580. It wasn't until the 680 came out that they decided to drop the price.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]Hatsoon[/nom]By the time Nvidia's mid range is out, the HD 8000 series will (probably) be right around the corner.[/citation]It's almost like NVidia is Bulldozering it's Kepler line. If Bulldozer had seen a paper launch in January 2010, it wouldn't have been that terrible. Kepler might not mean much if they can't get reasonable production quantities until Q4 2012 when Radeon 8000 drops.

Good thing AMD does a better job and keeping on schedule with its GPU line than its CPU line. At least it stays competitive on that front.

On a side note, what comes after "Southern Islands"? "Eastern Islands"? Because I could go for Easter Island, Sri Lanka, Borneo and Bali chips. WTF is Pitcairn? (Also, I looked it up and I'm aware that "Sea Islands" is next.)

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]supall[/nom]And here I was hoping for an HD7800 under the $300 price-point. Doesn't look like that's going to happen. At these prices, it would be better to get the 7950 or even 7970.[/citation]7850 typically ranges from $240-270. I'd say that's under $300, and it offers better price/performance than the 7900 series.[citation][nom]sanirudh[/nom]I can wait till Q3. Lets hope 560Ti/6870 prices drop by then. I don't think I can afford the 660 Ti when it comes out - assuming its the 6xx series counterpart of the 560 Ti. Till then its good ol' HD2000 for me.[/citation]Roughly $170 for a 6870 right now. I'd say that's not bad, it's quite a bit cheaper than 560Ti. If it's still too much, consider 6850 is only around $140 now.[citation][nom]cumi2k4[/nom]there goes my near-future upgrade plan... guess i'll stick with ole' gtx260 for now....[/citation]Nvidia only then? I consider em both when ready to buy, myself. Right now they have the high end, but they're not quite as competitive in the mid- and low-range at the moment.

 

[Guest]

MOTHER TRUCKER! I've been waiting for this card for ages! My stupid 5770 has been giving me headaches with its noise and heat issues.