Fermi breaks the mould

Nvidia changes naming scheme - again!

Nvidia has just broken its naming scheme for its much talked about but not yet seen Fermi cards.

The Green Goblin apparently has decided that it has used and abused its 300 series model names a little too much.

While the good press outlets of the world were waiting for an embargo on the news for some time tonight, Nvidia announced its first two Fermi product model numbers on Twitter.

It seems that it thinks there is no point to having any high-end 300 series cards, and will push its Fermi products into the 400 series instead.

We can't say we blame it. After word got out that Nvidia's 300 series would be associated with old cards that could not run Direct X11, the brand for that range of model names was pretty much poisoned.

Besides if its next graphics cards have bigger numbers they must be better and more value for money, right?
The first two cards based on Nvidia's GF100 chip will be called the GeForce GTX 480 and the GTX 470.

This is just the latest in a long string of micro-information releases on Fermi. Nvidia recently showed us the Fermi architecture, sort of, in block diagrams.

But what we don't know yet are more important things like power consumption and clock speeds. Oh well, never mind.

When are they coming out? Pick a number, multiply it by your hat size and then divide it by your shoe size, and you might be close. Nvidia's graphics card manufacturing partners have all stopped talking about dates, but word on the street is that it will be after CeBIT, sometime, maybe.