Since the advent of the GT300/Fermi, rumour is becoming increasingly rife; it is suspected that nVidia's partners may be tempted to put a quicker end to the commercial life of the GTX 260, 275, and 285, owing to the expense involved in producing these chips.For comparison, the GTX 260 costs $170, as opposed to $159 for its more modern equivalent, the Radeon HD5770. nVidia would retain the low-range GT100/GT200 for their entry level market, then produce variations of the economical GT300/Fermi. This would reduce the number of SP, and enable nVidia to produce 40nm chips at a lesser cost.
For us mere mortals who are primarily concerned with folding, this is relatively good news, as we will benefit more quickly from the perks of the new GT300 architecture. nVidia is in no hurry to confirm the rumour, though; after all, they wouldn't mind shifting as many of the soon to be old-hat GTX 2xx series cards as possible over the Christmas holidays...
Source: VR-Zone
KaySL
On: 10/13/09
