In a recent presentation by AMD, the company referred to its chief competitor Nvidia’s forthcoming GPU Fermi as a “paper dragon”.
While many forecasters have voiced the opinion that Fermi will not even target gamers, and will be used to perform more workstation orientated tasks, Nvidia maintains that it will be faster in gaming than AMD’s HD 5870.
This is of little consequence right now however, because while Fermi is still in development, AMD is already selling HD 5870s and HD 5850s.
According to the AMD presentation, the HD 5870 is more powerful than Fermi, on paper at least. This however does not necessarily mean that the HD 5870 will be faster in real world applications than Fermi.
While AMD is confident that its card is faster than Nvidia’s, its confidence is based on abstract specifications. Nvidia, on the other hand, has the advantage of being able to do real world tests and benchmarking on the HD 5870 against Fermi.
The question then, is would Nvidia claim that its card is faster, knowing that this is not the case? This tactic is risky and could backfire should Nvidia’s claims prove false come launch day.
It is important to remember that on paper, the HD 5870 boasts roughly double the performance specs as its own HD 4870. In gaming however, this is not quite the case.
While analysts and enthusiast continue to trade conjecture as to the impact Fermi will have on the graphics card market, AMD continues to see strong sales on its brand new GPU series.
Discuss Nvidia’s Fermi in the forums
Loading ...
