nVidia GT430 on sale date revealed by KitGuru

Unlike weaker publications, KitGuru has no problem in planting its predictions as solid flags in cyber space. Sure, we stand to be corrected if there are errors, but we have no problem with that as we honestly believe we're right way more times than we're wrong. The latest flag has a made-up/composite nVidia GT430 Fermi card on it and we think we know when it will land (the card and predictions are real, even if the card isn't. Yet).

While the GTX460 was a roaring success and seemed to catch AMD a little by surprise with its last minute $30 price reduction, there has been no such luck for the GTS450. Having learnt very quickly from the 460, AMD prepared a welcoming committee of price changes for the GTS450 and it seems to be selling slower than anticipated.

Given that the Radeon 6000 series is looming large, this could be an issue for nVidia. Major manufacturers like TSMC require solid orders many months in advance. Right now there must be tons of wafers, with Jen Hsun's name on them, working their way through the processes in Taiwan. Right now, they can be sold for good money – replenishing the coffers. However, if the next generation of AMD cards comes through and performs well, then existing 460/450 wafers could end up choking the channel – needing more price cuts. We'll monitor the situation closely and report back.

That's a potential downside to the year end shipments for nVidia, but they have a strong upside as well. The sun is shining on the GT430 production line and cards are being pre-assembled as KitGuru types.

Using the brand new, low cost, easy to make GF108 processor, there will be 2 distinct variants of this card, aiming at different price points:-

1. 75w part with 128-bit GDDR5 memory, which we expect to retail around £89
2. 60w version with a 128-bit interface for cheap DDR3 memory. This should retail around £69

We expect sensible performance from both cards, but the cheaper version will die if you enable Anti-Aliasing.

Overall, Jen Hsun Huang, CEO of nVidia, said that the idea of Fermi is to reduce computational times “From days to hours and from hours to minutes and from minutes to seconds”. From 11th October, that kind of time saving will be available to mortals with less than $100 to spend on DX11 graphics.

Given the way that printed magazines operate, you can expect to read this KitGuru exclusive story in the newsagent around Saturday 16th October.

KitGuru says: With the GT440 and 420 cards expected in November, this is a good time to be an nVidia fanbois on a budget. Not sure if you're going to get much more than you had with a 2xx series card at the same money, but the DX11 tick box must be worth something – right?

Squark/Ident below or in the KitGuru Forum.

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