It's pretty evident that the strongest GeForce up to now, GTX480, isn't
too successful of a product. Yes, NVIDIA made the fastest single-GPU
product, but the price of that feat was considerable. Firstly, the card
was utterly late, since expectations had grown considerably in the six
months that preceded what would be the final release of Fermi.
Performance demonstrated by GTX480 was excellent, although somewhat
lower than expected, since all the hype around the card caused everyone
to expect a perfect card. Since the American company was struggling with
the 40 nm lithography at the time, the fact that they had designed the
most complex graphics chip ever, with three billion transistors, was
hardly a helpful one. Simply put, a few major problems surfaced. First
of all, the low starting yield, i.e. a low percentage of fully
functional chips per wafer automatically launched the price into the
heavens. Consumption was another problem, surpassing even the limits
imposed by NVIDIA. High consumption also means high levels of heat.
NVIDIA did manage to conceal this fact considerably, though, by
installing a referent cooler with such mass, number of heatpipes and fan
size, that it would make even certain hair dryers shy away. @ InsideHW
