NVIDIA Fermi Coming March 2010 Tips Insider

We knew that NVIDIA's Fermi next-gen graphics chipset wouldn't make an appearance at CES 2010 last week, but apparently rumors that the 40nm GPU would start hitting shelves come March 2010 are pretty accurate.  Tom's Hardware have heard from an NVIDIA partner that Fermi production will kick off in mid-February, with "low quantities" available for retail the following month.

NVIDIA aren't apparently expecting any huge yield on their chips, but then again that's pretty much par for the industry right now.  TH reckons that ATI are seeing a mere 4-percent yield on their rival Radeon HD 5800 chips, and the source suggests that NVIDIA's yield will be low but competitive with that.

Fermi will be NVIDIA's first DirectX 11 GPU, with the initial chips expected to be the Fermi-GF100, using GDDR5 memory.  Meanwhile NVIDIA are believed to be readying a GF104 version for Q2 2010 to target the high-end market with its GeForce GTX295/285/275/260 range.

[via PC Launches]