Though the official launch of graphics cards based on NVIDIA GF100 Fermi architecture is one month away, industry insiders have already reviewed the GTX480 and GTX470 video cards. So how are they? In one sentence I can say they don't deserve the hype NVIDIA has created over past couple of months. In fact they are "hot, buggy and far too slow."

The GTX480 has 512 shaders, 600MHz or 625MHz for the low or half clock, and 1200MHz or 1250MHz for the high or hot clock.

On the other hand the GTX470 has 448 shaders, and clocks are set at 625MHz and 1250MHz in both cases.

SemiAccurate reports, "the end result is that the GTX480 is simply not fast enough to deliver a resounding win in anything but the most contrived benchmark scenarios. It is well within range of a mildly upclocked HD5870, which is something that ATI can do pretty much on a whim. The GTX480 can barely beat the second fastest ATI card, and it doesn't have a chance at the top."

"GTX480 is too hot, too big, too slow, and lacks anything that would recommend it over a HD5870, much less the vastly faster HD5970. Nvidia is said to be producing only 5,000 to 8,000 of these cards, and it will lose money on each one. The architecture is wrong, and that is unfixable. The physical design is broken, and that is not fixable in any time frame that matters. When you don't have anything to show, spin. Nvidia is spinning faster than it ever has before."

[via SemiAccurate]