VR-Zone

It is 13th April, and our worst fears seem to be coming true. While the GTX 470/480 cards are listed in most e-tail stores, very few, if any, have any stocks at this point. Some e-tailers did get a small quantity, which were sold out within minutes as expected. Fudzilla reports that Nvidia AIC partners have told them they received four times less cards than they pre-sold to distributors and (r)etailers.

This means that the e-tailers must have been expecting four times the quantity, and some may even have accepted pre-orders for such quantity, which could only lead to more confusion and chaos.

The next batch of GTX 400 cards hits sometime in May, but is also expected to be in relatively limited quantities. Fudzilla suggests that the third batch is several months away, and should be ready only by the time ATI releases or are about to release their refresh/next-generation products. Even at that time, no one really knows what quantities of GTX 470/480 will be available, or if they will at all be competitive against ATI's new products.

Based on all evidence we have seen thus far, all those horror stories (regarding yield, etc.) do seem to be true - there are hardly any Geforce GTX 470/480 cards out there, and it is likely to stay this way for a long time. Like we have been saying since November last year, we suggest not holding your breath out for Fermi.

Nvidia's GF104 mainstream cards are scheduled to release sometime this summer, and should be available in much greater quantities.

Reference: Fudzilla