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Nvidia Fakes Fermi Boards At GPU Tech Conference
fragMasterFlash writes with this excerpt from SemiAccurate:
'In a really pathetic display, Nvidia actually faked the introduction of its latest video card, because it simply doesn't have boards to show. Why? Because it didn't get enough parts to properly bring them up, much less make demo boards. ... Notice that the three screws that hold the end plate on are, well, generic wood screws. Large flat -head Phillips screws. Home Depot-grade screws that don't even sit flush. If a card is real, you hold it on with the bolts on either side of the DVI connector. Go look at any GPU you have; do you see wood screws that don't mount flush or DVI flanking bolts? ... If you look at the back of the fake Fermi, [from this PC Watch picture], you can see that the expected DVI connector wires are not there, just solder-filled holes. No stubs, no tool marks from where they would be cut out. Basically, the DVI port isn't connected to anything with solder, so they had to use screws on the plate."
Little update found on this article: http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15798/34/
Those do not look like wood screws to me. not even close. They appear way too small and they dont appear to be counter sunk. Go to lowes and see if you can find any wood screws that match. They do remind me of the ones used to mount motherboards or for mounting 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 drives. And my geforce 7800 gtx has those stand offs with both dvi connectors. I didnt realize that was novel.
It wasn't described as a mock up, but as a real working Fermi board.
NVIDIA are quite a way behind in the next generation race (time-wise, not tech-wise), and they had to try and make it look like they were a month or two away from having product availability. This fakery just makes the late Q1 2010 rumours sound more likely...
The end of the motherboard was roughly dremmelled off to match the fan enclosure (that is surely the designed fan enclosure for the card). The power connectors were glued on, and didn't match the solder pads for said connectors (indeed one was mostly sawed off).
Prototype? No. This card can't work.
Blatant fake presented as a working board? Yes.
Back-pedalling and claiming it is a mock up after the fact? Yes.
You don't generally call attention to the fact that a mock-up is, in fact, a mock-up. That would defeat the purpose of having it in the first place. They are still going to produce real cards, showing a mock-up doesn't negate that fact. As was said earlier, the article is fanboy crap.
Shocker, a Slashdot author unfamiliar with screwing.
Notice the source. The site semi accurate is run by a guy, Charlie Demerjian, who was fired from The Inquirer for a number of reasons, including making shit up. In particular, this guy has it in for nVidia. I don't remember the details of why he has it in for them, I think they cut him out of the information loop because he leaked some info he wasn't supposed to. Regardless, he hates nVidia and does everything he can to make them look bad. In his case, that includes just straight out making shit up.
So that's why he's making such a big deal of this being a fake. He wants it to be fake because, well I dunno, I guess that is somehow a "win" in his mind.
Personally I find it funny since companies do mockups for demonstrations all the time. Wouldn't at all surprise me if the card he was holding was such a mockup.
At any rate as with most things in life, you want to check sources, and on the Internet that is doubly true. Some people have an agenda to push and will... modify, to put it mildly, the truth to suit their needs. I though we'd all be well aware of that after all the political BS of recent years :P.
OK. He got the screws wrong. Big deal. Try reading the article.
Some of the things NVidia did on their "working board" include: covering the SLI connector, not having the DVI connector wires go through vias, place the PCI-E power connectors wrong from where the board shows they should be, cut off the end of the board with a saw right though where there was more stuff, have half the vents on the back of the card completely blocked...
This isn't just "they used the wrong screws", this is "total fake that couldn't possibly work". Saying it was a working board was a total lie.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Whoever modded this troll didn't read TFA. It is pure unadultered fanboy bullshit that shouldn't even qualify for the Slashdot idle section. The page is also littered with AMD/ATI ads. The article is the troll here.
The author has a grudge against nVidia. Read some of his past work paying close attention to how many times he has been wrong before.