There’s good news and bad news; the bad news is that the GTX 400 series has been pushed back to April 6th. The good news is that it’s only in reference to retail supply and not the actual NDA; so come the 26th of March we’ll all know what performance will be.

If you thought that you were going to pick one up retail that day though you where wrong, the original date for stock to be selling was the 29th but now it seems to be April 6th.

This morning we heard that NVIDIA had changed the strategy for sending samples; instead of partners sending them out NVIDIA are taking charge and sending out themselves. We’re not 100% sure why they’re doing this but it could be because NVIDIA doesn’t want any leaks on the results until the 26th. Quite often we see NVIDIA push a driver to us at the last minute and it’s possible that this could happen with the GTX 400 series.

If performance numbers come out on an older driver it’s possible that performance won’t be as good and in turn could seal the fate of the new series before it’s even officially released. Holding cards back from its partners though until launch means that it’s going to take a little longer for the cards to hit retail.

So while it’s not great news in the event you want to pick up a GTX 480 on the 26th it doesn’t change the fact that come 10 days time we’ll know how the model performs.