ShaneBaxtor.com

If you find yourself wanting to get into the GTX 400 series fun but disappointed with the high price tag of the current top two models good news is just around the corner. Well to be more precise good news is in the paragraph below but owning one is just around the corner.

The GTX 465 which some people thought would be known as the GTX 460 is due to come out on the 1st of June. Details on the model are a bit sketchy at the moment with very little known. What I can tell you thought is that stock doesn’t look like it’s going to be an issue.

With the model still weeks away we’ve been told by multiple manufacteres that they already have stock and samples will be ready to ship this week.

What this means is that we’ll probably start seeing leaked results show up in the next week but please remember with so long before the official launch date a new driver helping performance shouldn’t be far off. I know once I get mine it won’t be slid into the testbed till closer to launch just to make sure we’re using the most up to date driver.

I’m about to jump on a con call with NVIDIA but I just got the usual brief about the con call and it cleraly says:

“NDA embargo is 7:01PM EST 3/26 (=10:01AM Sydney 3/27). No leaking!”

So it looks like everything is good to go on the 26th of March.

It’s pretty safe to assume though that the information regarding the card hitting retail on April 9th is still correct.

Originally the Eyefinity6 card should’ve been launching in the next 24 hours but it seems like some issues with the software for 6 monitor support caused a delay. Well it seems like a week of date has been set with a exact date being known probably within the week.

To be honest it doesn’t look good with it coming in at the week starting March 29. This would put it right in the middle of GTX 400 series coverage from NVIDIA. We’re not sure how the NVIDIA card is going to perform at the moment but no doubt this is what people are going to be interested in.

On the other hand ATI may have a lot of confidence in their product and want it compared to the GTX 400 series. There’s no denying that we’ve wanted a 2GB version of the HD 5870 from launch day and people making use of multiple monitors are going to enjoy the extra memory that’s going to be available.

Samples should be going out next week though so as always keep an eye out on TT for a review and if anything changes in regards to the NDA I’ll let you know. It’s possible that ATI might decide to push it slightly forward before the Green Team has it’s day.

When it came to naming this piece I was fighting with myself; I didn’t want to use the word breaking for the simple reason that the reviews I’ve done over the years that have been released before an NDA lifted we hadn’t signed an NDA.

Over the years we’ve released quite a few reviews before the NDA date for the simple reason we didn’t sign an actual NDA. We have a great relationship with companies like Gigabyte, Sapphire, Galaxy to name just a few but you have to be in contact with NVIDIA, Intel, AMD and what was then ATI.

The best way to get in contact with the big boys is for them to notice you, a company like Intel was never an issue. If a new product was coming we had a CPU and if need be a motherboard to go with it, VGA cards on the other hand where a bit hit and miss, 90% of the time we got the sample before NDA but other times we didn’t because NVIDIA or ATI hadn’t said to particular companies make sure TweakTown get a sample.

It was time to play ball; the 9000 series from NVIDIA was what started a small but strong line of early released graphics cards.

It all started with the review of the Galaxy 9600 GT. We released the review on the 15th of February 2008; the date the NDA lifted was the 21st. Hey we didn’t break any NDA, we didn’t have an NDA and it was time to get noticed.

This review was linked everywhere; and when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. We pissed a lot of people off with this review, the most obvious was Galaxy in which this was the last item we received from them for a long time; actually I remember a legal letter getting sent to the boss from them. Of course they didn’t have a leg to stand on since we hadn’t even talked about an NDA with the company and of course NVIDIA wasn’t in contact with us so we didn’t have a wide spread NDA that covered the model be it from any brand.

That review really ruffled some feathers though; so what happened? We got black listed! What’s that mean. Well it means that NVIDIA tell companies to not send any NVIDIA products to the site. It’s TweakTown though, and it only takes one company to say we’re not missing out on a review from TweakTown, in turn another company goes well it’s a bit unfair that there NV card gets reviewed and not ours so we’re also sending over a product.

So what happened? NV had us black listed wouldn’t talk to us and we end up with a 9800 GX2 before NDA date. So I did what I did best, busted out a review ASAP and got it online, this time the 9800 GX2 was published on TweakTown March 15th 2008, 3 days before the NDA was lifted. Boy did that drive people crazy, here you are with a site black listed by a chip manufacturer and they’re still releasing reviews of products before they’re even suppose too.

The problem was only 10 days later on the 25th of March 2008 before anything was able to really happen about that review we posted the 9800 GTX review which wasn’t suppose to get released until April 1st 2008.

While NVIDIA continued to be unhappy with us we formed a great relationship with ATI at this point. They saw what we were doing and knew that if you can’t beat them join them. Of course NDAs came through for their products, we got briefed on all the important information before hand and we’ve now been working with them for years. We deal with a number of ATI staff ranging from Australia to ASIA and the USA, we deal from PR people to product managers and we’re kept in the loop on everything important.

NVIDIA on the other hand is still a bit hit and miss, I’ve said that NVIDIA have a certain snobbishness that comes across when you talk to them and I don’t begrudge them for that, they’re one of the largest companies in this industry and if you can’t be proud of the company you work for then you truly can’t be happy. It’s probably the same reason people get a similar feel from me, I’m proud I work for TweakTown, I’ve worked at a few places before and I couldn’t care less about them; TweakTown is different though and if I come across as arrogant sometimes in regards to how I talk about the site it’s only because I’m proud I work there and some of the staff are not only great colleagues but my best friends.

NVIDIA don’t promise us anything; if I ask if we’ll get a GTX 470 and GTX 480 sample they won’t give me an answer, I’m sure we will as we deal with a lot of NV partners but everyone I speak to is worried about the cost of the product and the supply so again they don’t want to promise anything.

These days we talk to NVIDIA a little, we get information but they seem to want to update me on stupid ION technology something I don’t give a crap about instead of the GTX 400 series something I do give a crap about.

While there’s no real point to this whole post it just gives you an idea of another aspect of what I’ve done over the years and an understanding of why I did it. I hope you enjoyed it and learnt something else about the industry because to be honest reminiscing has bought a chuckle thinking about the ol’ days.

It comes as no surprise that I wake up this morning to word that a new date for the HD 5830 was set, the 18th date, while I feel should be possible for ATI wasn’t going to fly for long due to the fact that it fell straight in the middle of Chinese New Year.

Now if there was a problem; getting a hold of a US ATI representative wasn’t going to be too much trouble but getting any information out of Asia was going to be extremely hard. So what I’m now hearing is the week of the 22nd.

This would pretty much be spot on with what I thought, a release date on the 26th or there about. The most important thing for ATI is that the model comes out before NVIDIA open the flood gates. Chinese New Year starts at the end of next week so there’s not going to be much time for the date to jump around again.

Fingers crossed that this date is locked in internally and we see it before February comes to a close. As always if anything new comes in about this model we’ll keep you updated including NDA papers with a date and time.

In some typical snooping around I’ve managed to get a date on what should be the HD 5830s launch, at the moment I’m currently hearing the 18th of February, there’s no reason why it should take any longer to come out as the issue with the HD 5830 regarding the ASIC was jumped on quickly and didn’t seem to be all that serious.

With that said it’s possible this date could get moved around slightly with it falling in the middle of Chinese New Year, unless companies have samples to ship out by the 12th it’s possible that the date could get pushed back to the 26th or even later due to Chinese New Year falling between the 14th and 21st of February.

The biggest thing for ATI is that the card launches before the new GTX 400 series, if they don’t the green light from the release of the new models is going to be too bright for the HD 5830 to combat and the model will fall in between the middle of GTX 400 series content on websites all over.

As always if anything chances we’ll let you know, if the Feb 18th is true that means that NDA paper work should be showing up soon, once we have that we’ll have a locked in date for the model like we did with the HD 5400 and HD 5500 models.

While we wait for NVIDIA to release the exciting end of its new product line up; read not GT 220 and GT 240 end. ATI are finishing off the other end with the launch of some new models in February which include the HD 5570 and HD 5450.

I mentioned in December that the HD 5400, HD 5500 and HD 5600 where all due out January 7th, as that date got closer though it was clear this wasn’t going to happen, instead the HD 5600 launched not long after the original date while the HD 5400 and HD 5500 series which where suppose to launch at CES got pushed back to an unknown date.

The good news though is that today I’ve received NDA dates for the new series, the HD 5450 is ready to ship as of today, reviews will be going live on February 4th. The HD 5570 will ship a day or two later and it’s launch date has been set for February 9th.

As for the HD 5830 a January 5th date is extremely unlikely now as I mentioned last week since no company has samples ready. When we do get more information on the model though I’ll be sure to let you know.

For now though some more budget HD 5000 series cards are going to have to do, keep an eye out in this week’s *Knock Knock* Delivery post to see if our samples have arrived. If anything changes I’ll be sure to let you know and don’t forget when the launch is lifted you’ll be able to see my reviews over at TweakTown.com.

Image Note: Above image is leaked HD 5400 image from the middle of January. Can’t confirm nor deny this is what it looks like.