Be careful.
It?s very fast for compute tasks, so if you?re doing that, it could be interesting. For gaming, it?s got a good minimum framerate, but it is not groundbreaking and ATi is in very close competition, with months of leadtime (and still better AF quality). Honestly I expected better for this delay, but that?s all it is; a delay, competing alongside ATi?s 5xxx series, not necessarily solidly ahead of them.
Also, it?s not finished?yield on TSMC 40G-GL is terrible, so they are paper launching and only a couple tens of thousand will be made of the first batch, I expect. Worse still, they can?t make enough complete GF100s to launch the full Fermi card; these are both cut?down; the 480 is NOT the top of the line, they actually can?t launch at the top, they can?t make enough of them well enough.
But even this cut?down Fermi is the hottest, loudest, hungriest single GPU card around. That silver finned bit is the top of a live, potentially 105°C (and probably 90°C) piped Heatsink of Doom?. Be careful if you touch this card?it will brand you. Seriously. Hook up some watercooling and you could make tea with it. (And it isn?t even fully enabled!) Run it in SLI and you will want aftermarket cooling somehow because you will be sucking well over 800 watts and really shouldn?t put them next to each other (but you may have to, depending on the motherboard).
Note no?one has even tried overclocking. Or re-enabling that disabled core (if it?s possible in software). Wouldn?t be surprised if the envelope is not only pushed, but already bulging on this one.
And why no DisplayPort? (We still have a Vsync? Where?s the dynamic update support from anyone, anyway?)
Makes me worry about the reliability. Bad yield on the process necessitating releasing a part with features disabled, hot temperatures, high power? I just don?t know. It doesn?t add up to an encouraging picture. If you want one, get a VERY good warranty on this puppy; don?t accept less than 3 years, and you definitely want the warranty to cover until you will replace it.
That said there?s no doubt it?s a good card alongside the top of ATi?s best. But it?s not a killer. And even if I had the cash, I would not want to be an early adopter on this one.
Read the reviews thoroughly first.