Olin Coles writes: "Very recently NVIDIA launched their Fermi-based GF100 video cards to websites like Benchmark Reviews for evaluation. While the graphics performance was best-in-class, the GTX-480 engineering samples tested by reviewers generally ran hot, consumed plenty of power, and suffered from a noisy blower fan. For most PC gamers and hardware enthusiasts the final verdict was delivered then and there, long before the retail market even received its first packaged product. So much has changed, and yet so much remains the same. That's the best way to describe my experience with the first retail-available GeForce GTX 480 graphics card."