Sources close to Nvidia believe that ATI is not shipping enough Radeon HD 5xx0 series cards to make any big impact on the intended market. Nvidia's pride is hurt as ATI is the fastest kid on the block, but Nvidia still insists that its sales are good and that it sells everything it has.

It appears that Nvidia had sold all its old chips and because it wants to clear inventories before Fermi comes out, it plans to keep quiet until the launch date. It is important to keep in mind that Nvidia and ATI are both ordering from TSMC and both firms know many wafers the other gets.

Nvidia also faces major shortages of its 55nm GT200b cards, but the supply and sales of 40nm Geforce GT 240 are showing in quite a few pre-holiday details, at least in European OEM sales numbers. We have also learned that Nvidia's 40nm mobile chip sales are doing fine at this point. 

Part of the story is that Nvidia claims ATI is facing the shortages. However, judging by the company's already announced Fermi spec, if it can bring good quantities at the right clock speeds, then Fermi GF100 may just lever it the winning hand. However, this would only happen in January 2010 if Fermi doesn't get delayed any further.