GeForce 400 series
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The GeForce 400 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, serving as the introduction of the Fermi microarchitecture. Its release was originally slated in November 2009, however, after delays, it was released on March 26, 2010, with availability following in April 2010.
The GeForce GTX 480, released in 2010 as the flagship unit of the 400 series. This particular model manufactured by NVIDIA board-partner, ASUS.
GTX 480 PCB and die
A GTX480 within a PC
Fermi (microarchitecture)
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Fermi is the codename for a graphics processing unit (GPU) microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, first released to retail in April 2010, as the successor to the Tesla microarchitecture. It was the primary microarchitecture used in the GeForce 400 series and 500 series. All desktop Fermi GPUs were manufactured in 40nm, mobile Fermi GPUs in 40nm and 28nm. Fermi is the oldest microarchitecture from Nvidia that receives support for Microsoft's rendering API Direct3D 12 feature_level 11.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 of the GeForce 500-line of graphics-cards, was the final major iteration featuring the Fermi microarchitecture (GF110-351-A1).
Photo of Enrico Fermi, eponym of architecture
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 of the GeForce 400-line of graphics-cards; the first iteration to feature the Fermi micro-architecture (GF100-375-A3).
Die shot of the GF100 GPU found inside GeForce GTX 470 cards