GTX 480/470 Discussion Thread.

[AMW1011]

I figured I would start this thread since someone has to.

We have seen 3 good reviews (there are others, but they are done poorly):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480,2585.html
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783

Summary:
They all have similar conclusions and performance results. The GTX 480 is 10-15% faster than the 5870 on average. The GTX 470 is only about 5% slower than the 5870 on average. Both cards gain a respective lead of about 10% when heavy tessellation is being used, and I mean heavy. The GTX 480 is the single most power hungry card on the market, even a little more so than the GTX 295. The GTX 470 is a bit better at a slightly higher power consumption than the 5870. Both cards run ridiculously hot, in excess of 90-95c but have very nice, quiet coolers that can have their fans turned up to keep the temps in the 80s with minimal noise increase. Neither overclock as well as the 5870 or 5850, but they come close and with voltage modification might be on-par, though the thermals are still a problem. The GTX 480 is priced at $500 which accounts for a large "high-end" price premium, while the GTX 470 is $350. The BETA drivers are good, not one reviewer ran into a problem and the SLI scaling seems pretty tight so they are pretty well supported, but may not get much of a boost with future drivers.

I think that summarizes everything, now what's your opinions on these cards?

My opinion:

While not a bad card, the GTX 480 is not priced the greatest It has a full $80-$100, at first glance, it isn't bad for being the fastest single-GPU card on the market. However, when you enter the power consumption, heat, and less overclock-ability than the competition, though slight, it really can't afford such a premium. I think the GTX 480 would be a good card at $450, a great card at $400 (right beside the 5870).

The GTX 470 on the other hand, is a different story. It's power consumption, while still behind the competition, is a good deal more palatable. It also provides very similar performance as the 5870 for $50 less. With the 5870 at $400, it is hard to recommend over the $50 cheaper and very similar performing GTX 470, unless the power consumption and heat are major factors. All in all, I think the GTX 470 is a great card and a damn good deal.

I am excited to see what ATI does now. The 2GB variant of the 5870 likely won't match the GTX 480, but if it comes in at $450 or less it should come close enough to make it a far better deal than the GTX 480.

Also, the 5970 is unbeaten and is the undisputed fastest card on the market now. When the 512 SP variant of Fermi (GTX 490 or w/e) comes out, assuming it does, it will likely come close or beat the 5970. However, ATI may still have options, though we shall see how that pans out.

All in all, I'm content with the GTX 480 and impressed with the GTX 470, but neither are game changers and both are very late. At the end of the day, they are much better cards than I had expected them being.

 

[jennyh]

Also yeah, some of the results are so different it looks unbelievable.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there was something random happening in the fermi architecture that is wildly affecting benchmark results.

 

[OvrClkr]

ATM I am not trusting Anand, nor any other website. i will see for myself and then decide.

But i did have fun arguing with you [:jaydeejohn:5] , hehe

 

[notty22]

Also yeah, some of the results are so different it looks unbelievable.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there was something random happening in the fermi architecture that is wildly affecting benchmark results.

face palm/ Now you sound desperate. you mean like grey screening, dual monitor flickering., Vertical striping and the need to raise 2d clocks, defeating idle power mode ?

edit: In the end though, the GeForce GTX 480 is a graphics card that kicks ass, it is without doubt the fastest single GPU based graphics card on the block. The performance is grand and impressive and well, it's just a sick card to play all modern games with at any resolution or image quality preference.
Even so, when we tally up the results out of all titles tested, the GeForce GTX 480 wins nearly everywhere except in Anno 1404 and ironically 3DMark Vantage. There are scenarios where the GTX 480 is very close to the 5870, but there are also scenarios where the GTX 480 completely and utterly kicks the Radeon HD 5870 in the proverbial nuts.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/35

 

[jennyh]

Yes and if you check the benchmarks I posted earlier in the thread, it's clear that the 5870 beats the 480 quite easily in some benchmarks too.

Simple fact is, it's a pathetic card. They had to put industrial strength cooling on it and it still is one of the hottest cards ever. Anand said two in SLI were the most power hungry cards he'd ever tested.

It gets owned in every game by a cooler, quieter and less power hungry card in the 5970. All ATI has to do is drop the price on the 5970 and Nvidia will once again have nothing even remotely worth buying.

 

[goldenchild]

Yes and if you check the benchmarks I posted earlier in the thread, it's clear that the 5870 beats the 480 quite easily in some benchmarks too.

Simple fact is, it's a pathetic card. They had to put industrial strength cooling on it and it still is one of the hottest cards ever. Anand said two in SLI were the most power hungry cards he'd ever tested.

It gets owned in every game by a cooler, quieter and less power hungry card in the 5970. All ATI has to do is drop the price on the 5970 and Nvidia will once again have nothing even remotely worth buying.

I dont think comparing the 480 to the 5970 is a very good argument. You know the 5970 is a dual gpu right? And the interesting thing that the fermi shows is it takes less of a performance hit while turning AA on. Dont know why you want nvidia to fail so much..... personally i hope it brings prices down so i can buy a 5850.

 

[jennyh]

So what does being a dual gpu somehow stop it from running games or something?

Check this for a laugh - scroll down to the 2nd benchmark, there goes your AA argument.

5770 beats the 480 in Stalker :lol:

 

[EXT64]

Fermi looks pretty decent. We have still yet to see how many they can get to the market (and how fast).

 

[goldenchild]

So what does being a dual gpu somehow stop it from running games or something?

Check this for a laugh - scroll down to the 2nd benchmark, there goes your AA argument.

5770 beats the 480 in Stalker :lol:

I cant believe i have to explain this but ok..........if you take 2 gpu's and put it on 1 board, I dont care if its ati or nvidia, it will beat a single gpu. I know mind blowing right. And I am not trying to argue, I am not loyal to any company, I will buy what ever i feel is the bect price/performance. That link you posted must be translated from another site or something. Seeing % doesnt really mean much to me.. i cant read that and ill trust the reviews on this site over some one that i have never heard of.

 

[saint19]

I cant believe i have to explain this but ok..........if you take 2 gpu's and put it on 1 board, I dont care if its ati or nvidia, it will beat a single gpu. I know mind blowing right. And I am not trying to argue, I am not loyal to any company, I will buy what ever i feel is the bect price/performance. That link you posted must be translated from another site or something. Seeing % doesnt really mean much to me.. i cant read that and ill trust the reviews on this site over some one that i have never heard of.

Not always is true

 

[goldenchild]

^Not always true.

im curious. if we are talking same generation of cards, what single gpu has beat a dual gpu.

 

[wh3resmycar]

This is a *disaster*. Why would you buy a 470 instead of a 5850? Why??? There is *no good reason at all* to do that, except you want to be fleeced by Nvidia.

insane man-crush on jen hsun huang.

if indeed somebody buys a 470 over a 5850, he's the dumbest guy ever. period.

its nostalgic, i remember how one certain fanboy here bought a 3850 over a 9600gt. too bad the dingo doesnt post here anymore.

 

[wh3resmycar]

a bit off-topic.

if anand's is biased towards amd, how the f*** do they get bashed as well when covering intel benchies?

they only take gpu-money from amd but cant take cpu-money from amd??

 

[OvrClkr]

This is from Benchmark Reviews :

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=480&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=16

Our performance rating considers how effective the GeForce GTX480 DirectX-11 video card performs against competing products from both ATI and NVIDIA. While it's not easy to nail-down exact ratios because of driver and game optimizations, the GeForce GTX480 consistently outperformed the ATI Radeon HD5870 and establishes itself as the most powerful single-unit graphics card available. Tested on the unbiased 3dMark Vantage DX10 benchmark, GeForce GTX480 improves upon the GTX285 by nearly 61% at 1920x1200, and outperforms the Radeon HD5870 by 10%. When BattleForge calls high-strain SSAO into action, NVIDIA's GTX480 demonstrates how well Fermi is suited for DX11... improving upon the GeForce GTX285 by nearly 249% while trumping ATI's best single-GPU Radeon HD5870 by 61%. The GeForce GTX480 also proved itself a worthy adversary for the dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD5970; beating it in our Resident Evil 5, Far Cry 2, and BattleForge tests.

Anand has the GTX 480 trailing the 5870 by 11%

 

[JJLD]

Man, it is pretty disappointing launch overall...I am just glad I bought 5870 at launch instead of waiting 6 more months to get this heating monster. Performance is OK, but it is just too hot.

 

[sabot00]

This is from Benchmark Reviews :

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=480&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=16

Our performance rating considers how effective the GeForce GTX480 DirectX-11 video card performs against competing products from both ATI and NVIDIA. While it's not easy to nail-down exact ratios because of driver and game optimizations, the GeForce GTX480 consistently outperformed the ATI Radeon HD5870 and establishes itself as the most powerful single-unit graphics card available. Tested on the unbiased 3dMark Vantage DX10 benchmark, GeForce GTX480 improves upon the GTX285 by nearly 61% at 1920x1200, and outperforms the Radeon HD5870 by 10%. When BattleForge calls high-strain SSAO into action, NVIDIA's GTX480 demonstrates how well Fermi is suited for DX11... improving upon the GeForce GTX285 by nearly 249% while trumping ATI's best single-GPU Radeon HD5870 by 61%. The GeForce GTX480 also proved itself a worthy adversary for the dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD5970; beating it in our Resident Evil 5, Far Cry 2, and BattleForge tests.

Anand has the GTX 480 trailing the 5870 by 11%

WTF is "benchmarkreviews"?
To me: Anand>>>>>>>>>Random Retard Website

The site says: "NVIDIA's GTX480 demonstrates how well Fermi is suited for DX11... improving upon the GeForce GTX285 by nearly 249%"
How the heck? If nVidia wants to show Fermi is suited for DX11 they need to compare it to other DX11 hardware (5000 series), by comparing it to the GTX 285 you are also comparing DX10 to DX11, with 2 variables you can't determine anything.

You yourself said that 5830 performing on par with a GTX 480 is "implausible", I say the GTX 480 beating the 5970 is BS.

Seriously, I'm just glad I'm right, that you can cook bacon on the GTX 480's BBQ grill.

 

[OvrClkr]

you can cook turkey legs also, Fermi comes with the BBQ'ing tools =)

Im getin the XFX version that comes with the new and improved stainless steel set 😱

+

 

[Dekasav]

Overall, I'd say that GTX 480 is disappointing, but not terrible. It comes out about 10% faster than the HD 5870, at 20% higher cost. Considering it's just coming out, I'd bet it'll drop $50 or by May, making price/performance roughly equal. Its heat and power consumption aren't great, but I'd say they're largely offset by PhysX and CUDA (only a few people care about either, so Nvidia loses some and wins some).

Not terrible, but, not impressive, especially if you consider people have been running HD 5800's for ~7 months.

Also, I'd want to say, a full 512-core Fermi won't touch the HD 5970. The difference between a 512 and the current 480 will be less than the difference between GTX 480 & 470 (core difference is the same, but frequency probably won't/can't rise on a full 512 core in comparison to the GTX 480), and the HD 5970 stomps the GTX 480.

 

[dgre005]

As previous posters have said, I'm rather confused about the GTX 470 vs 5870...how do you reckon the two compare in terms of price/performance (without taking into consideration TDP)? Different websites seem to be reporting different benchmarks; there are benchmarks where GTX470 is almost equal to the 5870...I'd be interested in the 470 if it's performance was almost equal to that of the 5870.

 

[OvrClkr]

Nobody said anything about Fermi beating the 5970, whoever even thought about that was trolling in their own mind. Fermi is supposed to be compared to the 5870 as the 470 is to the 5850. Yes, fermi is hot and it consumes more power but for the last 4-5 months there has been an 80% of enthusiasts/gamers/average joe saying that fermi would never be able to touch the 5870 while the other 20% including ME had high hopes for Fermi. Why? Because in the end it is all about saving a buck or two on a Tier 1 GPU while having competitive options to choose from. I don't understand why all the hate...

 

[dgre005]

It's more like disappointment rather than hate...Fermi should have offered much more, especially considering the 6 month delay. GTX480 should have at least beaten GTX295, when obviously it hasn't.

 

[OvrClkr]

It's more like disappointment rather than hate...Fermi should have offered much more, especially considering the 6 month delay. GTX480 should have at least beaten GTX295, when obviously it hasn't.

It's hate and a bit of "not" hate since they want bang 4 buck GPU's also, its like they contradict themselves at the same time, very confusing to be honest.

Look NV screwed up, took too long to get the GPU out but at least we have something, we also have not seen what mature drivers+512 shaders can do.

 

[dgre005]

I'm looking forward to better drivers...I'm hoping that GTX 470 can offer 5870-like performance at a lower price (the extra 280mb memory would be a bonus). Otherwise I'll opt for the 5870 as an upgrade froma 512mb 4850...

 

[MarkG]

I cant believe i have to explain this but ok..........if you take 2 gpu's and put it on 1 board, I dont care if its ati or nvidia, it will beat a single gpu.

You have to explain it because it's nonsense; there's no reason why a single GPU shouldn't beat a dual-GPU card using chips that are a generation older... in fact, given the numerous inefficiencies of dual-GPU rendering I'd be pretty shocked if the next-generation single GPU couldn't beat the previous dual-GPU cards. And that's particularly true when it's a bloated, power-sucking monster like Fermi.

Unfortunately my video editing software only officially supports Nvidia cards so I guess I'll be putting off my Windows PC upgrade until next year now.

 

[Maziar]

Guys we have many threads about GTX 480/470 reviews and discussions,since one of them is stickied then let's post in that topic:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/284770-33-gtx480-gtx470-reviews-discussion
Thanks