GTX480 / GTX470 Reviews and Discussion

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They are known to be biased towards the absolute best performance, and disregard price v. performance.

Regardless, I am not going to argue with you an waste my time so just look at the other reviews and notice that everyone else gets different results than HardOCP.
 
Why didnt they included the best games like Crysis Warhead, STALKER:Call Of Pripyat DX11?
Thats why toms and anand are more complete they cover most known games.

Haha AMW1011 is not banned yet? Isnt that the same guy who insulted som1 in a thread saying he had smelled&lived computers all his life and that he knows more than all toms readers? :heink: What happened to that thread mods?The poor guy got his thread closed and started a new one showing how AMW1011 was insulting him and rude to him. I guess if its a waste of time, why not go work more or fill some online surveys and make up web sites to make some $$ to Afforad That 470 lol haha I Found the thread where you deleted your comments, even though sadly, you cant edit som1 else post where he quoted you. :lol: I think mods should remove that for you? Their choice I think.

And now hes calling people a wast of time sigh :non:
 
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783&p=20

Anand doesn't seem to be getting different results, neither did THG.

Moving on, we have the GTX 470 to discuss. It’s not NVIDIA’s headliner so it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. With a price right between the 5850 and 5870, it delivers performance right where you’d expect it to be. At 5-10% slower than the 5870 on average, it’s actually a straightforward value proposition: you get 90-95% of the performance for around 87% of the price. It’s not a huge bargain, but it’s competitively priced against the 5870. Against the 5850 this is less true where it’s a mere 2-8% faster, but this isn’t unusual for cards above $300 – the best values are rarely found there. The 5850 is the bargain hunter’s card, otherwise if you can spend more pick a price and you’ll find your card. Just keep in mind that the GTX 470 is still going to be louder/hotter than any 5800 series card, so there are tradeoffs to make, and we imagine most people would err towards the side of the cooler Radeon cards.
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Some UK prices:

5850: £221 ($330)

5870: £310 ($461)

470: £310 ($461)

480: £445 ($663)

These are pre order / real prices.

Draw your own value conclusions. Personally I think ATI have the price/ performance advantage here, despite their inflated prices over recommended retail.
 
The thing that AMW1011 dont get is that the 470 is STILL a chip that is ~2xBigger and Coste More than 2x than a 5870 core to manifacture. I just hope and know that ATi can bring the 5870 prices to let say around 349$ as they can even price the 5870 at 299$ and Still making good profits. WoW Uk Prices are high 😱 lmao

470 is 132$ more than a 5850? I think its less here in the States thow
 
Hardware Canucks is a joke lol.

Check some of these comments out.

One of the reasons for these high temperatures is the fact that NVIDIA’s fan on this card doesn’t operate at all that high RPMs. When at idle, it is blissfully silent and never increases its speed past 64% when the card is at full load which also results in relatively quiet gaming performance.
Click to expand...

Relatively quiet? Who else is saying that about these cards? Nobody.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.
Click to expand...

Now just about everybody else was getting the 480 drawing more power than the 5970...but not hardware canucks. Testing at the wall doesn't give accurate power consumption? :pt1cable:

Very clear bribery/nvidia fanboyism at that site I'm afraid. I would seriously recommend ANY other review except that one.
 
I got a email from EVGA , they are making various models of both the new Nvidia cards. Water cooled (nice) ,super clocked, normal. And normal models , "marked for distribution" What caught my eye was those have a 2 year warranty, VS the other models having a lifetime warranty. ALL contingent on registering in 30 days.

OH and a cool T-shirt :)
http://www.evga.com/articles/00528/
 
Ya, I read on AnandTech , they recommend a Lifetime Warranty for ANY GTX480-470 cards considering the 95C Crysis temps for safety measures.

The water cooled version seems pretty at 750Mhz but the 650$ price tag is kinda high for what it represents.
 
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=329746

I collected as much info on these cards as I could in that thread, someone else made a 58xx thread on there a while back so I tried to do the same.

The 470/480 are priced basically where they should be in terms of performance; however, the 480 doesn't seem worth it to me at its current price, dropped down to <=$450USD MSRP and it would be a pretty good deal, as it stands now though, not so much. The 470 however, actually looks like a very enticing deal. $349 for one, versus $329 for a 5850 (in Canada). The 470 can be OC'd much better than a 480, still has all the same features, can almost match a 5870 on current drivers and will likely beat it or match it with future drivers, all for a cheaper price.

If you wanted to buy RIGHT NOW for immediate price/performance gain, the ATI cards win hands down, not even slightly arguable; however, as has been mentioned in most of the reviews I linked, the 470 is a much more future proof deal than the 5850 or 5870. It just wipes the floor with the 58xx series when tessellation gets involved, and the 480 beats it in the face with a spiked mallet. Throw in its better handling of ray-tracing and some proprietary features of nVidias like PhysX, the 470 actually becomes a a better deal than the 5850/5870 if you are betting as heavily on future software as nVidia is, and willing to wait for some future driver updates.

If you don't want a power hungry monster of a card, and don't want "1st degree burns", the GTX4xx series is obviously not your thing. If you don't care about TDP, and if you value all the effort nVidia has put into future software development with their current lineup, then you should probably buy a GTX470 or two, and then start advocating heavily tessellated DX11 games and ray-tracing (aka, if you are going to play Metro 2033 at highest settings and want a playable framerate, get a couple 470s and SLI them 😛, or 480s if you are a rich arsehole).

It is a very subjective situation right now, and nVidia is actually being a bit competitive. I actually kind of like where both companies sit right now, it isn't a lopsided situation anymore. And the next die shrink is like 8-12 months away, so nVidia and ATI have plenty of time to duke it out with the current competitive lineup. Partner board makers that do 470s with non-reference coolers could give you some phenomenal overclocking potential, even on air.
 
Tessellation%20Performance.png


That's on the second highest unigine setting and the 5870 wins. Sure the 470 wins at "extreme" but the chances of seeing that level of detail in near future games is nil. I wouldn't say the 470 "wipes the floor" with either the 5870 or the 5850 based on that.

Tessellation is a poor argument for the 470 being more future proof. It will still be slower in games with no tessellation and I'm thinking there will be more of those than games with tessellation during the lifetime of both cards.

There is little to recommend the new nVidia cards.
 


Eh, I said it was subjective for a reason, I can't tell someone else how much they should care about tessellation or future drivers or PhsyX, that is their perogative.

As for the benchy you linked, honestly, read all of them I linked, ALL of em, not just one, 'cause I have; generally speaking, the 480 beats the 5870 about 10-15% average and the 470 is usually about 5-10% behind the 5870. In most of the benchies I've seen, when heavy tessellation starts getting involved, the the 470/480 shine at that point. I could link specific instances where the 5850 almost beats the 480 or where the 5870 mops the floor with the 480, but on a whole, the 400 series general kicks the 5800s in the nuts pretty hard for tessellation (the 470 getting close or beating the 5870 is pretty impressive). Everyone also seems to ignore the fact that a lot of those ATI card benchies are running on 10.3 and the nVidia cards are running on immature drivers, which again, means you would be buying a 470 or 480 as a future investment.

I want to reiterate my "subjective" comment. People have to decide which cards to buy based on their own needs, for some people the 470/480 will be horribly overpriced pieces of crap, for others, the 5800s will be too slow.... it all depends on what people are looking for in a card.

I personally think the 480s are overpriced, but the 470 looks like a winner, and I would be willing to hedge my bets on future software/drivers a bit. I also want to see partner non-reference coolers and the 5890 in the coming weeks before I make a final decision, but right now the 470 seems to be doing alright.

heavennorm.gif

heavenex.gif

http://news.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_gtx_480_470_performance/page5.asp
FiringSquad:
One aspect of the GTX 400 boards that’s a little more difficult to cover today is the future. More specifically, how extensively will game developers incorporate DX11 features like tessellation? Clearly with their new PolyMorph Engines, NVIDIA’s betting big that game devs will crank the tessellation up to 11, as seen in something like Unigine’s Heaven benchmark, where the GTX 470 manages to outrun the Radeon 5870 even under the benchmark’s “moderate” tessellation setting. If this is indicative of the direction game developers will take with their upcoming DX11 titles, the future for the GeForce GTX 400 boards looks extremely bright – clearly this is the more future-proof architecture.

The question is, how soon should we expect scenes like Heaven to become the norm in games rather than the exception? It’s certainly challenging for someone like Unigine to put together a fancy benchmark filled with eye candy, but it’s an even greater challenge to deliver that level of visuals and still deliver a game that’s playable. Just ask Crytek.

By the time we do get games that really push the limits of what DX11 can do, the GTX 400 and Radeon 5800 cards may be a distant memory.

If you’re a performance junkie who must have the fastest hardware money can buy, or you need a long term investment that’s going to last you for a few years, and you don’t mind the power and heat concerns, the GeForce GTX 470 and 480 would be the safer bet, provided you can afford to pay the premium NVIDIA’s asking for them. ATI’s once again going for that sweet spot, price/performance gamer that doesn’t necessarily crave the absolute highest frame rates, but instead delivers good performance, good thermals, and more attractive pricing. And of course, for that ultra enthusiast who wants the very best, the Radeon 5970 is still the world’s fastest graphics card (even if they’re nearly impossible to find in stock online).
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This is a fantastic argument to read for someone like me, who is planning on building his first gaming PC this summer (once the market has hopefully reached Equilibrium).

I really like the numbers the 470 puts out, it's quite impressive how well it can compete with the 5870. I would love to have all of the technologies that Nvidia offers (Physx, good tess and AA) but i don't know...

On the other hand, it drives me crazy how much power this thing pulls and how much sound it puts off. I'm in the market for a GPU, not a helicopter with stove capabilities. I can guarantee that I will want to SLI/Crossfirex in the future as well as OC, but i just can't see that being too good of an idea with the 470... How ever the 5870 Crossfires and overclocks nicely so it's a hard choice... (on top of that, when it comes time to CrossfireX, the 5870's should be priced pretty well.)

To be honest, i don't know what i'll put in my computer.
 


😵 you have heard the 470?? 😛

The 480 the reviewers seem to say is loud and very annoying but the 470 is actually alright. And the tech/features are pretty awesome. SLI and OCing with the 470s shouldn't be an issue in the slightest, they are only what... 212W or something? The 480s maybe.... but not the 470s.

The 5870 can overclock better than the 470 though for sure, if that is what you are after, then the 5870 would be a great choice for you. If you want nVidias tech and more future-proofness with DX11, ray-tracing, all that jazz, I'd grab a 470 personally. If i was going to Xfire or SLI, I'd definitely go with the 470s then. Definitely NOT the 480s.

The 470 and 5870 would both be great choices for you, it depends on what you are interested in features/performance or better OCing/more power efficient, I can't decide that for you :) Price wise, well, the 470/480 are roughly where they should be so unless ATI drops their prices hard, price isn't a titanic consideration.

EDIT: eyefinity, I forgot to link this test from hot hardware of the GTX 480 getting a higher fps than a 5970 in Uniengine Heaven. As I said, tessellation is where the GTX400's shine.
u1.png
 
Hers some Fermi on Crak with LN2 Cooling, dont expect to get anything near this on air though lmao its just to show max oc for each core, Note the CPU on the Fermi is the new 6 Core Extreme from intel and is higher clocked:

2hchqoi.jpg


And for the MSI 5870 Lightning:

signaturebue.jpg
 


Sigh, look dude, I ain't going to argue with you on here, it is dumb. Go search for more obscure czech sites for images of the 5870 barely beating the 470 at tessellation, for every one you link, I can link you one of the 470 handing the 5870 its arse on a silver platter in the Uniengine Heaven Benchmark, especially once you get into version 2, the difference gets even more huge. That the 470 comes close to beating the 5870 in Uniengine let alone obliterating it other just speaks to the 400 series love for tessellation. I'm not saying ATI is a bad company, all I'm saying is, any games in the future that do heavy tessellating will favour the 400's, is that good or bad? Not sure, I can't predict the future, it depends on how quickly people adapt DX11 tessellation into their games.

All I'm saying, is on an AVERAGE, the 400 series does tessellation a lot better than the 5800 series, what that means to someone trying to decide which card to buy, I don't know, I'm not them. I leave it up to others to decide. I personally like the idea of buying a couple 470s cause they'll last me a few years without having to worry about upgrading to a better DX11 tessellating card. I just have to wait for drivers to keep me up with games until 4-5 years from now. I could be waaaaaaay wrong about that though, we'll have to find out wont we? 😛
 
Hers some Fermi on Crak with LN2 Cooling, dont expect to get anything near this on air though lmao its just to show max oc for each core, Note the CPU on the Fermi is the new 6 Core Extreme from intel and is higher clocked:

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/2152/2hchqoi.jpg

And for the MSI 5870 Lightning:

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/1043/signaturebue.jpg
Click to expand...

The 5870 dominates the 480 at clocking, definitely expected that. That's what happens when it takes you 70 more Watts just to run stock hehe.
 
I think after reading all the comments on the actual review and various boards regarding this issue, I have couple of points to make.

1. Drivers - Ya, Nvidia is in its beta driver phase, but this really doesn't matter. what matters is the now, i can't compare what nvidia can do with their driver in the future with what ati is capable with now. what if ati comes out with a new card? it's not a valid comparison and i can only think that nvidia has had since last year to make a capable driver since FERMi was supposed to come out since NOVEMBER. Not a valid point.

2. AntiAliasing, i wish reviews would be more objective regarding this point. you shoudl raise AA to a certain point where the compared card has a playable frame rate say 30fps and than compare performance that way. I think comparisons between 100fps and when it drops to like 10fps is all moot to me. Make it more interesting.

That said, my biggest point here is the temperature. yada yada power consumptions means nothing, but what's important here is heat. I havea 5850 that I can safely overclock to a 5870 performance. To be truly fair, you should have an overclocked 5850 go against an overclocked 470. Obviously the thermal room is going to be completely different. That would be an interesting comparison.

3. Price - Keep in mind that 260 is the 5850 and 350 is the 5870 MSRP. What they're priced at now is the MARKET price. If Fermi catches on, they'll drop back down to MSRP, if not, the market dictates the price as to what they're sold. To have a truly fair comparison, I bought my 5850 for 270 when it came out. Obviously it's not a fair comparison now but I feel like ATI has more flexibility when it comes to pricing than Nvidia does at this point. The reports were true about the cores being shut off, i don't see why i shouldn't believe the same report that also said there were supply issues and that nvidia's bottom line will be affected because these cards are so expensive to produce.

Fact of the matter is FERMI, if it were released when the 5xxx series were released would've been good competition and i think they still are. I mean when you get past a certain point, performance and price just don't correlate anymore. just got to know what you want, value or that extra bit of performance.

that is until a 2gb 5870 comes out. Anyway, i would like to see an overclocked graphics card to battle because that is much more relevant to a gamer's interests and puts the thermal variable into better perspective.
 
Yep its faster at tesslation but its not really a big difference, the 5970 will still be faster than both the 5970 is meant to run @850/1200 and not at 725, manifacturers already preparing 5970 4GB 850/1250, the question to ask your self is how much time would you keep the card? I dont think more than a year, for me at least since you could sell it and get a new more efficent one like a 28nm without loosing much value. I am 100% sure that we wont see ANY fully tesslated game in 1 year+ Why? Tesslation is too new on the table and not fully optimized yet, remember when DX10 came out with the 8800 series? Was there any DX10 Games by then?
 
Oh and also every review site says tessellation is far off from catching on since every game is made on a console first and the console definitely is not going anywhere for five more years. i know nvidia has a lot of connections with the industry and i'm sure a game will come out that uses all the tessellation muscle it can muster, and at that point nvidia will become much more attractive. but, again, that's not happening now and i can't help but think ati, being notorious with bad driver updates, can't figure out a way to bring tessellation performance to these cards.

also ati already said they're looking into ways to bring 3d movies to their cards too. all these extras are just extras.
 
hahaha that made me laft, imagine a console running Tesslation if thats possible(I know its not), prolly going to be a slideshow lmao
 
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