GTX480 / GTX470 Reviews and Discussion

[RealityRush]

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.

It's not? So why were people complaining that you have to use ATI 10.3 drivers to be fair when they are still in the beta stages? It is a perfectly valid point, ATI is going to get less and less performance increases from driver optimizations now, nVidia will as well but their increase will start off drastically higher for obvious reasons. So if the 470 almost matches a 5870 now, it can probably match or beat it in the coming months with driver updates. It's the same thing as tessellation, you are buying the card (GTX 470/480 in this case) more as an "investment" that is supposed to last you longer and improve with age.

It is the buyer's choice whether or not this matters to them and how much, but it is still definitely 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.

I fail to see why, they usually do 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. Why would they go "oh, I guess [insert manufacturer]'s card sucks at this level of AAing, lets crop the higher end results to make it look better"?? That is even more biased. And you just said OCing matters more to gamers, so why wouldn't extreme AA settings?

 

[RealityRush]

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?

There's actually a couple games coming out within a year supporting DX11 and tessellation, but you're right, I highly doubt the vast majority of popular games will

Also considering where I live 2x GTX 470's are the same price as a single 5970, I would think SLI'd 470s would actually last me at least a few years. And be just as cost effective, not to mention possibly delivering the same or better performance within a year from now. Not to mention the GTX 480 actually beat the 5970 in some DX11 benchies, not many, but a few. Problem is, the 480 IS a hot card, and the 470 is less hot/noisy 😛 For me personally, this makes the 470 quite enticing, I can't speak for others

hahaha that made me laft, imagine a console running Tesslation if thats possible(I know its not), prolly going to be a slideshow lmao

Slide show? Probably just a single still frame, maybe 2 if you're lucky 😛

 

[Guest]

Thers games coming out supporting FULL tesslation, I mean every texture is tesslated not just like todays games where only parts like stairs are?

I havnt actually compared a 5970 to 470 in SLI but I think the 5970 is better considering the OC headroom you get. GTX 480 SLi is the fastest or if you like Tri-480 is the ultimate setup and would end up faster than Quad-Fire unless ATi make better crossfire drivers.

 

[frozendarkness]

It's not? So why were people complaining that you have to use ATI 10.3 drivers to be fair when they are still in the beta stages? It is a perfectly valid point, ATI is going to get less and less performance increases from driver optimizations now, nVidia will as well but their increase will start off drastically higher for obvious reasons. So if the 470 almost matches a 5870 now, it can probably match or beat it in the coming months with driver updates. It's the same thing as tessellation, you are buying the card (GTX 470/480 in this case) more as an "investment" that is supposed to last you longer and improve with age.

It is the buyer's choice whether or not this matters to them and how much, but it is still definitely a valid point.



I fail to see why, they usually do 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. Why would they go "oh, I guess [insert manufacturer]'s card sucks at this level of AAing, lets crop the higher end results to make it look better"?? That is even more biased. And you just said OCing matters more to gamers, so why wouldn't extreme AA settings?

Ya, Extreme AA settings does. i'm more mentioning this as a general criticfism of every review, Tom does a good job.

And regarding driver thing, that's pure speculation. nobody knows if ati drivers will get better performance or nvidia would. nobody knows, at this point we can only compare the now and 10.3 is out now. that's the FAIR comparison.

 

[RealityRush]

Thers games coming out supporting FULL tesslation, I mean every texture is tesslated not just like todays games where only parts like stairs are?

Maybe? I couldn't answer that. BF3 is supposed to be pretty heavily tessellated, and I'm REALLY looking forward to that game after BF2. I want to fighter bomb some people again!!!! But either way, out of the like 20 reviews/benchmarks I've read so far, the 400s generally beat the 5800s by a pretty decent margin. Sometimes by 15% other times by 60%, it depends on the game. The 400s are definitely stronger in DX11 in general though featuring any form of tessellation.

So it depends on how much the buyer cares about DX11. *shrug* It seems to me DX11 is certainly going to be adapted much faster than DX10 or 10.1.

Ya, Extreme AA settings does. i'm more mentioning this as a general criticfism of every review, Tom does a good job.

And regarding driver thing, that's pure speculation. nobody knows if ati drivers will get better performance or nvidia would. nobody knows, at this point we can only compare the now and 10.3 is out now. that's the FAIR comparison.

I don't exactly know what that first sentence means, but as for the drivers, nVidias are going to get better with driver optimizations, assuming anything else would be ludicrous. ATIs will also get better, but not nearly as fast now as they have already garnered some huge performance boosts from theirs. I'm just explaining nVidia's cards will improve in performance by drivers faster than ATI's will over the next few months, that isn't an unknown, it is guaranteed..... well, unless nVidias driver department is full of a bunch of chimps. And its fair to compare now, I never said it wasn't, I'm saying it is just as fair to question the future performance when deciding on a purchase. Not doing so could be just as stupid.

 

[Guest]

The funny thing is that tesslation is already putting all videocards to their knees so just Imagine a Fully Tesslated game....SlideShow if not optimized even on the 480.

btw even Unigine is not Fully Tesslated.

 

[unknown_13]

History does repeat itself

280 gtx = 480 gtx
260 gtx = 470 gtx
4870 HD = 5870 HD
4850 HD = 5850 HD
4870 x2= 5970 HD

Se general score values lmao

I think here GTX480 is like HD2900XT, and HD5870 something like 8800
Nvidia next thing might be to make a new series of cards with performance 5-10% more than fermi but lot more energy efficent (GF150 or something like that)

But, either way, i don't think ATi will repeat Nvidia making mistake with HD6xxx like they did with 98xxGT/GTX/+ series

I think history repeats itself by shifting the positions. Nvida in 2010 is ATi in 2007, ATi in 2010 is Nvidia in 2006/2007

My point is Nvidia will have a HAARD time returning their position back on the top. The "greens" might bring a revolution with DX12 and extreme pro-formance like they did with DX10 though

 

[AMW1011]

Where to start?

Well I've been attacked personally, and on that I never said a damn thing that was stated. I said I know more than someone who didn't know that ATI shaders are not comparable to nVidia shaders which do more work than ATI shaders. I never insulted him, nor did I tell him he was wrong on his opinion. I simply stated it didn't make sense to build a $1000+ gaming rig based on performance in Crysis Warhead, and Crysis Warhead alone. Even after he made a thread to completely insult me while providing articles that contradicted him as proof, I never resorted to insults and just reported him for personal insults and looked the other way. Just as then, I will not take the bait and I will not insult you even if I have the right, this is why I am not banned and this is why you will be if you keep it up.

As for the GTX 480/470 thing. Yes the GTX 480 sucks, but the GTX 470 isn't bad at all.

-The GTX 470 is very close to the 5870 in performance, the largest gap I've seen reported is 10% on average, with 5% being more common, which accounts for the difference in AA performance. Driver improvements will likely make this even closer, but they likely won't improve as much as the 5xxx series did since nVidia has had more time.

-The GTX 4xx series, and the Fermi architecture in general, has been proven to handle tessellation a bit better, not the 30-50% increases that some benchmarks show, but likely a 10-20% increase that more show. This isn't a HUGE deal, but it is a nice incentive which makes it much more competitive with the 5870 in the presence of heavy tessellation.

-The GTX 470 is $70 cheaper than the 5870 right now, assuming prices aren't raised, and about $70 more expensive than the 5850. With almost identical performance that is bound to increase with drivers and an advantage with heavy tessellation I think the GTX 470 is a better deal than the 5870 at the current values, all in the US. If the 5870 drops to about the same price then I will give the win to it, but at this point it hasn't.

-Finally, all the reviews that show overclocking are showing a clock increase that is very similar to the 5xxx series, possibly slightly less. This negates any arguements about overclocking.

Now a lot of you are making a huge deal out of power consumption and temperatures. The power consumption is only slightly higher than the 5870, about 20w at full load, though I admit at idle it is much worse. That isn't a huge deal. The temperatures are valid in a sense as it runs hot. However, the fan speed never goes above ~60% and is quite quiet at this level (note I'm talking about the GTX 470, not the 480 which is ridiculously load), so it is likely possible to throttle these temperatures with manual fan speed increase. All that said, it still is a factor, but most of us have cases that can take care of that heat just fine so I'm not sure what the problem is, the 4870 X2 worked fine for plenty of people. All this said, it is a no-brainer that if you are worried about these factors then the GTX 470 isn't for you, but it works fine for many people.

A large point of confusion, I believe, is that some think I and others are championing the GTX 470 as the budget king, that is ludicrous. The 5850 or dual 5770s are the absolute budget kings and anything else is not price effective including the 5830, 5870, GTX 470, 5970, and most definitely the GTX 480. Also note that I have stated that this is all about the current prices NOW, if things change then my opinion will change as will the facts.

Now before any of you start attacking me and insulting me, try to think of how that makes you look because it sure as hell isn't just a reflection on me. Also before the term bias or fanboy starts being thrown I invite, no I dare you to look up my past posts. Notice that I have been championing the 5xxx series since it's release, because it deserves it. Notice that I have been being very realistic with my expectations with Fermi. Notice that I am quick to shut down anyone who openly admits a brand favorite because they are fools for doing so.

I am open to discussion, such as I have been having with Jenny, she gets a bit of leeway with the aggression because I know that is how she is.

 

[frozendarkness]

Maybe? I couldn't answer that. BF3 is supposed to be pretty heavily tessellated, and I'm REALLY looking forward to that game after BF2. I want to fighter bomb some people again!!!! But either way, out of the like 20 reviews/benchmarks I've read so far, the 400s generally beat the 5800s by a pretty decent margin. Sometimes by 15% other times by 60%, it depends on the game. The 400s are definitely stronger in DX11 in general though featuring any form of tessellation.

So it depends on how much the buyer cares about DX11. *shrug* It seems to me DX11 is certainly going to be adapted much faster than DX10 or 10.1.



I don't exactly know what that first sentence means, but as for the drivers, nVidias are going to get better with driver optimizations, assuming anything else would be ludicrous. ATIs will also get better, but not nearly as fast now as they have already garnered some huge performance boosts from theirs. I'm just explaining nVidia's cards will improve in performance by drivers faster than ATI's will over the next few months, that isn't an unknown, it is guaranteed..... well, unless nVidias driver department is full of a bunch of chimps. And its fair to compare now, I never said it wasn't, I'm saying it is just as fair to question the future performance when deciding on a purchase. Not doing so could be just as stupid.

it's what usually happens.

but delaying a graphic card for four months isn't what usually happens. i don't work at nvidia and i'm goign to assume you don't either. I'm not going to speculate how mature these drivers are or are not since Nvidia has been working hard with developers in video games, I assume they know how to optimize their video cards better for games down the road.

however, i can't ignore the fact that nvidia is late to the game and i can't fathom why they wouldn't spend more time making a more mature driver to compete better with ATI right off the bat. Look at all these reviews, this isn't what Nvidia wanted. THey leaked the 10% from months ago. so at this point, it is pure speculation. you can think otherwise and of course that is just how drivers work. now if you worked at nvidia and told me that you guys haven't worked on the driver issues for a while now (it's obvious the 480 was made a while ago, they just had supply issues and die issues, but the "framework" remains the same) than i'll believe you

but i won't count on it. i think my main argument is:

right now the comparison is:

By your definition a more mature ATI Driver + 5870

vs

beta driver + 480

and everybody is like well when driver gets better 480 will rape

but by that time, what if a better ATI card comes out or a even more mature driver since ati has been having a lot of issues with earlier drivers? would that be a more "fair" comparison than 5870 vs 480?

 

[steddy]

Where to start?

...

Finally! A semi-reasonable and civil argument! You don't know how long I've waited for this day.

 

[AMW1011]

Your welcome steddy.

 

[zendax]

The architecture seems sound enough. The GTX 480 and 470 are disappointing, as expected, however there is promise that manufacturing changes and perhaps a die shrink will yield cooler, faster cards.

At any rate, the graphics card market should be much more interesting at the end of the year.

 

[AMW1011]

The 512 SP version of Fermi will be very interesting in-dead, and the Fermi architecture is bound to shine on a small process. However, nVidia might still have problems since ATI has had and still has plenty of time to develop their new architecture, things are getting interesting for sure.

 

[Guest]

He did NOT insult you and I still have the WHOLE C/P with your words and if you want to digg deeper I will post it, lets just keep the talking about Fermi, I just said that because the way you talk was not very polite in any way in BOTH threads, ANY one smart enuff would see that, <NOTE:I reread the whole post and the reason your here is because you know that what you said may sound arrogant to others and thats a Good thing what you said at the end, its like selfcorrection but to a degree some people migh misunderstand the meaning Without reading through the end of the post by just reading the beginning where it is shocking> . At least this time, it was better than before, so thers some improvement on this side. Now, If They make a Fermi with 512SPs and 28nm considering a smaller die that works at ~800 Mhz, that would be a Beast of a card but thats well well in the future. Thats what every one was hoping for but wasnt possible for thermal complications.btw the 470 uses 51w more at load than a 5870 and 88w vs 5850. Source: Toms review. Yes the 470 is a better buy than a 480 But not than a 5850@ its MSRPs of 259$ Vs 470 MSRP of 349$. Im talking about now, what it represents , $/FPS , the 5850 has No competition for the moment.

Are you saying that the 4xx series are Equal in term of OCing to the 58xx series? My 5850 OC all the way up from 725 to 975, thats a 250Mhz OC on the Core alone = 35% OC. The ram went from 1000 all the way to 1300 = 300Mhz OC = 30% OC. Most people getting 1Ghz+/1.3Ghz+. I really dont see a way how Fermi would get a 35% OC on air, it just sounds illogical from a physical point since nVidia themeself were Not able to do it. I miss my old 5970 that would run @ 1Ghz, never tried more because PowerPlay will get disabled, and hell when you OC with the 5970 your OC perf. is 2x because you are OCing 2 GPUs at the same time, lmao Crysis Enthusiast was giving same FPS with 0xAA Vs 8xAA,53@1920 CPU limited much lol?. I posted the Max OC on Fermi Vs 5870 in my previous posts that clearly shows it but to a much bigger degree.

 

[randomizer]

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.

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.

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?

Very clear bribery/nvidia fanboyism at that site I'm afraid. I would seriously recommend ANY other review except that one.

The reviewer stands by his assessment on XS. Check the discussion from post #162: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=248265&page=7

 

[anonymousdude]

All I hope is that Nvidia and ATI learn from each other so that they may make faster and more efficient cards. Nvidia needs to learn that bigger is not always better as ATI did with their 4xxx cards. ATI needs to see where the weakness in their cards are right now and improve on them. The most glaring weakness compared to fermi is when AA is applied Fermi takes less of a hit than the 5xxx cards. Competition brings out the best and worst in each other, so just hope that it brings out the best.

 

[Guest]

Noise is not a problem for majority of people its just the high heat output would mean less OC headroom and shorter lifetime and high power bill, did I 4get something else?

If you need a silent pc just get Water, thats easy.

 

[Guest]

The reviewer stands by his assessment on XS. Check the discussion from post #162: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=248265&page=7

Thats where I get the awesome LN2 OC resutls lol btw The same guy just order the cards in noise order and the 480 is under the 4870x2 but higher than the Dual-GPU 5970.

Palit 9600 GSO (my mistake for ever putting it in my system)
GTX 295
HD 4870 (with the revised fan speed profile)
HD 4890
HD 4870 X2
GTX 480
GTX 280
GTX 470
GTX 285 / GTX 275
HD 5970
HD 5870
HD 5850

lol @ the 9600.

Good point about the time frame. ATi has more time to develope new cards with stronger Tesslation.

 

[randomizer]

It depends how you measure it as well. I think he did it in a closed system with a mic configured not to take in every sound in the neighbourhood. Noise is very subjective and dependent on the surroundings.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Noise is subjective, I think most people with killer setups that run like a fermi or a cypress the noise of their sound system drowns out any noise from the card. I run a silence system with aftermarket cpu and gpu coolers that kick up rpm during load, but i never really notice it becuase most of the time under load meaning i'm playing a game and the game drowns out the sound of the card.

3dGuru tells you relative things that sound at certian dB
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/13
And did a measurement of dB from a closed system. from a deceient distance

Card setting dBA IDLE dBA FULL LOAD
GeForce GTX 470 39 42
GeForce GTX 480 39 45

That is not that loud i'm sure your sound system will drown that out easily.

HardOPC was
http://hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/7
"It was positioned 6" from the fans on the cards"
"The 5850 was the "quietest" card at 54dB. The rest of the cards sort of lumped together in the 56dB to 57dB range. The SLI and CrossFire setups were of course the loudest with the CF cards coming in at 59dB and the SLI cards coming in at 60dB at its loudest."

In terms of relative noise you can already tell it's not that much.

Either way their vid makes the 480 sound like it's a leaf blower i doubt nvidia let another card have a cooler that goes that high in rmp where it ends up chopping the air making it sound like a leaf blower after their FX was like that and no one cared for that card.

It's louder then most set ups i'll give you that but I don't think it's loud enough for people to complain about it esp when compared to dB of other cards.

 

[randomizer]

Remember it's dBA that we're interested in and not dB. So any site that measures in dB isn't taking into account the characteristics of human hearing.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Either way my point was

3dguru did measure what i consider a more valid test
"Ever since the release today of the GeForce GTX 400 series there has been much discussion regarding the noise levels the cards make under load. Especially the GTX 480 is topic of much discussion. Some sites show numbers up in the 60 to 70 DBa, which honestly just isn't right.

What happens is that people measure differently and often subjectively. If you place a DBa gun a CM away from the graphics card ventilator then sure, you record really high noise levels. But if you play games, do you place your ear directly on the air exhaust ? Of course not, that just does not make sense to us.

We measure real-life conditions. That means we take a distance of 75cm from the PC and place a DBa gun pointed at the PC. We assume your PC chassis is closed and not open, so is ours. Now to proof to you that the GTX 480 is noisy, but definitely not what some media make it claim to be I made two video's of the GTX 480 in idle and under heavy stress with Furmark."

People with the ability to write so much better then me make their points much better then when I trying paraphrase it.

HardOPC did their test at 6", 6 inches away from the card i'm not even 6" close to my screen let alone my computer, but i did also want to point out relative noise of their reading was not that high when compired to the other cards 5850 etc...

Guru was at 75cm which is about 30 inches which I find is much more valid esp for those who have their system up on a desk. My computer is more like 48 inches away from me and has filler in it anyways to block out alot of noise.

 

[Guest]

Heres the Fermis Fan disassembled:

C/P: Once removed we can see it's a model made by Delta Electronics, notorious for incredibly loud fans. This one is no slouch; at 1.8 amperes of power, it chews through 21.6W of power at full bore. Quite frankly, it's insane.

Source: http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/Gallery/170368,nvidia-gtx480-disassembly-guide.aspx/22

Source: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56155&page=187

Originally Posted by thop
The BFB0712HF is a custom fan as only the BFB0712HD is listed on their website. It draws 0.3A and is rated at 4000rpm and 42dBa. And the fan used by GTX480 draws 1.8A current 😱

Going by other delta blowers in the BFB series, the fan should be in the 6-7k rpm range and the 60-65 db range.

 

[-Fran-]

So... When is Fermi2 coming? 😛

Cheers!

 

[IzzyCraft]

That's what i'm wondering a nice little refresh where they actually can make the whole gpu instead of selling us gpu's with disabled cores.

Hopefully well see something great next year.