GTX 480 and GTX 470 Reviews

[Donta1979]

*looks up*
Yes im guilty I pre orderd from EVGA.....
Power I dont care about, Heat now that is going to be the challenge to beat on air, I wont be going water cooling till I go sli with them later this summer once the price wars start to really rage. But yes for a gpu without any crazy air cooling to get 90C on max load the card should had been cheaper. But I like the challenge, the extra fps in a majority of the games I play. Just hope my loud CFM fans and gpu cooler mods can get this gpu at least down to 70c@load or a little lower on air after a week or two of playing with it. I have had my 280 GTX FTW's for almost two years now been itching to play dx11 games and have something new to tinker with.

[Blacky]

I noticed nvidia partners didn't put a lot of effort decorating their card with stickers like usual, they all basically looks the same (nvidia stock reference), its like "meh why waste money on stickers on this crap"

[autobot]

I noticed nvidia partners didn't put a lot of effort decorating their card with stickers like usual, they all basically looks the same (nvidia stock reference), its like "meh why waste money on stickers on this crap"

Probubly because they had an issue with the stickers either melting off or catching on fire.

[Blacky]

Probubly because they had an issue with the stickers either melting off or catching on fire.

oh jeez how didn't I thought on that!!! makes sense

[NH|Delph1]

No, without crossfire you get 5850 performance and it doesn't clock as well. If it is anything like a 4870x2 a slightly higher fps (like 10 or so) doesn't feel higher due to the dips that you see. What happens when you see negative scaling like I saw on occasion with my x2? I am just not a big crossfire or sli fan. Nowhere near as reliable as a single gpu in my experience.

Keep in mind I'm talking at 1920x1200 here.

I typed too fast there, of course you get 5850 performance. It was late, sorry, but that's still fairly rare, and supposed to become even rarer now with the stand-alone profiles and newer drivers.

5870X2 is more stable than 4870X2 in my experience though. I haven't experienced much problems with it, but I do admit it's nowhere near flawless and overall I prefer gaming on my PS3...

//Andreas

[saaya]

480 is only around 10% faster than a 5870
price is 100$ higher than 5870
high idle temps
very high load temps
very high idle/average and load power consumption (only surpassed by 4870x2)
mem can only be oced to ~1150, i expected more...

[annihilat0r]

480 is only around 10% faster than a 5870
price is 100$ higher than 5870
high idle temps
very high load temps
very high idle/average and load power consumption (only surpassed by 4870x2)
mem can only be oced to ~1150, i expected more...

well when AA is on most reviews showed 15% instead of 10%... maybe not much different on an absolute scale, but relatively its 50%

[Vardant]

Saying in this case, that it's only 10% faster is just too much of a generalization IMO.

If it was 5-15%, ok. But it goes from being on par with HD 5870 to being 25-40-60% faster.

49°C for the GTX 480 is not high, the difference between HD 5870 and GTX 480 is 6°C. Is that really enough to go from ok to high?

Idle draw is 15W higher than GTX 285, on par with HD 5970 and GTX 295 is 15W further ahead. So is it somehow ok for a dual GPU card, but not for a single card, even if it has the performance to back it up?

Some people just went crazy and trying too hard to make it into a failure of FX5800 or HD2900XT magnitude.

Comparing the noise levels to FX5800? I mean really? GTX 295, HD 4870X2, HD 4890 are all worse, but I don't remember anyone comparing it to FX5800...

[mindfury]

But it goes from being on par with HD 5870 to being 25-40-60% faster.

Which game gtx480 60% faster?

49°C for the GTX 480 is not high, the difference between HD 5870 and GTX 480 is 6°C.

10°C+

GTX 295, HD 4870X2, HD 4890 are all worse

[KingOfsorroW]

It's not that bad according to this graph. I remeber the 280s to be quite bearable in terms of noise level...

[Vardant]

They didn't include HD 4870X2 in this last test, so I had take it from previous one. Of course it changes, everyone uses different method, but there's always something worse and the ones I've mentioned are not far or they really are ahead.

So my point still stands, nobody mentioned it before, that it is a disaster, but they have no problem doing it now.

[Motiv]

Saying in this case, that it's only 10% faster is just too much of a generalization IMO.

If it was 5-15%, ok. But it goes from being on par with HD 5870 to being 25-40-60% faster.

49°C for the GTX 480 is not high, the difference between HD 5870 and GTX 480 is 6°C. Is that really enough to go from ok to high?

Idle draw is 15W higher than GTX 285, on par with HD 5970 and GTX 295 is 15W further ahead. So is it somehow ok for a dual GPU card, but not for a single card, even if it has the performance to back it up?

Some people just went crazy and trying too hard to make it into a failure of FX5800 or HD2900XT magnitude.

Comparing the noise levels to FX5800? I mean really? GTX 295, HD 4870X2, HD 4890 are all worse, but I don't remember anyone comparing it to FX5800...

What about power draw and heat under load? You seem to have forgotten them.

I feel the card is ok, nothing special. It will give you 15% more performance, but you will have to pay for that privilege in price, power and heat.

I'd personally rather xfire a couple of 5770's together, or buy a 5850 than get a 480.

I'll wait for a refresh of sorts for it, because as now it's a bit of a troublesome child is this card. You love it, but it has issues that will pain you forever.

[annihilat0r]

^ couldn't have summarized this card better

[Vardant]

Because every review shows something different. It also changes on game to game basis. And I agree, that these are the main weakpoints. It's a mixed bag, but by no means is it a failure.

[N19h7m4r3]

Let's all just hope the 480 doesn't RMA as much as the 280 did in the first few months.

A refresh will really help with heat and power.

[kadozer]

[ajaidev]

For the MIN FPS argument please read Bit techs review

As you can see other than Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2 "When AA is active" the MIN FPS difference is really small among GTX 480 and 5870....!!

[Helloworld_98]

I'm surprised no one included 5770 CF vs 480 benchmarks since most reviewers were praising 5770 CF for being better than the 5870 for a lower price.

[eric66]

Let's all just hope the 480 doesn't RMA as much as the 280 did in the first few months.

A refresh will really help with heat and power.

this ! in best test enviroment it easily reaches 96 c now imagine some average joe with avg cooling using this card ? or some guy who lives in warmer country ?
btw 20 40 60 percent differences are really rare 40 to 50 is in far cry 2 and i don't remember any other 'game' in which 480 had such huge lead

[BababooeyHTJ]

It's not that bad according to this graph. I remeber the 280s to be quite bearable in terms of noise level...

What?

I have to doubt that graph, a GTX280's fan speed is in no way comparable to a 4870x2 and in without a doubt not louder than a reference 4870 even. The fan doesn't even spin up to half the speed of either card.

Aside from that did you notice the sometimes over 100% crossfire scaling in their review. I have never seen a 4870x2 perform as well as in that TPU review.

Let's all just hope the 480 doesn't RMA as much as the 280 did in the first few months.

A refresh will really help with heat and power.

That was due to a bad connection between the gpu and IHS causing a ton of heat. I had one.

[zalbard]

+1, i would like to see some 3240x1920 or 3600x1920 benches

It's not supported by Nvidia drivers yet.

[Vardant]

256.xx should bring 3D Surround. I still don't get, how exactly did they come up with that number, it's quite a jump.

[onethreehill]

3-Way SLI GTX 480
http://www.maingearforums.com/entry....-Buy-A-GeForce

[jmke]

repost dude ;-)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=315

[Svnth]

256.xx should bring 3D Surround. I still don't get, how exactly did they come up with that number, it's quite a jump.

Remember they did the same thing going from 99.xx to 160.xx?

The reason is because some older games (old old games) only look at 2 digits before the decimal to determine driver version, to ensure users are using a new enough driver to run the game. The problem is cases where, for example, the game says "you need at least driver version 30.xx to run the game! Otherwise I won't run!"

When they only look at the lower order digits, they see 124.22 as 24.22, and 210.55 as 10.55. So despite the far newer driver, the old games simply won't run because they think it's something too old.

That's why NVIDIA avoids those numbers now (and probably will in the future too, when they hit 3xx.xx). But even if they didn't, I doubt it would affect too many games (depends on how well the apps were coded with foresight ), and I doubt anyone is playing that era of games anymore. But I guess NVIDIA would have to wait until at least 300.xx or 400.xx timeframe before considering using those 01.xx-55.xx digits again (when it's safe to assume no one plays the games anymore or expects backwards compatibility with them).