GTX 480 and GTX 470 Reviews

[Eastcoasthandle]

You quoted yourself "representative". It is unfortunate, but I have more and more reason to believe nvidia has a bigger hand in these reviews than many would like to believe.






I checked the colors on the back of the 480 and the 4870, both are the same shade, exact same color code. The quality of the image might have something to do with that though.

You can clearly see from these images just how hot the area around the 480 is. The bottom of the case is already showing colors reaching 70°C

Not too surprising to be honest, but considering that while the 4870 maybe outputting the same kind of temps in certain areas it certainly does not match the overall heat output of the 480. In fact, nothing does. Aside from 2x5970 in crossfire maybe.
The 480 has two sources of awesome heat: VRMs and GPU.

Check out the motherboard area around the gtx480... well into the 80's there. Ouch.

dama is correct here and I believe the tests are completely faulty.
480 shows 97.6C with which heat also found at the bottom of the case close to 70C according to the graph

470 shows 92.9C with heat at the bottom of the case close to 60C

4870 shows 107.8C with little heat at the bottom of the case. This either shows that the test conducted is faulty or some fan (somewhere) wasn't working at the time the test was done. The same goes for the 4850 with their temps.

5870 shows 86.7C with some heat at the bottom of the case around 50C.

So what we have is completely useless results showing lower C temps making more of impact of the PC case then higher C temps. This makes the results invalid IMO.

[SKYMTL]

That graph from ABT really makes one wonder how certain people get cards....

[jaredpace]

I've gotta admit, thats gotta be one of the most ridiculous and embarassing review graphs ever.

I really hope it's a joke... April 1rst review

[Russian]

I really hope it's a joke... April 1rst review

SERIOUSLY. I was gonna say...

That graph from ABT really makes one wonder how certain people get cards....

Blowjobs? hahaha

[eternal_fantasy]

I've gotta admit, thats gotta be one of the most ridiculous and embarassing review graphs ever.

That graph from ABT really makes one wonder how certain people get cards....

SERIOUSLY. I was gonna say...



Blowjobs? hahaha

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=16475&page=19

"Look very carefully at the next graph and see if you can spot what is wrong:



Heaven 251 NVIDIAs GTX 480 Performance TestingWow! If you look at the
graph it looks like a lot, but there is only 0.1 FPS difference!! Beware of just
looking at the graph. Our HD 5870 can can keep up with the GTX 480 at the
maximum resolution in Heaven benchmark."


Context boys, context...

[Russian]

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=16475&page=19

"Look very carefully at the next graph and see if you can spot what is wrong:



Heaven 251 NVIDIAs GTX 480 Performance TestingWow! If you look at the
graph it looks like a lot, but there is only 0.1 FPS difference!! Beware of just
looking at the graph. Our HD 5870 can can keep up with the GTX 480 at the
maximum resolution in Heaven benchmark."


Context boys, context...

Uh, i don't think it was there before.

Also... i think they could have easily changed that graph's scaling if they wanted to... but chose not to.

WHOA! BEWARE OF THE GRAPH!

Lets get real, how many people are going to link to that graph or just glance over it without reading the text? LOTS.

Also, notice how its bold and bigger than all of the other text? clearly looks like an edit and that they're trying to save face.

Anyone who uses Excel graphs knows perfectly well that they used a very very small scale when they could have used a scale of 1 or 5 they used a scale of .05 when talking about 25 FPS. Still sound fishy?

[Manicdan]

Lets get real, how many people are going to link to that graph or just glance over it without reading the text? LOTS.

i think its just bad we were shown a graph with no context and had nothing telling us to be careful, but on their site that page was all about odd graphs, and honestly, thats damn fine cause it shows who reads, and who likes pretty colors.

[onethreehill]

The 2Gb one is a Asus Matrix Radeon HD 5870 2GB with 900 MHz core and 4900 Mhz vram if anyone did not know...

Asus' Matrix is clocked at 894MHz/4800MHz
I wonder why Asus left the memory at stock speed

[eternal_fantasy]

Uh, i don't think it was there before.

Also... i think they could have easily changed that graph's scaling if they wanted to... but chose not to.

WHOA! BEWARE OF THE GRAPH!

Lets get real, how many people are going to link to that graph or just glance over it without reading the text? LOTS.

Also, notice how its bold and bigger than all of the other text? clearly looks like an edit and that they're trying to save face.

Anyone who uses Excel graphs knows perfectly well that they used a very very small scale when they could have used a scale of 1 or 5 they used a scale of .05 when talking about 25 FPS. Still sound fishy?

Not defending them or anything... Just found the graph so ridiculous I had to take a look at the source myself, then found the quoted section. And to me it seem that the original graph quote was out of context, and the subsequent comments directed at said quote were misguided.

[Russian]

i think its just bad we were shown a graph with no context and had nothing telling us to be careful, but on their site that page was all about odd graphs, and honestly, thats damn fine cause it shows who reads, and who likes pretty colors.

I don't really care if there was a disclaimer for that graph, its all types of funky.

[onethreehill]

EVGA claims great temperatures for its watercooled GeForce GTX 4x0 cards
o hype up its GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 Hydro Copper cards, EVGA has provided some pictures of the waterblock they use and offered some temperature results that are really enticing. According to EVGA, the maximum recorded GPU temperature on the stock GTX 470 was of 83 degrees Celsius, while the Hydro Copper model only reached 38 degrees. As for the GTX 480, the reference model went up to 95 degrees but the watercooled card topped 49 degrees Celsius. No details were given out regarding the configuration used for testing but even so, the numbers look very good.

The GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW features GPU/shader/memory clocks of 650/1300/3402 MHz and costs $500, while the GTX 480 Hydro Copper FTW comes with 750/1500/3800 MHz frequencies and a $650 price tag.

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.p...=33591&catid=2

[xVeinx]

The configuration was a 3x120 rad with both the cpu and video card in the same loop. Vregs are not cooled by the block however, only have a heatsink on those...

[Macadamia]

Temperatures better be great for a watercooled card/

[highoctane]

Vregs are not cooled by the block however, only have a heatsink on those...

They did use a heatpipe to the block which should help to move the heat away and to the block.

[STEvil]

That GTX480 thermal pic kind of concerns me, notice the power connector temperatures?

[annihilat0r]

Uh, i don't think it was there before.

Also... i think they could have easily changed that graph's scaling if they wanted to... but chose not to.

WHOA! BEWARE OF THE GRAPH!

Lets get real, how many people are going to link to that graph or just glance over it without reading the text? LOTS.

Also, notice how its bold and bigger than all of the other text? clearly looks like an edit and that they're trying to save face.

Anyone who uses Excel graphs knows perfectly well that they used a very very small scale when they could have used a scale of 1 or 5 they used a scale of .05 when talking about 25 FPS. Still sound fishy?

and how about the benchies conducted at "1920x1600" and "1650x1080"

[Olivon]

We wanted to let you know that we’ve also heard your concerns about GTX 480 with respect to power and heat. When you build a high performance GPU like the GTX 480 it will consume a lot of power to enable the performance and features I listed above. It was a tradeoff for us, but we wanted it to be fast. The chip is designed to run at high temperature so there is no effect on quality or longevity. We think the tradeoff is right.

The GF100 architecture is great and we think the right one for the next generation of gaming. The GTX 480 is the performance leader with the GTX 470 being a great combination of performance and price.

As always, we hope that you enjoy our new products and let us know what you think. We built them for you.

On nVidia site

[Dahmer]

Well you are in a small minority. Now you might get a large bandwagon of ATI users who say they are in the same boat as you, but 90% of them clearly are not as they own or used to own HD4000 cards, and are just jumping on a chance for some hearty Nvidia bashing.

I'm on the boat of wanting stuff that uses less & less power while still doing a good job, both nvidia & ati were doing an OK job at that but now....nvidia did the exact opposite. I also don't care that previous ati cards had the same problem. To me that's not relevant anymore because if ati can fix it, nvidia should be able to fix it, heck they had enough ing time.

To me it sounds like they went with a bad idea and are trying to sell it.
Cards use a lot more power than latest ati cards but the difference in performance isn't that big, not pleased, I was going to think about getting one for me and putting my card in gf's pc but i'll stick with one card.

[Marios]

Charts updated. Added HD5970 and dirt2-DX11 results.

[zalbard]

That GTX480 thermal pic kind of concerns me, notice the power connector temperatures?

Something around 50-60c? Not much at all. Unless I misunderstand your idea...

[SKYMTL]

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=16475&page=19

"Look very carefully at the next graph and see if you can spot what is wrong:



Heaven 251 NVIDIAs GTX 480 Performance TestingWow! If you look at the
graph it looks like a lot, but there is only 0.1 FPS difference!! Beware of just
looking at the graph. Our HD 5870 can can keep up with the GTX 480 at the
maximum resolution in Heaven benchmark."


Context boys, context...

A graph shouldn't need context like that to explain why it is so out of wack.

[damha]

4870 shows 107.8C with little heat at the bottom of the case. This either shows that the test conducted is faulty or some fan (somewhere) wasn't working at the time the test was done. The same goes for the 4850 with their temps.

I have a 4870, I can tell you that the VRMs boil with a mild OC. But the 4870 stock cooler is quite good at extracting removing the heat just not at the back of the card. And because there isn't a lot of it, the surface area of the heat is quite small, I do believe these results somewhat.

Charts updated. Added HD5970 and dirt2-DX11 results.

Thanks for those. Although a few results don't match what we have seen from other reviewers, still nice to look at.

Something around 50-60c? Not much at all. Unless I misunderstand your idea...

I think that is quite high when compared to other video cards. They are made of plastic.

[ElSel10]

I'm on the boat of wanting stuff that uses less & less power while still doing a good job, both nvidia & ati were doing an OK job at that but now....nvidia did the exact opposite. I also don't care that previous ati cards had the same problem. To me that's not relevant anymore because if ati can fix it, nvidia should be able to fix it, heck they had enough ing time.

To me it sounds like they went with a bad idea and are trying to sell it.
Cards use a lot more power than latest ati cards but the difference in performance isn't that big, not pleased, I was going to think about getting one for me and putting my card in gf's pc but i'll stick with one card.

If you didn't have the same problem with the HD4000 cards then you have no room to talk, simple as that.

[Dahmer]

If you didn't have the same problem with the HD4000 cards then you have no room to talk, simple as that.

So just because I never had an HD4000 card I can't complain about GTX470 & 480 sucking power?

[Final8ty]

Double precision point of view is http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/s...&postcount=769