GTX480 Review Thread

[Freddie]

Ok a couple of things first, the NDA doesn't official lift until 11:01 GMT so that's another two hours form now and these charts are from Hexus.net who posted them up then pulled them down soon after but some people did manage to take screen grabs of the charts before they went down again.

A quick summary of the results in brief

- The GTX480 is now the fastest single GPU card on the market but quite a bit slower then the HD5970
- the GTX480 excels at tessellation heavy scenarios like the dragon in the Uni engine benchmark
- It's performance in Crysis is no better then the HD5870
- The Dirt 2 benchmarks shows the GTX running at DX9 whereas the Radeon's run at DX11
- It's power draw is unprecedentely high
- Runs hotter then then HD5970
- Stop reading this and look at the numbers!



Real world performance










Power & Temps




Bank for Buck






All in all about a 15% to 20% performance advantage over the HD5870, Hexus is reporting a retail price tag of £440 ($550) which means a GTX480 gives you 20% more performance for 40% more of your hard earned. I can't say I bowled over by this card given all the hype Jen-Hsun Huang gave this card in the middle of last year and it's pretty damning to think that an overclocked HD5850 that costs only £200 would compete with Nvidia's top offering.

I know you think I'm anti Nvidia as I'm always seem to be bashing them but I this is how I feel, I may have made a some quick judgement calls here based on one review but in a couple of hours time we will see if this review holds water with everyone else's.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

All in all about a 15% to 20% performance advantage over the HD5870, Hexus is reporting a retail price tag of £440 ($550) which means a GTX480 gives you 20% more performance for 40% more of your hard earned.

The GTX480 is up for pre-order for $500 in the US, not $550. And the absolute cheapest 5870 I can find is $420.

So that means the GTX480 costs 16% more and gives you 15-20% higher performance. The GTX480 is a better deal.

BTW I can't open any of your spoilers.

Also noone has had a 5970 in stock for months now, so even though the 5970 would be the best choice for a high-performance card, you can't get one.

[Freddie]

Meh, the situation in the UK is different to that in US, the HD5970's have had pretty good allocations and stock.

Overclockers have the GTX480 up for pre-order at £448 which is going to be to going rate for the first couple of weeks. The HD5870 can be had for £310 at the same site but £300 if you shop around so the difference is actually as high 45% over here.
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More reviews coming in

[H]

Anandtech

PCPer

Legion Hardware

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Check out the power and temp video on [H] for the GTX480, it hit 95c on an open bench! No wonder Nvidia chose to fit Delta fans with these cards!

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Overclockers have the GTX480 up for pre-order at £448 which is going to be to going rate for the first couple of weeks. The HD5870 can be had for £310 at the same site but £300 if you shop around so the difference is actually as high 45% over here.

True, but you were trying to claim it was 40% different in the US just based off the European price. Pc parts are much cheaper here, no tax helps.

[Freddie]

True, but you were trying to claim it was 40% different in the US just based off the European price. Pc parts are much cheaper here, no tax helps.

Don't you have some sort of sales tax to add on which varies state to state? For some reason I had it in my mind the US prices would have been parallel to UK prices but of course I forgot the UK is rip-off island and MRSP can vary a lot from company to company. For example the HD5870 MRSP is $399 and in the UK it was sold at £299, I applied the same logic to the new Geforce cards but in reverse where £450 would equal $550 but alas no that isn't the case.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

Don't you have some sort of sales tax to add on which varies state to state?

6.5% sales tax in my state but whenever I buy something on the internet there is no tax, unless the company is based in my state which no PC part stores are.

Holy !!!

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...arrives,6.html single GTX480 only 6FPS short of two 5870's in CROSSFIRE!! SICKKKKK!!!! woooot!

[HansDuet]

Rawr, I want GTX470 review.

This looks pretty much what I expected.

[29 days later]

It must be party time at AMD HQ at the moment and just to think they have a HD5890 waiting the wings.

Rawr, I want GTX470 review.

This looks pretty much what I expected.

Check out the [H] review above.

[Jaketh]

umm, in half those benchmarks the 480 comes close and even better then the 5970

[29 days later]

umm, in half those benchmarks the 480 comes close and even better then the 5970

Did Ray Charles hack your account or something? The only benchmark were it came close was Dirt 2 and that was only because the GTX480 was running DX9 as opposed to DX11. And the only benchmarks where the GTX480 comes out ahead of the Radeon 5XXX series is in power and temp.............which is bad!


Now in all seriousness this doesn't bode well for the consumer it's very unlikely ATI will cut prices and if they do it will only be back to what they were way back in October. What is these cards offer that the ATI haven't been offering us for the past 6 months? You would have to be a massive fan of Cuda applications to justify one of these cards and even then what's wrong with your currant setup?

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Some people have been queuing up to mock Nvidia over Fermi and the photoshop jobs have already started showing up most of them bad but this ones a good one.

[Jaketh]

im going to get 4 of them in SLI

[29 days later]

I've been reading through the conclusions made in the reviews and there is a mix of opinions some have been more brutal then others with PCPer actually being fairly positive about it. The worst feedback given to these new cards is from Bi-tech.

Yes, the GTX 480 offers great performance in our test games, especially in Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2, but compared to the competition, it doesn't make a strong enough case for itself, especially when you consider that there are just so many caveats involved with buying this card. The higher price, the 100W of extra power consumption, scorchingly hot temperatures and a much noisier stock cooler are all extremely detrimental to its desirability. The HD 5870 remains a far better choice if you're a gamer; while we've yet to see how the GTX 480 performs with CUDA apps and Folding, at this stage Fermi looks like a flop.

Given it's price I can see why they would say that, it's a scandal that Nvidia are charging just $80 more then HD5870 in the US yet in the UK the difference will be £150+.

Toms hardware gave this a mixed review.

First, the good—performance. Fortunately for Nvidia, it had a few targets in the Radeon HD 5970, 5870, and 5850 as it was generating specs. While we’re sure the company wishes it was shipping 512-shader cards instead of pared-down boards, it’s hitting high-enough clocks to make GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 generally-faster than Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850. This is especially true when you turn on anti-aliasing, as the new GeForce cards take a much smaller hit than their competition. Nevertheless, AMD holds onto the single-card performance crown with Radeon HD 5970. On the other hand, Nvidia's position stands to improve moving forward, as its emphasis on DirectX 11 affects a growing number of titles.

What about the bad? Well, getting your feet in the door here costs $350. A flagship GeForce GTX 480 runs $500. Radeon HD 5850s recently dropped back down to $300 and Radeon HD 5870s can be found around $400. Though the GeForce cards are faster than their single-GPU competition, the premium is hard to swallow if power and display connectivity are important to you, and less-so if PhysX, CUDA, or 3D Vision are more interesting. Do we expect AMD to drop its prices in response? Don’t count on it. According to the company, demand continues to outstrip wafer supply, with the consequence of anticipated pricing stability. Should the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 maintain their MSRPs, you’re looking at a staggering of price and performance from the Radeon HD 5850 up to the 5970 (with Nvidia's GeForce cards in between).


So, if you break everything down into power, price, and performance (meaning you’re most concerned with how GeForce GTX 480 and 470 stand up in today’s games), then today’s preview comes off somewhat underwhelming after the build-up.

What also strikes me is the difference in result people get, some have said the difference between the the HD5870 and GTX480 is as little as 6% on aggregate and places like Hexus have it upwards of 20%. Load temps go between 75c according to toms hardware and 95 on [H].

[mrcrusty]

I'd like to add the Guru3d review as well to the list.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...70-480-review/

The results are impressive, but the temps and power draw are higher than the Radeon cards. Good performance, to be sure, but if you've already got a 5850/5870, there's really no point in switching to Nvidia. The cards are better in pure performance, but not necessarily better overall.

The GTX 470/480 drivers will mature and the performance will maybe be ~20% better than ATI's offerings, but it seems like unless you're willing to wait a few months for prices to drop, custom cards to come out and for drivers to mature, doesn't seem like good bang for buck.

The GTX 470's go for $350 and the GTX 480 go for $500 on newegg.

However, you can pick up a Sapphire Vapor-X HD 5870 for $450, or the HD 5850 version for $320.

They could probably keep within ~5-10% of the Nvidia cards on stock (since it's factory overclocked), and equal with overclocking, but also have better cooling, lower power draws and they cost less.

So Nvidia wins out on pure performance, but overall, they don't do anything that really shatters ATI in any way, at least for now. By the time the HD 5890 and the GTX 485 come out, Nvidia's cards will eat the ATI ones for lunch. They are hungry little beasts.

HD 5850/5870, if you're impatient, GTX 470/480, if you're willing to wait a few months.

[mrmouth]

I dont know anyone who was truly excited about the GTX480 once we finally started to get some solid, early spec leaks and benchmarks. But in terms of very early benchmarks, if we are going to add asterisks to the last ATI release and early drivers, we should do the same here. So eventually, the 480 is going to beat the 5870 handily.

The real gem will be the 470. I fully expect to grab one depending on availability, and pricing due to availability. The popularity of the 5850 is massive, and with good reason. Nvidia might have just killed that card. It is safe to say that every review going forward will be recommending the 470 over the 5850, at $40 more. That is where ATI has to be sweating. And it will be interesting to see what they can do with prices. Lots of speculation that the initial price jump was kept artificially high to pad their bottom line, and give them some latitude for a situation like this.

This goes so far beyond a two card launch, though. This is a new architecture, that offers so much. I would be saying that if the roles were reversed, and this was ATI. Again, I am running an ATI card

But this is something that will stay relevant for years, and as people have said, this pushes gaming forward. This is truly an architecture that developers can make significantly better looking products on.

The hard work for Nvidia is done for the foreseeable future. They can continue to release cards on this foundation, while ATI has to eventually match this. But it goes beyond that. To some peoples chagrin, the gaming industry has both feet firmly aboard the CUDA/Physx ship, and the latter, increasingly more so. At some point, ATI has to counter that successfully. And that only really comes when they not just match, but best Nvidia in those two areas.

I'd like to add the Guru3d review as well to the list.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...70-480-review/

And once again that is hands down the best review. Love that site.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

I dont know anyone who was truly excited about the GTX480 once we finally started to get some solid

ChaobSiroc and Jaketh

The GTX480 is outside of most people gaming card budgets so that diminishes the excitement. I love the slick heatpipes on that sucker.

The GTX470 is an excellent card to compete with the 5850 (notice the 5850's price dropped a bit within the last couple weeks).

[mrcrusty]

ChaobSiroc and Jaketh

The GTX480 is outside of most people gaming card budgets so that diminishes the excitement. I love the slick heatpipes on that sucker.

The GTX470 is an excellent card to compete with the 5850 (notice the 5850's price dropped a bit within the last couple weeks).

Honestly, the GTX 470 seemed a little lackluster to me (maybe because it's missing the heatpipes, those things make the GTX 480 look like a bamf).

If you're getting a GTX 480, it's more or less a given you don't care much about power draw, or even temps, all it has to do is show it's top dog in performance.

But the GTX 470 is different since it's in the "bang for buck" arena with the HD 5850, or a crossfire 5770 configuration. It needs to show that overall, it's got the best performance, for the best price. It doesn't do enough to warrant the extra moolah, especially when you've got the higher temps and power draws and non reference 5850 designs coming out the wazoo that sell for less.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

If you're getting a GTX 480, it's more or less a given you don't care much about power draw

I'm kicking myself for buying a 1,000watt PSU. GTX480's are my chance at making amends

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[mrmouth]

Well, depending on the review, both initial 4xx series cards beat there competition. And with better drivers, you could end up with cards that really spank the competition. So the only thing in my mind that is disappointing is the heat they are going to put out. It will be interesting what Nvidia eventually does about that. Simple changes to the fan controllers can do a lot. And I think the power draw focus is a bit overrated.

I wouldn't say the 480 was not a possibility for me (5970 yes), but it didn't really pique my interest. Overall though, I dont know why people are so down on this launch. Aside from some of the expectations putting the 480 at near 5970, dual gpu, performance levels, this is a good inital showing for a new architecture that will see upwards of 10+ cards over it's life. The 470 has a chance to be the catalyst towards a revision that is cooler and less power hungry, that could give the 8800GT a run in terms of popularity. Maybe even with this version depending on how fat peoples wallets are right now. I mean, Im certainly willing to take upwards of a $150 hit on my 5850 by selling it local, and throwing down on a 470.

[Jaketh]

i need 530 dollars, anyone?

[mrcrusty]

29 days - ATI's drivers won't get much better performance wise, I mean, it will, but seeing as the drivers for the cards are already half a year old, I doubt that ATI will be able to pull much more performance from them. Nvidia, on the other hand, could probably pull ~10-20% from the Fermi cards once they fully mature.

If the 10.3 Catalyst drivers could pull ~5-10% for the ATI cards, there's nothing preventing something similar with Nvidia's drivers in future.

As for the older games, true enough, for cards like the HD 5870 and the GTX 480, older games (with the exception of Crysis, of course ) are starting to run into a CPU bottleneck anyway, so any performance increase is mostly for bragging rights. 78 fps to 85 fps... you're not gonna notice the difference when you play.

On another note, damn Australian GPU prices, I hate them.

GTX 480 for $829AU @ PC Case Gear.

For that price, I could get two HD 5850's and run them in Crossfire. I'd probably have some money left over too.

As for the GTX 470, it's going for $550 @ PC Case Gear. Can get an HD 5870 for that and have enough money left over for lunch.

Guess I won't be getting the Nvidia cards anytime soon.

I still stick to my original post in the thread: that the GTX 470/480 aren't worth getting over the HD 5850/5870 until prices drop, non reference designs with better coolers are released, drivers are matured and when prices drop. Did I mention that the prices need to drop? They win on pure performance, but are not value for money atm.
So, if you're buying a card in a few months, grab the Nvidia cards, if you want the cards now, go ATI.