Performance of the GTX 470

**Dragonknight30** · December 07, 2010, 06:55 PM

Greetings. I recently ordered a new computer from cyberpowerpc.com and I have a concern about one of the things.

Of course, with my luck, the day I order the computer they happen to be out of ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, so I had to resort to the GTX 470. Now, I know that this is not as good the HD 5870 but what kind of quality will I get with this on, say, Napoleon Total War? Will I be able to play this with no lag with all of the settings all the way up? This is my main concern.

Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Here are the other specs of the computer:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-950 3.06 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366
Fans: Maximum 120MM Color Case Cooling Fans, Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan
HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM
Memory: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module
Motherboard: (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durable™3 Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Dolby Audio, eSATA, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2 x SATA-III RAID, IEEE1394a, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI
OS: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
Overclock: Pro OC (Performance Overclock 10% or more)
PSU: 800 Watts - XtremeGear Gaming Power Supply
Sound: Asus Xonar DS 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Audio Card
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1.2GB 16X PCIe Video Card

**karamazovmm** · December 07, 2010, 07:11 PM

what is the resolution?

**Top-Tier-Tech** · December 07, 2010, 07:19 PM

The GTX570 was released today retailing at the same price of the 470 at launch. Only difference is that the GTX570 performs the same as a GTX480 which is better than ATI's 5870 and 6870.

As far as your question we do need to know what resolution you will be playing at.

**Dragonknight30** · December 07, 2010, 07:27 PM

Well, I haven't received the computer or monitor yet, but I believe I will be playing at 1920x1080.

**Sir Shfvingle** · December 07, 2010, 08:03 PM

But for around $250, what's the best card: GTX 470,480, 570 or AMD 6870(I don't know nvidia prices)?

**karamazovmm** · December 07, 2010, 08:22 PM

you bought a monitor you just dont know what you got?

@Sir Shfvingle

it would be the gtx 470, although I have a dislike for that card I dont know what it is... the 6870 is a close winner.

the gtx 480 dont even sell at lower than 400 bucks as far as I could see. and the gtx 570 retail around 300+, not that you are likely going to get one anytime soon... (productions issues again, I just dont know how nvidia can do that, since they are the primary customer of TSMC, kudos to the one who finds out)

**Top-Tier-Tech** · December 07, 2010, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by Mr MM

gtx 570 retail around 300+, not that you are likely going to get one anytime soon... (productions issues again, I just dont know how nvidia can do that, since they are the primary customer of TSMC, kudos to the one who finds out)

So if there are production issues why is it I can buy them from here and here and here etc.

**Dragonknight30** · December 07, 2010, 08:29 PM

Ok, here is the situation:

About 4 hours ago, I bought a computer from Cyberpowerpc.com. I assumed they would still have the HD 5870 in stock, but evidently they didn't. So I went with the GTX 470, as that is what my dad said to get. However, I am slightly doubting the performace of this card. I have not yet purchased a monitor. That will occur after Christmas, but upon a recent visit to Best Buy I discovered a nice 23" monitor that I like, so I will most likely buy that. I believe the screen resolution of that is 1920x1080, so that will most likely be the resolution I am running Napoleon, Empire, Medieval II, etc.

So, my question is: What performance will I recieve, at 1920x1080, on the highest settings possible?

**Phier** · December 07, 2010, 08:49 PM

The Geforce GTX 470 gives a smoother impression. Although it doesn't offer the best framerate in the world or unmatched image quality, it nevertheless is able to stand up to the Radeon HD 5870. Depending on the individual test Nvidia's card is slightly faster or slower than HD 5870/1G. Furthermore the GTX 470 reaches, with 3.7 Sone, about the same noise level as the default design of the Radeon. But of course there are custom designs of the HD 5870, like Sapphire's HD 5870 Vapor-X or the Powercolor Radeon HD 5870 PCS+, which are only halve as loud. The GTX 470 nevertheless seems to be the better overall package than the GTX 480, especially if you take a look at the 30 watt idle power consumption (although this is still 50 percent higher than the power consumption of the Radeon HD 5870).

Radeon HD 5870 or Geforce GTX 400? The Radeon's advantages are the lower power consumption, the custom cooling solutions, as well as the optional Sparse Grid Supersampling Anti-Aliasing. The Geforce on the other hand offers the better Anisotropic Filtering, CUDA respectively GPU Physx as well as the higher Tessellation performance and, in case of the GTX 480, better fps results.

I think you will be fine.

**mrcrusty** · December 07, 2010, 08:54 PM

Modded, or vanilla?

Secondly, will you overclock?

Thirdly, change the PSU. I hate generics. Pet peeve of mine.

Generally though, you should be able to turn up the all settings to Ultra and have 2xAA + 8xAF including SSAO and all the kinks and be playable for NTW. Less playable if you use mods with higher detail units and the like, but it evens out if you overclock. Turning off SSAO would probably help too.

Not amazing, but smooth. You'll average around 25-30 fps (an estimate). If you're smart about overclocking and get a good GTX 470, you could boost the performance by 20-25%.

It'll be fine.

Again the new Nvidia cards are priced at silly ranges in Australia. It's $450 for the GTX 570. $700 for the GTX 580. It's like they don't even try anymore.