NVIDIA Fermi - GTX 470 - GTX 480 - GTX 480 SLI Review @ [H]

this is the first time in a long time I actually read the words and not stared at the graphs good review.

I wonder where all of the fermi is going to change the face of gaming people are now :<
 
styx0r said:
No folding benchmark, no GPGPU benchmarks in general, no tessellation benchmark - the [H] may know hardware, but this is hardly a fair representation.

If you thought gamers were going to be blown away by Fermi, you haven't been paying attention to Nvidia's discussions about Fermi architecture.
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We are about gaming here. Always have been, likely always will be.

If YOU thought you were going to read something here today, you have have not been paying attention to HardOCP's discussions about computer hardware in the past decade.
 
You could test 2xFermi against 3x5850s which would cost less and probably use less power. :D They are using some pretty low clocked GDDR5 on Fermi...
 
I think you were actually generous in giving it a silver (and just barely).

I think it would have been "No medal for you!" in my review. :)

Great read.
 
Take away the Metro 2033 TWIMTBP benchmark and it'd fit right in with the numbers we had 6-7 months ago :(

Rolling thumbs until 3D Vision Surround (without the 3D) numbers come out.


Gotta add that I'm currently in a hush hush test of a product that favours Nv cards - not happy to see that my current rig would require a new stronger PSU for it


edit: Very happy about the prices although I do wonder how little profit they're making on each 470/480 sold
 
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vjcsmoke said:
I agree.

2x 480 = $1000
2x 5870 = $800
1x 5970 = $600

Clearly 2x discrete 5870 vs 2x discrete 480 would have been a more fair comparison.
But perhaps they didn't have a pair of 5870s lying around to test?
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5970 + 5870 in trifire. would prob draw he same power as 2 480's and cost the same
 
Thanks for the review! Awesome that you guys are doing video now for the power and noise, really gives us a better 1st-hand look

fixed, thanks
 
SixtyWattMan said:
You could test 2xFermi against 3x5850s which would cost less and probably use less power. :D They are using some pretty low clocked GDDR5 on Fermi...
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I think you'd run into framebuffer issues with 3x 5850, whereas GF100 cards have a higher framebufer, likely helping greatly in SLI.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I think you were actually generous in giving it a silver (and just barely).

I think it would have been "No medal for you!" in my review. :)

Great read.
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480 SLI got a silver award (not 480), and it is going to be FREAKING AWESOME....for the 12 people in North America that can afford it. Had it been a great value, Gold.....but no where do I see Fermi and Value intersecting.
 
Quality review from the [H] yet again. Can't beat the way Kyle and Brent do their testing. Many thanks for that.

It's right where I figured it would be but I was hoping for more to force a price war. At this point I don't seen the HD5000 series dropping in price much at all and that sucks.

Fermi = too hot, too slow and too expensive. Now where's GoldenTiger? I have a pie for him. ;)
 
the 5970 is slower than 5870 crossfire. the gpu's run at a slower speed. can you try 5870 crossfire (the 1gb and 2gb cards, test out both crossfires?)

i think the 5870 1gb crossfire will be about the same as 480gtx sli, since the 5970 has slower clocks. i only wonder what the 5870 2gb framebuffer crossfire would do ;). sucks though, i was hoping nvidia would do slightly better, cause i want to get a cheap 5xxx card on april 15th.

looks like i'm gonna get pushed back out to may 15th :(, or perhaps the end of april if i can convince myself not to buy stuff :p
 
I am a bit surprised it got a silver award. I mean, I know that means second place in theory but I'm not sure second place out of 2 after a 6 month delay deserves any kind of reward :p

PRIME1 said:
So it's faster and offers more features than the 5870 but that's not good enough? Wow.... OK.
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Name calling will get your banned.

And for the record, SLI got the award, not the single GPU card. Reading is fundamental. - Kyle
 
I won't be buying a 470 and 480. I don't know why the card uses so much power. But it's just not worth it. I'll probably stick with my 9800 GTX +for now or go ATI.
 
I think an individual rating for each card/configuration would have been better then a blanked rating for the whole thing.


At quick glance, someone looking at the rating would think that the 470 got a silver rating, when it's pretty clear you guys are recommending to stay clear in the actual review.

Just my 2 cents.


Great review as always guys! =)
 
Druneau said:
Loved the videos with fan ramp-up ramp-down.
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ZerazaX said:
Thanks for the review! Awesome that you guys are doing video now for the power and noise, really gives us a better 1st-hand look
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Vegasr said:
Damn nice review! I really like the addition of the videos of the power draw. I was hoping you guys would mix in some of those, and you didn't dissappoint. :)

Holy crap on the noise level of the 480. However, the performance boost using a pair of those bad boys might make it worth the noise and power draw.
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Thanks, I was hoping you guys would take the time to look at those and get a hold of how things actually sound.
 
Great review. The 5850 continues to prove it's worth, and I will certainly be purchasing one in the coming months.

I do wish Nvidia had been a bit more daring and priced the GTX 470 at $300, but, they instead made it irrelevant at $350. Looks like we won't be having a price war anytime soon.

I am glad you didn't award the cards a medal based on faulty price drop assumptions like you did with the (now $250) 5830. I love the 5850 and 5870, but that card is a black sheep that managed to slip by you.

Also, thanks for the videos with the noise recordings. A lot of sites just publish noise measurements, and you have no idea what it really sounds like. Please do that in the future with all your reviews :D
 
well this was to be expected based on all the rumors. its certainly a failure from price/performance standpoint and the power consumption just makes it worse.
 
Hmm, methinks a little more heed ought to have been paid to cost here. Yes, a 480 SLI is faster than a 5970... but it's also MSRPing for 400 more... so it better be! What about performance per dollar? Seems like factoring in the cost makes this a raw deal for the vast, vast majority of gamers.

Also, the 5970 is a single card solution, sure it has two GPUs, but it's not exactly an even playing field... should have been dual 5870s. Also, what about dual 5970s? This has been done before: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire

Anyway, I'm sure this done pretty quickly to hit the NDA on the nose, but it seems a bit more testing/price/performance comparisons need to be done before we can decide which is really the better gaming solution.
 
As usual the [H] review absolutely shames all others on the net as some hot new hardware enters the fray :D keep up the good work! Especially digging the in-depth look at noise levels, this should be standard for high end video cards.
 
Nvidia's cards are loud as heck and really eat up power. :eek And are more expensive! I am just glad that there will be some competition and hopefully prices will drop.:D
 
Thanks for the review, I will be eagly waiting on the release of the 2GB 5870 cards to get rid of my SLI GTX285s.....a little sad but facts are facts and the 400s just doesn't deliver and is WAY too hot and power hungry.
 
GTX 480 - Pulls in 480 Watts ;).

Clearly thats why they skipped the 380 naming and put it to 480. Much more fitting IMO!
 
does anyone know if you can get a 5870 in a 2gb version without the 6 display port outputs? i only have dvi monitors and dont' want to buy 3 dongles :p
 
What happened to teh crysis benchmarks? Kyle, is it possible if you can also test out Arma 2 as thats a pretty demanding game
 
Vermillion said:
Quality review from the [H] yet again. Can't beat the way Kyle and Brent do their testing. Many thanks for that.

It's right where I figured it would be but I was hoping for more to force a price war. At this point I don't seen the HD5000 series dropping in price much at all and that sucks.

Fermi = too hot, too slow and too expensive. Now where's GoldenTiger? I have a pie for him. ;)
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I think what we will likely see are the ATI 5850 and above cards finally returning to MSRP, which would still be a win for consumers. It is interesting as coming up to today, the prices of 5850's actually went up on Newegg. I am not a fan of the way Hardocp reports the numbers, but what I do value is that they do it fair and simply report the results that gamers would see. To a gamer, seeing numbers on a graph can be pretty meaningless. Kudos to them for also not giving into these synthetic benchmarks we see that you can't "play."

We all know that there are rumors of 5xxx cards with more memory and a slight refresh hitting before we will see Northern Islands. I am curious to see how that will turn out since the nVidia cards clearly have more memory.
 
excellent article-as always-verifying many suspicions leading up to the end of the nda. certainly not worth the money if you're a cost conscious consumer. i'll bag a couple of the 480's when one of the local b&m's have them in stock for comparative porposes to my ati cards, but i'm not itchy to buy like i was the 5xxx. the best thing about the article was the power draw section. 600w from sli'd 480 isn't the worst i've seen. my watts-up device measured better than 800w while playing farcry 2 on my 3.6ghz q6600, 4870 x2 quad crossfire build. certainly something to be said for the efficiency of the x58 platform.
 
My thoughts are if your a nvidia fan at least you not losing out , even performance , looks like better in sli vs crossfire... but not very economic friendly more price more heat more noise
 
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