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

Great review HardOCP, though a disappointment from nVidia. Looks like I'll go AMD/ATI this time now with a 5850 later on this year. I'll like to see their mainstream cards though - maybe the savior of this series?

That fan noise and temperatures are turning me off - reminds me of my current video card. The amount of heat these cards are producing on a open desk is going to probably get worse on a quieter setup, like those using Antec's P180/182/183's.
 
i guess that settles it. regular crossfire 5870 should be faster (not even to mention the 2gb cards). since a 5870 is faster core clock than a 5970 core clocks.interested in those benchmarks! :)
 
Awesome review! I don't feel the need to read up anywhere else. Thanks Hard|OCP!
Kinda dissapointed by the performance, which explains how tight lipped NV have been.
So much for holding off for some price drops. :eek:
 
At Finger: I am not sure about Bjorn3D's review. The test setup stated:

"Drivers for ATI GPU's 8.663 Recommended Review Drivers"

If that is the case, the FPS will be way low for the ATI 58xx series. That said,

Noise and Heat are paramount for my systems at my house. I have wife and kids, computer in Den, Son's room, and Dining room. The Den has an XFX5850 I picked up here for 300, it is quiet. The 4830's I have in the other two computers are extremely quiet. You cannot hear the computers over ambient, and all game nicely for the games we are involved with.

For me, neither Fermi would work, and the reason for the reason of all ATI at home, my last job 20 used only Nvidia, and we had so much trouble with the drivers for dual displays that I personally tried out the red team... and have had no problems.

Kyle and company, thank you for the review, keep up the great work. I don't have any eyefinity setup yet, but it sure looks tempting.

Salute.
 
Here's what legit reviews said:

We were told 29 sites in the US were sent cards and only six of those sites got two for SLI testing and that five got a GeForce GTX 470 for testing.
Click to expand...

In which case, grats to [H] !
 
One thing I found very interesting is the video recordings where you saw the power usage and could hear the cards. Both the GeForce GTX 480 and the Radeon HD 5870 moved a ton of air, but unless its just my imagination the GTX 480 had a high pitched whine to it whereas the HD 5870 did not.

To me the GTX 480 sounded horribly loud and obnoxious while the Radeon was tolerable.
 
Perhaps I missed it but it should have been made very clear at the start why the two card 480 SLI, 1000 dollar solution was being put against a 5970 (essentially two 5850s) and not two 5870 cards, or even two 5870 2GB cards.

I pretty much flicked through thinking, "well this isn't even a valid comparison so..why am I reading this?"

The single card tests were interesting though but the SLI information may as well have just been the 480's on their own.

It would be interesting to see how much of a performance difference there is when tessellation is switched on/off in Metro 2033, AvP and Dirt2. I get the feeling that the 480 is basically winging it because of a display option that is barely noticeable but comes with a hefty performance hit. (in those games anyway)
 
Do you think you could literally ( not figuratively!) cook an egg on the 480 grill using those upside down Lian Li cases?

It would be pretty cool, and probably the first time you could do this without modding a card with a miniature frying pan heatsink.
 
skadebo said:
Do you think you could literally ( not figuratively!) cook an egg on the 480 grill using those upside down Lian Li cases?

It would be pretty cool, and probably the first time you could do this without modding a card with a miniature frying pan heatsink.
Click to expand...

lol someone looks to be about to try that

Capture598.jpg
 
skadebo said:
Do you think you could literally ( not figuratively!) cook an egg on the 480 grill using those upside down Lian Li cases?
Click to expand...

Spit did not sizzle on the heat pipes under load....I tried.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Finger said:
This review has the 470 dipping down to 15fps in Bad Company 2 (and spending a significant amount of time under 30), but that's completely unacceptable to me, and I'd crank that AA *way* down so that the minimum was somewhere in the 30s and the average was around 60 or more. I trust Kyle's results, but some of the benchmarks at other sites seem to make more sense to me as a hardcore PC gamer.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more! Why on earth whack the AA up to ludicrous levels when the framerates are that low? The AA would barely be noticeable outside of screenshot comparisons whereas a drop of 30fps would feel like a mouse full of glue. Sort priorities out! When average is 60-70 and any drops below 60 are rare outliers, then that's 'best playable'.
 
Question about the videos. Is the audio volume consistent? (I'm not sure how to phrase this)

i.e. if I run two videos at once, can I assume that the difference between the volume of the audio streams is somewhat related to the real volume difference?

Edit: I guess it would come down to how the camera/mic is processing the data...
 
Totally agree with ToastyBread... the way I see it is that I didn't spend $100 on Noctua fans to install a beast of a card that is running at 105C and I certainly do not want to hear that video card fan scream.
 
Kyle, can we expect to see gtx 470 SLI reviews anytime soon?

Something rubbed me wrong about this soft launch. I think nVidia was a little too selective giving out cards. Sure, everyone wants to look their best, but I'm left feeling a bit dirty after gathering info. Reviews should be left to those doing them, having Nvidia only giving half the story out just feels wrong. On the cusp of the weekend we get a launch that will go unanswered over the weekened. The lack of drivers/features that won't come until later, SLI review only for the gtx 480, no Nvidia Surround.

Nvidia only giving out the meager showing of cards is laughable, it's surely not defendable. Nvidia set the release date. How in the hell can the consumer be confident in Nvidia if they can't even get enough cards out to be reviewed?

I feel that [H] did an excellent job at keeping things on a fair playing field. Thanks for a very unbiased review. However, this story is left with too much untold. If this was an '09 launch, I could reason to see a steady stream of information being available, but this was a PR hyped event that should have been more complete.
 
Finkus said:
Perhaps I missed it but it should have been made very clear at the start why the two card 480 SLI, 1000 dollar solution was being put against a 5970 (essentially two 5850s) and not two 5870 cards, or even two 5870 2GB cards.

I pretty much flicked through thinking, "well this isn't even a valid comparison so..why am I reading this?"
Click to expand...

or you could interpret that test as saying the $700 solution is a bit behind the $1000 setup. the 5970 is two underclocked 5870's with the full compliment of shaders. water coolers would be able to get the 5970 closer to the 5870 clocks.
 
Great review. I didnt know the 470 and 480 were dropping today! Nice suprise! As you noted, the 480 does seem slightly faster then the ATI, but the added cost in hardware, power, and heat in no way justifies it. Im sure a lot of Nvidia fanboys are really REALLY butthurt, but the writing is on the wall. Sure Nvidia can claim top card, but at what cost? The 480 cost's $100 MORE then the 5870!

One thing I would like to thank Nvidia for doing, is driving down the price of ATI cards ;) Maybe we can get the price of the 5850 down so I can do a Xfire 5850 for the same price as a 480! =)
 
rennyf77 said:
or you could interpret that test as saying the $700 solution is a bit behind the $1000 setup. the 5970 is two underclocked 5870's with the full compliment of shaders. water coolers would be able to get the 5970 closer to the 5870 clocks.
Click to expand...

Don't really need to start talking about watercooling or overlocking a dual-GPU card when they should be testing against two of the equivalent single card solutions in Crossfire.
 
I hope you turn those Fermis off this Saturday for Earth Hour and save the planet. Jesus
These are going to be banned in California for energy consumption!
 
Gibbage said:
One thing I would like to thank Nvidia for doing, is driving down the price of ATI cards ;) Maybe we can get the price of the 5850 down so I can do a Xfire 5850 for the same price as a 480! =)
Click to expand...

Umm, ATI is not changing the prices of their cards, they've already stated this. Nvidia priced their cards according to ATI's current prices so ATI didn't have to do anything.
 
dnottis said:
Clear victory for those already owned 5870. I didnt have to wait, I've been enjoying mine for months now. FERMI - too hot, not enough performance for the power or price. Charlie was right all along.
Click to expand...

Same here,glad I didn't wait:)

And thanks for a great review:)
 
Last edited:
Druneau said:
Question about the videos. Is the audio volume consistent? (I'm not sure how to phrase this)
Click to expand...

Yes. The mic cost more than a 5850. Distance was kept constant as well as all ambient noise. I made sound adjustment levels in the edit that were kept constant in every video. It was of the utmost importance to me that we represented noise as "perfect" as possible across the videos. I did not take comparison lightly.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
for this long of a wait and all the hype this is all i can say "SON I AM DISAPPOINT" and lol at nv fans trying to pick apart the review
 
Thanks for the great review Kyle and Brent. The 470 looks like meh especially compared to the 5850. The 480 is pretty powerful though, but I just can't get over the power requirements, heat, and noise. I'm neither pro Ati or Nvidia I've bought cards from both over the years (last card was a gtx 260 and just upgraded to a 5870 when they just came out.) What a brilliant move by Ati to focus on power consumption with the 5xxx series, it's playing out perfectly for them.

As others have said with a refresh the 480 should be a real monster.
 
Gibbage said:
Great review. I didnt know the 470 and 480 were dropping today!

One thing I would like to thank Nvidia for doing, is driving down the price of ATI cards ;) Maybe we can get the price of the 5850 down so I can do a Xfire 5850 for the same price as a 480! =)
Click to expand...

Dropping ? Well, in case you are lucky you will be able to buy them after 6th April. If you are lucky.

And as it was previously stated - ATI is not changing prices, GTX470 is priced at HD5870 price, GTX480 is priced a lot higher. ATI could even increase the price and still be the better deal.
 
Firstly, really appreciate the videos. Great job on them, you can try and describe noise levels all day long but hearing is believing. Having the power meter at the same time is just icing on the cake, great work!

Secondly, the power consumption of the 480 especially is just not acceptable. Nvidia to me clearly is pushing these GPUs beyond what is reasonable to make sure they have the performance crown, noise and power be damned. Even more ridiculous is you will need an SLI config for 3 monitor gaming, too loud and too expensive vs. the ATI solution. Fermi to me is clearly a product that should not be on 40nm at all but Nvidia had no choice but to push forward. You can argue that the enthusiast doesn't care so much about power consumption which is true to an extent, but the heat/noise puts this thing well beyond what most people are going to tolerate, and this testing was done in an open air environment. You better have a very good case, otherwise I can see people literally cooking the video card.

As for this being a "launch" as Nvidia is calling it, this is not a launch but a preview. If NV wants to call this a product launch, then it is a paper launch, plain and simple.
 
Kyle thanks for the review. Disappointed in Nvidia becuase this mean ATI wont be forced to change their price on their cards.

On a side note, my friend laughed at me for buying a 1000 watts PSU while he brought a 750 watts saying that's all anyone will EVER need.
 
Finally, an end to Fermi's "debacle"!

I hope that the 4870 will come dome in price.
Unfortunately, the 480 is too expensive. Consequently, ATI does not need to adjust its pricing since only NVIDIA fans would buy a 470-480 anyway.

I am so ready for some Eyefinity+Crossfire action!
 
Here's what Fermi was designed to do. I love how the GPGPU capability wasn't even mentioned. Of course, most readers are only gamers?, so they wouldn't care about practical capabilities of a new generation GPU.

If Nvidia had focused their R&D on a high-end gaming GPU, we'd have a different situation on our hands. These cards are not power efficient while competing with ATI's gpus, because they were not designed solely to render modern video games.
 
noclick said:
Kyle thanks for the review. Disappointed in Nvidia becuase this mean ATI wont be forced to change their price on their cards.

On a side note, my friend laughed at me for buying a 1000 watts PSU while he brought a 750 watts saying that's all anyone will EVER need.
Click to expand...
well unless you plan on running gtx480 sli and some other stuff in there then I would laugh at you too. a 750watt was more than plenty for you even if you wanted to add another 5850.
 
cannondale06 said:
well unless you plan on running gtx480 sli and some other stuff in there then I would laugh at you too. a 750watt was more than plenty for you even if you wanted to add another 5850. as it it is now you have a system that pulls 250watts so a 1000watt cpu was a waste of money and not very efficient.
Click to expand...

You only draw as much power as needed, so his 250W pull doesn't mean he's wasting 750W.

And remember, PSU's have a power curve for efficiency... generally they're most efficient at 30-70% of their maximum power draw. So a 750W PSU might be able to deliver 750W, but you're risking a lot more heat/lower efficiency/stability issues if you're drawing 700W on it, than if you're drawing 700W on a 1000W PSU.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top