Fermi comparison across reviews

[GoldenTiger]

It didn't "prove" your point at all, because you can still get a 5870 for $390 shipped. Which means you can't prove your point since its already proven false.

You've yet to produce a link to that from a reliable vendor...

@WabeWalker: I game at 2560x1600, but with the doubt surrounding driver issues I think we'll see more positive results at the actual launch with a newer version (which will be before any end user actually installs it in their system, or within a week of such roughly). Some reviews mention issues with 2560x1600 scaling, one including a direct quote from an nVidia rep, so I don't doubt it: the numbers just look off for proper scaling on them. For 1920x1080 the numbers do look great overall... in some games it's a slimmer lead, but overall it does rock and maintain a proper price-performance ratio for a bleeding-edge card. In some cases as you say it catches up to the 5970 which suffers from inherently being a multi-GPU setup, but in many it does trounce the 5870 regardless. I think for the most part people are just looking at the #'s wrong because it's the "in" thing to do right now bashing the Fermi. We'll see how the bandwagon looks in a couple weeks once people are installing these in their systems.

Plus, to get the full potential of the 5970, you'd need to overclock it to stock 5870 clocks. You'd be a bloody fool not to do that. They downclocked it to keep it within pci-e spec.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

Then your whole "it's so much lower a power draw!" thing goes out the window, and we can overclock a Fermi too... the RAM especially in reviews is seeing huge overclocks without much heat added.

 

[Spare-Flair]

Let's revisit this thread once 480s become available and we can judge what real retail prices settle out to be.

For what it's worth, I went red after such terrible experiences not being able to bear the high temps and loud fans of the 8800GTX and 9800GTX so Fermi is exactly the wrong card for me. If you don't mind the noise and heat and power bills, that will be fine for you.

 

[RADEoN]

But I'm saying that the 5970 is intentionally down-clocked to stay within pci-e spec. You can exceed the slot specs if you want, but the add-in board partners don't want to be held responsible if something were to happen. I'm sure the dual 470 card will be the same way. I doubt severely there will be a dual 480 card.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[GoldenTiger]

But I'm saying that the 5970 is intentionally down-clocked to stay within pci-e spec. You can exceed the slot specs if you want, but the add-in board partners don't want to be held responsible if something were to happen. I'm sure the dual 470 card will be the same way. I doubt severely there will be a dual 480 card.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

So is the 480... they downclocked it and cut sp's supposedly to avoid going over PCI-E spec. So, you could make the same argument for it .

Let's revisit this thread once 480s become available and we can judge what real retail prices settle out to be.

For what it's worth, I went red after such terrible experiences not being able to bear the high temps and loud fans of the 8800GTX and 9800GTX so Fermi is exactly the wrong card for me. If you don't mind the noise and heat and power bills, that will be fine for you.

I had the opposite experience but with ATI on the 5870... high temps/overall loud fan, and driver issues, myself. Just goes to show that not all issues affect all people... the 8800gts 640 I had back then treated me wonderfully . That's why you can't simply discount people's issues as "well most don't have it, so it doesn't exist" as people have been doing lately. The fact that the 480 turned out to perform a lot better than the 5870 was mainly a bonus for me: I just wanted off the 5870, and went in expecting roughly equal performance with anything else as a bonus.

As far as cost/performance, if the Fermi shakes out to be priced $570-600 average "you buy it at this" price, that will make it a whole 'nother story... the 5870 launched at $380 but quickly went to $410-420+ average. If the same happens to Fermi, well... it will skew things a lot on that front, even though the absolute performance gain will remain intact.

 

[RADEoN]

So is the 480... they downclocked it and cut sp's supposedly to avoid going over PCI-E spec. So, you could make the same argument for it .



I had the opposite experience but with ATI on the 5870.

First, you never owned a 5870.

Second, how exactly does your argument make sense? The 5870 is well within spec. Single GPU vs Single GPU here. And if you overclock a dual fermi card (or even a single one, for that matter) you'll probably need a dedicated air conditioner to run in your computer to keep it from burning down.

Downclocking a dual gpu card with the intention of the end user overclocking it to should-be stock clocks is far different than physically changing a chip and removing sp's to make the fermi experiment salvageable. Consider the supposed factory underclock nvidias way of saying thanks to your cooling bill.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[WabeWalker]

Catalyst AI doesn't have a profile for it just yet. I would bet the same would be happening with SLI'd 480's. Plus, to get the full potential of the 5970, you'd need to overclock it to stock 5870 clocks. You'd be a bloody fool not to do that. They downclocked it to keep it within pci-e spec.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

Um, the GTX 480 is also kicking the 5870's ass in Just Cause 2 - by 25 frames per second.

And the GTX 480 hasn't even been released yet. Doesn't really matter if ATI hasn't created a profile yet. If an unreleased card is beating a released card by that much, it says something about the unreleased card.

It also says something about the released card? Maybe if ATI doesn't have a 'profile' for that game then they'd better get one? How often does that sort of thing happen? Are we talking about a crossfire profile? Okay, but even if ATI does create a crossfire profile for Just Cause 2 A) you're going to have to wait for it, and B) the GTX 480 is still kicking the 5870's ass.

I'd have to say that the debate is pretty much over.

Clearly the GTX 480 is a screamer of a card. It easily competes with the 5870 in virtually every game... but now and then it pretty much blows it out of the water, considering that these GPUs are of the same generation.

 

[GoldenTiger]

First, you never owned a 5870.

Second, how exactly does your argument make sense? The 5870 is well within spec. Single GPU vs Single GPU here. And if you overclock a dual fermi card (or even a single one, for that matter) you'll probably need a dedicated air conditioner to run in your computer to keep it from burning down.

Downclocking a dual gpu card with the intention of the end user overclocking it to should-be stock clocks is far different than physically changing a chip and removing sp's to make the fermi experiment salvageable. Consider the supposed factory underclock nvidias way of saying thanks to your cooling bill.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

Haha, I love it... yes, I clearly didn't... heck, that's why I first tried selling on the forum before moving it to ebay awhile later, eventually selling it a week ago in the linked thread. I also somehow magically posted all kinds of impressions when I received it at launch in my thread at that time: I also clearly fabricated this picture that was in my for-sale thread:

Seriously, argue with me about the performance all you want, but claiming I'm a troll that never owned my 5870 is going out on a limb that is silly and 100% factually incorrect.

 

[RADEoN]

And it only took 6 extra months, a few extra hundred dollars, watts, and degrees. Grats nVidia, you surely won over the hearts of at least 5 people on hardforum.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[RADEoN]

I stand corrected, GT.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[WabeWalker]

Haha, I love it... yes, I clearly didn't... heck, that's why I first tried selling on the forum before moving it to ebay awhile later, eventually selling it a week ago in the linked thread. I also somehow magically posted all kinds of impressions when I received it at launch in my thread at that time: I also clearly fabricated this picture that was in my for-sale thread:

Seriously, argue with me about the performance all you want, but claiming I'm a troll that never owned my 5870 is going out on a limb that is silly and 100% factually incorrect.

Pwned.

 

[kllrnohj]

So is the 480... they downclocked it and cut sp's supposedly to avoid going over PCI-E spec. So, you could make the same argument for it .

He is talking about the 5970, which at stock clocks already has a significant lead on the GTX 480 AND uses less power.

To the guy who created this post:

You've made it completely clear to me that upgrading my GTX 275 to a GTX 480 is hands-down the correct move.

I'll be getting GTX 295 performance numbers, in a DX 11, single solution card, for around five hundred dollars. That is a sweet upgrade from my 275.

I think it's worth noting that the performance gains of the GTX 480 you've demonstrated in this thread become even more exaggerated at lower resolutions, but that at higher resolutions the 5870 and the GTX 480 become more in-line with one another. Great for me, because I game at 1920x1080.

People have been calling me a fan boy because I was excited by these numbers.

That's ridiculous. Anybody can plainly see that in many cases the GTX 480 is just plain kicking the 5870's ass. I was prepared to pay a little more for the 5970, but you'd be a bloody fool to do that with these benchmark numbers.

Hell, the GTX 480 is even beating the 5970 in some cases - the recently released Just Cause 2 is the perfect example of what can happen when you have a multi-GPU card, since the GTX 480 is almost besting it by a whopping 20 frames per second.

You should check out the legion hardware review - the GTX 295 beats the GTX 480 in some games at 1920x1200. Heck, it even loses to the 4870X2 in some games (like HAWX at 1920x1200). And the 5970 is still the undisputed champ, so you wouldn't be a fool to buy it because its the fastest you'll get *and* it uses less power than the GTX 480 (seriously nvidia, wtf?)

So the reason people are calling you a fanboy is because you are ignoring reality and seeing what you want to see.

 

[Spare-Flair]

I had the opposite experience but with ATI on the 5870... high temps/overall loud fan, and driver issues, myself.

And so you'll be okay with high temps and overall loud fan for the 480? Techpowerup's reviews show it 7-10 dba louder than than a stock 5870, meaning since it's logarithmically scaled, it's more than twice as loud when gaming.

My 8800GTX (faulty) basically got Fermi temperatures (90-105° C) for two weeks until it was RMA'd but that time showed me that I could not deal with that in my system as even though it was exhausting out the back it raised the ambient temps of my system about 30° C overall and was killing all my other components.

GTX 480 would be an awesome card under watercooling.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

He is talking about the 5970, which at stock clocks already has a significant lead on the GTX 480 AND uses less power.



You should check out the legion hardware review - the GTX 295 beats the GTX 480 in some games at 1920x1200. Heck, it even loses to the 4870X2 in some games (like HAWX at 1920x1200). And the 5970 is still the undisputed champ, so you wouldn't be a fool to buy it because its the fastest you'll get *and* it uses less power than the GTX 480 (seriously nvidia, wtf?)

So the reason people are calling you a fanboy is because you are ignoring reality and seeing what you want to see.

don't bother, all he sees is green =) let him "vote with his wallet" and do w/e he wants with his money, in the mean time I've been enjoying my 5850, and now 5970 maybe in 2 weeks he'll be able to get a 480 without any gouging and he can enjoy it all he wants

no point in trying to convince someone who just wants to prove their opinion is right.

 

[WabeWalker]

The first dedicated GPU I ever bought was the Voodoo card. About 18 months later the Voodoo 2 card was released.

Since the existence of dedicated GPUs, from generation to generation, you're looking at roughly double the performance, so really, the card we should be looking at here is the GTX 285.

Does the GTX 480 double the performance of the GTX 280 - why yes, yes it does.

 

[shansoft]

To the guy who created this post:

You've made it completely clear to me that upgrading my GTX 275 to a GTX 480 is hands-down the correct move.

I'll be getting GTX 295 performance numbers, in a DX 11, single solution card, for around five hundred dollars. That is a sweet upgrade from my 275.

I think it's worth noting that the performance gains of the GTX 480 you've demonstrated in this thread become even more exaggerated at lower resolutions, but that at higher resolutions the 5870 and the GTX 480 become more in-line with one another. Great for me, because I game at 1920x1080.

People have been calling me a fan boy because I was excited by these numbers.

That's ridiculous. Anybody can plainly see that in many cases the GTX 480 is just plain kicking the 5870's ass. I was prepared to pay a little more for the 5970, but you'd be a bloody fool to do that with these benchmark numbers.

Hell, the GTX 480 is even beating the 5970 in some cases - the recently released Just Cause 2 is the perfect example of what can happen when you have a multi-GPU card, since the GTX 480 is almost besting it by a whopping 20 frames per second.

you do realize 5970 is downclock to 5850 speed right?

and with a game that have no profile for it.

you are pretty much expecting it to run on 5850 level.

also, fermi OC does not OC more than what 5870 or 5970 that have offer.
plus that heat is going to be insane without watercooling..

 

[WabeWalker]

don't bother, all he sees is green =)

And in turn you can remove those ATI rose-colored glasses of yours and see that clearly the GTX 480 is matching a GTX 295 - the results of the past have shown us that we should expect no more than that.

Remove your ATI rose-colored glasses and you'll see that the GTX 480 is undeniably a screamer of a card.

... it's only the fastest single GPU card on the face of the planet... I mean, sheesh... what kind of a partisan pretzel do you have to twist yourself into to argue that the 480 is a 'lackluster' card.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

The first dedicated GPU I ever bought was the Voodoo card. About 18 months later the Voodoo 2 card was released.

Since the existence of dedicated GPUs, from generation to generation, you're looking at roughly double the performance, so really, the card we should be looking at here is the GTX 285.

Does the GTX 480 double the performance of the GTX 280 - why yes, yes it does.

really? when does the GTX480 double the performance of the 285? other than in badaboom

 

[WabeWalker]

you do realize 5970 is downclock to 5850 speed right?

and with a game that have no profile for it.

you are pretty much expecting it to run on 5850 level.

also, fermi OC does not OC more than what 5870 or 5970 that have offer.
plus that heat is going to be insane without watercooling..

Which is precisely why we need to see real world results exactly like this. I'm already playing Just Cause 2.

If I had a 5970 I'd be waiting around for ATI to get its bloody act together. Meanwhile, if I had the single GPU GTX 480 I'd be screaming along.

Thanks for writing.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

And in turn you can remove those ATI rose-colored glasses of yours and see that clearly the GTX 480 is matching a GTX 295 - the results of the past have shown us that we should expect no more than that.

Remove your ATI rose-colored glasses and you'll see that the GTX 480 is undeniably a screamer of a card.

... it's only the fastest single GPU card on the face of the planet... I mean, sheesh... what kind of a partisan pretzel do you have to twist yourself into to argue that the 480 is a 'lackluster' card.

I really don't give a shit what is the fastest "single" gpu on the planet, what I care about is the fastest card i can get, and what fits my needs. a GTX480 probably would fit my needs, but it wasn't out when I bought EITHER of my 5000 series gpus, and now I have a faster card. So what should I do? sell it to please you and go buy a slower hotter more power hungry card?

btw. I've owned EVERY SINGLE generation of both ATI and NV cards that were good since the 9700. I'm not an idiot that going to waste my money supporting a company that only cares about how much $ it makes in the end. My money goes where it best benefits me, not ATI or Nvidia.

 

[krameriffic]

Presenting 8 reviews is not enough considering the number of sites receiving cards...

Why don't you do it then?

That said, I'm curious to see if it has similar availability issues to what the 5870 experienced shortly after its released. That could severely effect the market price.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

I have a 5970 im not waiting for ATI to get their act together in fact I play all my games fine, except BC2 has slow loading times

 

[Spare-Flair]

If I had a 5970 I'd be waiting around for ATI to get its bloody act together. Meanwhile, if I had the single GPU GTX 480 I'd be screaming along.

Thanks for writing.

GTX 480 Fan: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

WabeWalker: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

 

[Reality]

Pwned.

I was going to say "Raped", but they both work.

 

[mafa]

if you want to talk about money, try to be less stupid and add the power consumption,

i understand your feeling, dancing and crying over an unreleased card that turns out to be a flop, like a clown.

 

[WabeWalker]

I really don't give a shit what is the fastest "single" gpu on the planet, what I care about is the fastest card i can get...

And that's exactly why I said I was going to upgrade my GTX 275 to a GTX 480 - because it suits my needs.

I couldn't care less if the card is made by ATI or Nvidia.

I took a good long look at the 5870 benchmarks months ago, and the results just weren't quite there for me - paying that much money for a brand new card didn't seem justifiable to me.

The GTX 480, on the other hand, is posting up numbers that are eclipsing the GTX 295. It's a DX11 card (meaning I can at least enable DX settings on the newer titles, even if the visual results are minimal), and it's single GPU card (meaning I don't have to wait for a profile to be created).

This will be a serious boost over my GTX 275 - and just for being excited about this, and for writing about it in my very first post, I was immediately labeled an Nvidia fan boy. That's just ridiculous. How am I an Nvidia fan boy? Because I believe that the GTX 480 is one damned fast card. Sorry, but it is.

 

[RumpleForeSkin]

The first dedicated GPU I ever bought was the Voodoo card. About 18 months later the Voodoo 2 card was released.

Since the existence of dedicated GPUs, from generation to generation, you're looking at roughly double the performance, so really, the card we should be looking at here is the GTX 285.

Does the GTX 480 double the performance of the GTX 280 - why yes, yes it does.

The Voodoo was not a dedicated GPU, it was a 3D accelerator.. remember your roots! there wasn't a GPU till the GeForce256.

on that note about Just Cause 2.. those number have to be accounted for with physx.. that game is a monster and has more than one feature that is only available on nV's cards so your argument with this game is rather weak as it is kind of like a cooked demo.
this stinks of FX all over again, hmmm right about when the 9700 hit, noticing the patterns yet?
my next card is the 5850 all day all night,

 

[WabeWalker]

The Voodoo was not a dedicated GPU, it was a 3D accelerator.. remember your roots! there wasn't a GPU till the GeForce256.

on that note about Just Cause 2.. those number have to be accounted for with physx.. that game is a monster and has more than one feature that is only available on nV's cards so your argument with this game is rather weak as it is kind of like a cooked demo.
this stinks of FX all over again, hmmm right about when the 9700 hit, noticing the patterns yet?
my next card is the 5850 all day all night,

Oh I see, so in addition to ignoring the Just Cause 2 numbers, I guess you also want me to ignore the Far Cry 2 numbers, the Metro 2033 numbers, the World In Conflict numbers, the Hawx numbers, etc. etc.

Yeah, right, why I don't I do that. I've got a better idea, why don't I just ignore you.

 

[kidgonesmall]

gtx 480's msrp should be $450 to make it more competitive.

 

[TehQuick]

I gotta say Fermi does deliver on performance/feature part but I'll skip it until a refresh comes out. Pretty sure either 285 triple SLI or 5970 in my possession will hold me over until refreshes from ATI and nvidia come onto the market Hopefully, next round nvidia won't have an FX5800-esque power/temp/noise monster of a card

 

[Firewalker81]

I gotta say Fermi does deliver on performance/feature part but I'll skip it until a refresh comes out.

Same here, I think I am going to wait, I bought a 5850 for $250 to hold me over. We will have to see how drivers and future spins pan out, I am hopeful.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Oh I see, so in addition to ignoring the Just Cause 2 numbers, I guess you also want me to ignore the Far Cry 2 numbers, the Metro 2033 numbers, the World In Conflict numbers, the Hawx numbers, etc. etc.

Yeah, right, why I don't I do that. I've got a better idea, why don't I just ignore you.

Basically, ignore all the #'s that make it look good, and plug your ears while humming "ATI roxxors, ati roxxors, ati roxxors" .

 

[jsrivo]

Basically, ignore all the #'s that make it look good, and plug your ears while humming "ATI roxxors, ati roxxors, ati roxxors" .

How is this different from ignoring all the problems with Fermi (heat, power usage, etc.)? While these may not matter to you, it does matter to a lot of people.

So basically, ignore the #'s that make Fermi look good, and you are an ATI fanboi.
But ignore the problems that make Fermi look bad, and you are neutral?

 

[kniaugaudiskis]

This is how GTX480 compares to other video cards:
(sign "+" means faster than, "-" means slower than)
GTX480 VS
GTX295 +5%
GTX285 +45%
GTX280 +55%
GTX275 +50%
GTX260 (216SP) +70%
GTX260 (192SP) +75%
GTS250 +100%
9800GTX +110%
8800GT +127%
9600GT +145%

GTX480 VS
HD5970 -25%
HD5870 +15%
HD5850 +35%
HD5830 +55%
HD5770 +86%
HD5750 +106%
HD5670 +141%
HD5570 +178%
HD4870X2 +20%
HD4890 +61%
HD4870 +76%
HD4850 +101%
HD4770 +107%
HD4670 +167%

 

[GoldenTiger]

How is this different from ignoring all the problems with Fermi (heat, power usage, etc.)? While these may not matter to you, it does matter to a lot of people.

So basically, ignore the #'s that make Fermi look good, and you are an ATI fanboi.
But ignore the problems that make Fermi look bad, and you are neutral?

Explain how the power draw affects my game performance?

 

[jsrivo]

Explain how the power draw affects my game performance?

And like I said, even though game performance is the only thing that matters to YOU, others look at performance/watt or performance/dollar, too. Just because it's a non-factor to you doesn't mean it's not important to everyone else.

Fermi isn't a bad card. But neither is it a smashing success. We know it's fast, hot, and sucks a lot of power. The only thing I take issue over is people glossing over its flaws while overpraising its virtues.

 

[noquarter]

Was it ever a question that GoldenTiger was going to be pushing this card? Not even saying the card is bad, but seriously his position is a joke and he probably isn't even getting paid. If you're gonna wash Nvidia's balls at least get paid for it.

The GTX 480 debuted right about where it needed to be to carry the status quo. No revolution. I'm happy it exists, I now wish Nvidia comes out with mainstream parts for my budget but with the way they rebrand old tech to fill in mainstream segment it'll be years before it trickles down.

What I'm really interested in is triple monitor performance because that has impressed me more than anything in years but the SLI requirement is a huge put off ($700 in video cards.. sigh). This is seriously my only criteria now.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Was it ever a question that GoldenTiger was going to be pushing this card? Not even saying the card is bad, but seriously his position is a joke and he probably isn't even getting paid. If you're gonna wash Nvidia's balls at least get paid for it.

How is trying to correct FUD about the card's performance "a joke"? FanATIcs did the same about the 5870 vs. GTX 280... heck, I joined them at the time even though I am not biased toward either side. I personally hate FUD no matter where it is . I'm simply a "fan" of the best-performing single-GPU product.

I notice that you guys aren't able to refute on performance, so you start slinging "fanboy" or similar insults around... that speaks volumes more than anything else you could ever say.

 

[noquarter]

How is trying to correct FUD about the card's performance "a joke"? FanATIcs did the same about the 5870 vs. GTX 280... heck, I joined them at the time even though I am not biased toward either side. I personally hate FUD no matter where it is . I'm simply a "fan" of the best-performing single-GPU product.

I notice that you guys aren't able to refute on performance, so you start slinging "fanboy" or similar insults around... that speaks volumes more than anything else you could ever say.

Everything you post is 'I know fanATIcs are going to hate me but Fermi is blah blah'. You keep bringing up this divide like it actually exists. Most people don't care but you can't help yourself from calling out fanboys when no one is even being a fanboy to you. You've got imaginary opponents you have to fight about this shit with.

All anyone has been doing is speculating with the available info and you think it's some personal hatred for Nvidia.

 

[GoldenTiger]

You keep bringing up this divide like it actually exists.

All anyone has been doing is speculating with the available info and you think it's some personal hatred for Nvidia.

It sure seems to since people keep calling me an nVidia "fanboi" just as they called me an ATI "fanboi" at the time of the 5870's launch. So, it's hardly imaginary.

I too am speculating with the available info, and it is clearly not as dire as people are making it out to be.

On-topic, NEW CHART:http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4309768&postcount=238

 

[jsrivo]

I notice that you guys aren't able to refute on performance, so you start slinging "fanboy" or similar insults around... that speaks volumes more than anything else you could ever say.

lol, wasn't it already clear that we know fermi is pretty fast?