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I know there are tons of these out there already but I thought I would write a quick review from a casual gamer on my thoughts so far.
First let me say that I have realized benchmarks are crap for the most part unless they are actual in game testing, when reviews write about 3DMark scores or benchmarks from games that have the testing built in, they don't give a good idea of how it actually performs. For instance in 3DMark06, it only showed a 20% increase compared to my SLI 8800GT which is BS, even in Crysis benchmarks it went from 14 fps to 18 fps at 2560X1440. So I decided to test it in game, I was getting around 18 fps on average with my 8800GT SLI setup at that high Res. When I popped in the GTX 470 I was constantly getting 30-34 fps and it hardly ever slowed down even in heavy action scenes it would rarely go under 30 fps. In the "more demanding" part of the game which I think I have gotten to it might dip to 24 fps for a second or two and then its back up to 30 fps which is totally playable in crysis at max settings (no AA though as I don't think I need it playing at 2560X1440).
Anyway my point to all that is that the crysis benchmark would have said "don't play at max settings" but that is completely un-true it plays fine and probably almost a 100% increase in performance compared to my old setup.
Any other game I have is flawless with this card, games like Dragon Age, GTA episodes, Tropico, Sims 3, Oblivion, max settings across the board and the games are super smooth (at least to me). For the price I am glad I got the GTX 470 instead of the 480 with discounts it saved me about $180 (compared to a 480 with discounts) and runs everything fine plus I can always SLI them in the future for probably around the same that a GTX 480 would have cost now (figuring I can get one for $200 in the next year) but it will be 40% stronger!
I think I agree with people that say buy a card that will play your games now and current new games because there is no such thing as future proofing with gpus, in a year there will be a new game that even a current SLI won't handle, you will need the newest and latest card if you want to play it at max...
Also for those wondering about heat, I did some real temp tests while playing Crysis for 2 hours last night (see my setup in my sig for cooling info), also note it was about 73 in my loft last night.
cpu max temp 56 (which I think is super low for an i7 920 OC at 3.8 ghz)
gpu max temp 90, idle always goes down to 44, so even with super air cooling like my setup you can't get that card too cool without a water cooler attached! but I will take 90 as its a couple degrees lower than reviews I have seen
Also as far as noise, in my old setup I couldn't hear my 8800GT SLI because my case fans are louder and in this setup its the same, can't hear my gpu at all. I also don't mind the noise from the case fans as they are just a wind blowing noise, not whining or anything annoying. why do people not like the sound of wind blowing?
First let me say that I have realized benchmarks are crap for the most part unless they are actual in game testing, when reviews write about 3DMark scores or benchmarks from games that have the testing built in, they don't give a good idea of how it actually performs. For instance in 3DMark06, it only showed a 20% increase compared to my SLI 8800GT which is BS, even in Crysis benchmarks it went from 14 fps to 18 fps at 2560X1440. So I decided to test it in game, I was getting around 18 fps on average with my 8800GT SLI setup at that high Res. When I popped in the GTX 470 I was constantly getting 30-34 fps and it hardly ever slowed down even in heavy action scenes it would rarely go under 30 fps. In the "more demanding" part of the game which I think I have gotten to it might dip to 24 fps for a second or two and then its back up to 30 fps which is totally playable in crysis at max settings (no AA though as I don't think I need it playing at 2560X1440).
Anyway my point to all that is that the crysis benchmark would have said "don't play at max settings" but that is completely un-true it plays fine and probably almost a 100% increase in performance compared to my old setup.
Any other game I have is flawless with this card, games like Dragon Age, GTA episodes, Tropico, Sims 3, Oblivion, max settings across the board and the games are super smooth (at least to me). For the price I am glad I got the GTX 470 instead of the 480 with discounts it saved me about $180 (compared to a 480 with discounts) and runs everything fine plus I can always SLI them in the future for probably around the same that a GTX 480 would have cost now (figuring I can get one for $200 in the next year) but it will be 40% stronger!
I think I agree with people that say buy a card that will play your games now and current new games because there is no such thing as future proofing with gpus, in a year there will be a new game that even a current SLI won't handle, you will need the newest and latest card if you want to play it at max...
Also for those wondering about heat, I did some real temp tests while playing Crysis for 2 hours last night (see my setup in my sig for cooling info), also note it was about 73 in my loft last night.
cpu max temp 56 (which I think is super low for an i7 920 OC at 3.8 ghz)
gpu max temp 90, idle always goes down to 44, so even with super air cooling like my setup you can't get that card too cool without a water cooler attached! but I will take 90 as its a couple degrees lower than reviews I have seen
Also as far as noise, in my old setup I couldn't hear my 8800GT SLI because my case fans are louder and in this setup its the same, can't hear my gpu at all. I also don't mind the noise from the case fans as they are just a wind blowing noise, not whining or anything annoying. why do people not like the sound of wind blowing?