GTX 480 - has it delivered as of now?

S

ShuttleLuv

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 12, 2003
Messages
7,295
So as it stands now who is the clear cut leader in performance? It's the GTX 480 right? I know it's game dependant and sometimes even small margins, but what is overall faster at the moment?
 
I think GTX 480 SLI is king right now. 3 cards goes to ATI though for better scaling.

Best single card is ATI 5970

Best single GPU is GTX 480

Best Bang for the Buck ATI 5970
 
no, the new driver does not have better performance, maybe by 0.5-1fps probably...
but overall no noticeable difference.

the only thing that is noticeable enough is Vantage score, bump the score from 25000 to 26700...
 
hdgamer said:
I think GTX 480 SLI is king right now. 3 cards goes to ATI though for better scaling.

Best single card is ATI 5970
Click to expand...


if the best single card is the 5970, wouldn't the best dual card setup use two 5970 vs. two GTX 480?

and I agree with FaRKle0079, no way is it the best bang for the buck, that belongs to the 5850.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
Others seem to be saying big increases with the 256?
Click to expand...

big increase? in vantage of course.. whooping 1700 points up...

others.. NO..... not at all. maybe 0.5-1 fps increase that is totally unnoticeable...

and they said there is 4% in Crysis performance increase, while in my test it increase nothing... NONE....

currently playing DiRT 2 on multiplayer, and its crashing like mad...
Don't know what exactly is going on....
 
needmorecarnitine said:
if the best single card is the 5970, wouldn't the best dual card setup use two 5970 vs. two GTX 480?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Though 2x 5970 is a lot more expensive than 2x GTX480. You could, however, do 5970+5870 Tri-Fire for closer to the cost of GTX480 SLI and it would still be faster :)
 
Unfortunately, it's really game dependent.

In my research, I've found Vantage gives higher scores to ATI's latest lineup, while Heaven gives a very large advantage to NV's latest lineup. Ultimately, this mean the current 3dmark benchmark and the Heaven benchmark are not good enough at comparing these architectures to be anything more than a pissing match and I wish people would stop using these benches to compare one ATI card to one NVIDIA card. Wait for the next 3dmark's next bench, in Q3 2010.

If tessellation really takes off, and I believe it's about to explode, the GTX 480 is going to handily hold an advantage over ATI's current lineup. For today's games, ATI's and NVIDIA's top of the line, single gpu cards are really neck and neck.

You can't go wrong with the 5870 or gtx 480. They're both insanely fast cards. I chose the 480 for many reasons:
1) I hate NV for locking it down, but I like the fluff provided by PhysX.
2) I love my 3D Vision
3) I needed CUDA for video transcoding

Even if you don't need those proprietary technologies, the GTX 480 can be heavily overclocked on it's stock heatsink. I took mine from 700mhz (processor) /3.7ghz (ram) to 835/4.2ghz and it runs 79°C constant at full load. Many people can take their cards a little further. This has given me large gains, but my only way of quantifying that for you is the Heaven benchmark. I don't know how the game scales with other graphics cards, so I don't know how useful this information will be for you. Only use this to compare to other NVIDIA cards. With that grain of salt:

Galaxy GTX 480 Stock:
http://irsmurf.com/forums/unigine_20100524_1932.html

Galaxy GTX 480 Overclocked:
http://irsmurf.com/forums/unigine_20100524_1317.html

If you put five hundred dollars on the table, and had to choose between a 5870 and a GTX 480, the 480 would be a no brainer for me.

If you put three hundred dollars, your watch, and your Metallica CD collection on the table, you should chose the 5870.
 
ShuttleLuv said:
So as it stands now who is the clear cut leader in performance? It's the GTX 480 right? I know it's game dependant and sometimes even small margins, but what is overall faster at the moment?
Click to expand...

over all yes, its faster, but not enough to take game play above what a 5870 can do (esp OC) in some games there is a clear advantage but in most the H factor is about the same. nothing that in my mind warrants the extra c note and power usage. If your simply looking for the fastest single gpu card or need Nvidia spec titles then the GTX 480 is viable. other wise not really
 
Tri-Crossfire 5970+5870 is still better then 480 SLI. And where I live, it's almost the same price.
 
Way too power hungry for me, I retire my video cards to secondary systems. Nvidia needs to not make cards that use 250W since I can not retire them without making my room more noisy or dealing with the increase in AC use.
 
5850 is a great value card. A vanilia 5870 is a solid, high end card. The 480 is also a solid high end card. You pay a bit more for the 480 (~25%) but you get at least some of that back in preformance.

Both the 480 and the 5870 overclock decently. While yes you can break the "magic" 1Ghz barrier on some 5870s a little pixie does not come out of hte card and give you a blowjob when you do, you just get a 18% OC on it. That's the same OC as taking a 480 to 825mhz.

As far as SLI/crossfire rigs go, they're expensive. And the problem with talking about systems that start around 600-800$ and go up is where do you stop? If I had all the money in the world, I'd buy 3x GTX 480s and watercool them while overclocking the hell out of them. But if I had all the money in the world I would be out driving a real ferrari on the nurbergring instead of playing a video game about it.
 
vengence said:
While yes you can break the "magic" 1Ghz barrier on some 5870s a little pixie does not come out of hte card and give you a blowjob when you do, you just get a 18% OC on it.
Click to expand...

Well, thats unfortunate. Guess I'll stop trying then. Damn AMD's marketing! Damn them to hell!
 
No it's not a leader in performance, the fastest single card out right now is the 5970 by a fairly large margin, and it's fairly gimped at stock speeds, its built for overclocking and that adds significant performance making its stock win vs the 480 look trivial.
 
I think it depends on your goals, but I've got a pair of GTX480s watercooled and SLI'd and I'm really happy with the setup. Low noise and my system (with mild OC'ing) only pulls abotu 620watts under load.

Energy efficient? No.

Quiet and smooth gaming? Yes!
 
it is the best card atm (dual gpus are bad microstutter for increase in fps is horrible)

value wise unless you got wc and will oc it, the 5870 is a better choice.
 
aintz said:
it is the best card atm (dual gpus are bad microstutter for increase in fps is horrible)
Click to expand...

I havn't seen any microstutter since the 9800GX2. That was 2 generations ago. These days SLI scaling averages 80% with many games like CoD scaling near perfection.
 
Keep in mind, that GTX 480 still hasn't delivered on features promised in advertising on on the box - multi monitor gameplay.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sgrinavi
Isn't 5770 SLI really the best bang/$ these days?

vengence said:
No.
Click to expand...

How is 5770 Crossfire not the best bang for the buck these days? You can get 2 for the price of a single 5850 and they perform at the level of a 5870.
 
LEVESQUE said:
Tri-Crossfire 5970+5870 is still better then 480 SLI. And where I live, it's almost the same price.
Click to expand...

In my experience playability was much worse. That's why my 5970/5870 went on craigslist and the pair of 480s went in my system. Try playing Crysis at 2560x1600 with the trifire system...it's a complete joke. You can't even turn around in the first level on the beach near the bar. Well you can, but you'll just have to wait a few seconds. The games trifire does well in are those that a pair of 480 can already push maxed with a minimum framerate above 60 anyway.
 
anonmoniker said:
In my experience playability was much worse. That's why my 5970/5870 went on craigslist and the pair of 480s went in my system. Try playing Crysis at 2560x1600 with the trifire system...it's a complete joke. You can't even turn around in the first level on the beach near the bar. Well you can, but you'll just have to wait a few seconds. The games trifire does well in are those that a pair of 480 can already push maxed with a minimum framerate above 60 anyway.
Click to expand...

sorry bro, you smoking pot that make no sense.

min fps with 60? you makes me laugh.. running through benchmark maybe.. in actual game play, NO WAY.....

also, on that resolution, 1GB vram is not going to hold it.

even on 1680*1050 is breaking 1GB limit.

also, go play Crysis in harbor map with SLI, I ensure you will cry out loud, and awakening map. the stutter is a big time killer in there.. its been there since I tried 8800 GTX sli.. and never been fix...

the game just suck with multi-GPU in general.
 
StormClaw said:
IRSmurf said:
...the GTX 480 can be heavily overclocked on it's stock heatsink. I took mine from 700mhz (processor) /3.7ghz (ram) to 835/4.2ghz and it runs 79°C constant at full load.
Click to expand...

on air?

i don't belive you.
Click to expand...

I turned the AC in my house on. It is now 72°F in my apartment.

Uploading proof (videos) now:
VIDEO ONE: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1647.MOV
(Oops, forgot to increase the voltage on the card! It doesn't seem to be entirely necessary at this low of an OC.)
VIDEO TWO: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1648.MOV
VIDEO THREE: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1649.MOV

Keep in mind, I'm only running 830mhz core freq, and 4.05ghz ram, right now. It can be taken much further and stressed 24/7. I took it to something like 875mhz / 4.35ghz and kept it steady for stress tests. The temps barely got over 80°C. However, Crysis made it crash (update: found out my Crysis install was corrupt) when loading and BFBC2 wouldn't last longer than 10 minutes. The settings I have now are 100% stable, stressed for more than twelve hours without issue.

I haven't touched the Shader Processor Frequency, but I'm sure that can be taken much further. I'm just being lazy, today. And that sound you hear is a train travelling through my living room. :rolleyes: Yea, that's the 100% fan on a GTX 480. It sounds like an IMAX camera. Now that we have established I'm not a liar, you're just going to have to take my word that you can run these clocks at a MUCH more quiet 75% fan speed. However, the temperatures will PEAK at 92°C. The surface of the card will actually reach 72°C if you sustain that 92°C internal temperature. YOWZA.
 
Last edited:
IRSmurf said:
I turned the AC in my house on. It is now 72°F in my apartment.

Uploading proof (videos) now:
VIDEO ONE: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1647.MOV
(Oops, forgot to increase the voltage on the card! It doesn't seem to be entirely necessary at this low of an OC.)
VIDEO TWO: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1648.MOV
VIDEO THREE: http://irsmurf.com/forums/169_1649.MOV

Keep in mind, I'm only running 830mhz core freq, and 4.05ghz ram, right now. It can be taken much further and stressed 24/7. I took it to something like 875mhz / 4.35ghz and kept it steady for stress tests. The temps barely got over 80°C. However, Crysis made it crash when loading and BFBC2 would last longer than 10 minutes. The settings I have now are 100% stable, stressed for more than twelve hours without issue.

I haven't touched the Shader Processor Frequency, but I'm sure that can be taken much further. I'm just being lazy, today. And that sound you hear is a train travelling through my living room. :rolleyes: Yea, that's the 100% fan on a GTX 480. It sounds like an IMAX camera. Now that we have established I'm not a liar, you're just going to have to take my word that you can run these clocks at a MUCH more quiet 75% fan speed. However, the temperatures will PEAK at 92°C. The surface of the card will actually reach 72°C if you sustain that 92°C internal temperature. YOWZA.
Click to expand...

MSI Kombuster is inaccurate, try furmark with extreme burning mode or play some game like Metro 2033 for an hour, you will see the temp will exceed nearly 90c even with 100% fan.
 
What does the Xtreme Burning mode do that games don't?

All my games barely hit 80°C, running at a full load. Even furmark hits those same temps.

After enabling the Xtreme Burning Mode, my card plateaued at 95°C after twelve minutes.

I guess I'm glad to know nothing is going to push my card harder than XBM. 95°C is acceptable to me, in this special circumstance.

Screenshot: http://irsmurf.com/forums/furmark_000001.jpg
 
Last edited:
anonmoniker said:
In my experience playability was much worse. That's why my 5970/5870 went on craigslist and the pair of 480s went in my system. Try playing Crysis at 2560x1600 with the trifire system...it's a complete joke. You can't even turn around in the first level on the beach near the bar. Well you can, but you'll just have to wait a few seconds. The games trifire does well in are those that a pair of 480 can already push maxed with a minimum framerate above 60 anyway.
Click to expand...

plenty of benches out there with Tri-Crosfire testing Crysis and everything looks fine

sounds like you didn't know what you were doing
 
The GTX 480 is not a bad card - it's the highest-performing single-GPU card you can buy. It's a power hog and very loud, but if you desire that level of performance with the Nvidia feature set, then there's no better choice.

And either nobody is buying it, or else Charlie was full of shit about quantities, because it's been in plentiful stock at MSRP for a month now.
 
defaultluser said:
The GTX 480 is not a bad card - it's the highest-performing single-GPU card you can buy. It's a power hog and very loud, but if you desire that level of performance with the Nvidia feature set, then there's no better choice.

And either nobody is buying it, or else Charlie was full of shit about quantities, because it's been in plentiful stock at MSRP for a month now.
Click to expand...

if its as planned with 512SP, there won't be any in stock...

they were force to cut it down to 480SP in order to get a reasonable quantities..
 
shansoft said:
sorry bro, you smoking pot that make no sense.

min fps with 60? you makes me laugh.. running through benchmark maybe.. in actual game play, NO WAY.....

also, on that resolution, 1GB vram is not going to hold it.

even on 1680*1050 is breaking 1GB limit.

also, go play Crysis in harbor map with SLI, I ensure you will cry out loud, and awakening map. the stutter is a big time killer in there.. its been there since I tried 8800 GTX sli.. and never been fix...

the game just suck with multi-GPU in general.
Click to expand...

English and complete sentences please.
 
StormClaw said:
plenty of benches out there with Tri-Crosfire testing Crysis and everything looks fine

sounds like you didn't know what you were doing
Click to expand...

LOL ok. That or maybe most reviewers just use the codepath ambush benchmark that involves running through some narrow rivers and call it a day. A 1GB card does not cut it if you actually try to play the game at 2560, as can be seen by the utter devastation a pair of 480s unleashes on the 5970.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=23132&page=5

There's just no comparison, even adding a 5870 isn't going to save it because they're all bound by the same 1GB bottleneck. My setup overclocked rarely even dips below 30fps on the train level. 5870+5970 OC was often in the teens and would occasionally go to single digits when turning around. I guess these guys did it wrong too though.
 
anonmoniker said:
LOL ok. That or maybe most reviewers just use the codepath ambush benchmark that involves running through some narrow rivers and call it a day. A 1GB card does not cut it if you actually try to play the game at 2560, as can be seen by the utter devastation a pair of 480s unleashes on the 5970.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=23132&page=5

There's just no comparison, even adding a 5870 isn't going to save it because they're all bound by the same 1GB bottleneck. My setup overclocked rarely even dips below 30fps on the train level. 5870+5970 OC was often in the teens and would occasionally go to single digits when turning around. I guess these guys did it wrong too though.
Click to expand...

so get a 2gb version of teh cards

duh.


EDIT: 480 SLI may be great for benches, but that setup is completely unusable in everyday life: furnace-hot temps + deafening jet engine sounds.
Unless you go with very sophisticated watercooling.
 
Last edited:
Valset said:
over all yes, its faster, but not enough to take game play above what a 5870 can do (esp OC) in some games there is a clear advantage but in most the H factor is about the same. nothing that in my mind warrants the extra c note and power usage. If your simply looking for the fastest single gpu card or need Nvidia spec titles then the GTX 480 is viable. other wise not really
Click to expand...

What you're not taking into account is the feel of the card.

I've owned ATi and Nvidia. I had a 5870, and while I can obviously admit it's a nice card, it just didn't feel smooth for me. I'm not bashinig it at all, and I didn't really have any probs with the drivers. There was a flicker here and there, but that's to be expected.

but for me, Nvidia just feels better in every category to me. Just my opinion.
 
StormClaw said:
so get a 2gb version of teh cards

duh.


EDIT: 480 SLI may be great for benches, but that setup is completely unusable in everyday life: furnace-hot temps + deafening jet engine sounds.
Unless you go with very sophisticated watercooling.
Click to expand...

I dunno, I think this argument is ATI fanboy butthurt. Just a little.

This is hardforum. Not mediumforum. Or treehuggerforum.

I don't care about the extra watts or heat.

I mean, when you're posting on an enthusiast forum, and one of your main points against the card you don't like is that it uses more power and heat you're sorta missing the point.

Also, there have been cards that come close to this in power usage and sorta close in heat. So I don't really get it.

Now, I can see pointing out that it costs a bit more, but again, this is hardforum. Not bangforyourbuckforum.

I dunno, just seems like some ati butthurt, and I don't know why. the 5870 is a great card. Why not just stick by that instead of trying to makes tons of posts about how the 480 takes more power and produces more heat.

Doesn't really seem logical. I guess. Who knows. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top