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

Wow, I didn't know Nvidia was re-releasing the Gforce 5 Series




I kid, I kid....or do I?


So a question about Nvidias "new" multi monitor support I've heard about, that requires SLI...Do the 2nd and 3rd monitors still go black when you go to play a game?

And does their multi monitor support actually require SLI? Thats such a waste from the consumer POV, The cards have 3 ports on them, they should be able to utilize all 3 ports at once.
 
styx0r said:
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.
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So in other words, Nvidia wasted billions of dollars designing cards that's pretty much useless to us? :) Awesome.


Anyways, I'm wondering if I should bother to upgrade my 4870 to a 5xxx series.
 
ZerazaX said:
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.
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I know you only draw as much as you need. he isnt using but 25% of a 1000 watt psu even under load so thats not very efficient use and you even said it. a 750watt psu was WAY more than enough for his setup.
 
How does Fermi's image quality stack up to the 5800 series? [H] had a GREAT article about 5800 vs. 4800 vs. GTX 200 awhile back and the 5800 had the best AF quality, period, and AA quality was pretty much the same. Fermi does not offer me anything, as a gamer, other than higher power consumption, louder fans, and the ability to heat my room (not needed as I have AC), and so if the image quality is the same or worse than the 5800 series I have zero reason to go with Nvidia this round.
 
Kaitian said:
So in other words, Nvidia wasted billions of dollars designing cards that's pretty much useless to us? :) Awesome.


Anyways, I'm wondering if I should bother to upgrade my 4870 to a 5xxx series.
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Sorry to burst your bubble - Nvidia didn't design this card just for you. Time will tell if their new direction with GPU capability will pay off or be a failure. As a gamer, you should go buy an eyefinity setup and enjoy it. If you want to be on the cutting edge of GPGPU computing, consider Fermi.

I'm shocked that more people did not see this coming. Nvidia wants to branch out from the gaming market, and personally, I support that decision. There are much larger, much wealthier clients to cater to.
 
styx0r said:
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.
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We focus on gaming...SURPRISE! HardOCP has the number one Folding team (#33) on the planet. But yes, we are dedicated to the gamer. Hmmm, maybe I should register HardGPGPU.com?
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Yeah, I'm confused.

nvidia 480 in SLI is $1000 to $1,100 dollars?


vs.


5870 Crossfire which is right at $700 - $750.


We all know a few frames one way or the other is not worth the $350 - $400 difference, hell that's a new Intel motherboard with USB 3.0 and 6gb SATA.
 
For a card that is SIX MONTHS LATE I expected more than this. For now I'm happy with my 4890, it does everything I need it to. Will wait until the next generation unless there's a DX11 game that comes out that's compelling enough to warrant an ATi 5xxx or Fermi.
 
Hopefully with some new drivers, Fermi might shine a little, but this offering doesn't look very appealing when you consider all the negatives.
 
Last edited:
Well it's not 512 shader cores. XMAN25 was wrong.

5-10% faster then 1 5870. XMAN25 was wrong.

Overpriced, high wattage, and high tempature. Charlie was right.

Basically its 7-8 months late, doesnt bring any performance increases over a 5870.

Fermi = Flop imo
 
Thanks for the review. Although you said the GTX 470 wasn't worth it, I didn't think it looked so bad. For someone like me running Nvidia 3D Vision ATI is not an option, so the GTX 470 seems decent for the price. And I would liked to have seen Crysis. Otherwise great review.
 
styx0r said:
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.
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You can't be serious. To even consider for a moment, that NV would spend this much R&D time and more importantly, MONEY, to develop a card that was designed with GPGPU applications in mind, OVER being a gaming card is simply naive, and that's putting it politely. Stop looking for excuses here, this card was meant for gaming. Yes, it has the capability of doing certain things in gaming that no other card can do right now. Unfortunately for nvidia, those games aren't available yet, at least not enough of them exist to design a card around those features. Perhaps they jumped the gun on this product cycle, putting features into Fermi that are a generation too soon.
 
I am one sad panda. But at least I got to hear Robot Kyle in the heat/power videos.
 
smut said:
Why would you let egg drip down on the card? Just seems like a waste of time to let it drip in there and then have to clean it up.
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If you just spray some Pam on it, the egg will peal right off when its finished cooking. :D That said, Fermi is about what I expected. It sits smack in between the 5870 and the 5970's respective performance levels.

DASHlT said:
Well it's not 512 shader cores. XMAN25 was wrong.

5-10% faster then 1 5870. XMAN25 was wrong.

Overpriced, high wattage, and high tempature. Charlie was right.

Basically its 7-8 months late, doesnt bring any performance increases over a 5870.

Fermi = Flop imo
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For the most part it seemed to surpass the 5870 quite often. It at least always seem to just about equal it. I'd call it late to the party, but hardly a flop. It may not be the destroyer of 5870's but it is faster to some degree. That's better than what we've seen out of many generations of cards in the past.
 
I would like to applaud Brent and Kyle for the review. You guys put forth a substantial amount of time and effort toward completing this review....for us. In addition, we greatly appreciate the availability to answer forum members' questions.

Just wanted to say thanks.
 
Great review as always from [H]. Thanks to everyone involved.
Phew... after the long wait and the endless arguments on the internet (not that I was actively involved in all of them :p )

I'm beginning to think some comment posted over the months about GF100 more suited for a smaller FAB process is true. I highly doubt nVidia engineer designed a 512 sp chip just to sell them at 480 sp. The 512 sp was what intended to be nVidia's killer card (which I think it would have been had they been able to use all SP at the intended clock) unfortunately something went wrong somewhere and here we are with 480 SP only.

maybe we'll see a refresh with all SP in the future, I hope.

ps: I'm really glad it wasnt a repeat of the FX58 though. Could have been worst, Heh
 
At his point AMD is likely to have a very easy time winning a price war. I'm sure they have the yield issues fixed and have been waiting for just this moment to drop prices. It would be interesting to see if 5850s get down to 175ish with in the next few months.
 
Kyle,
Quick question, could you do a side by side test of F@H on the GPU for your next review, also adding in the wattage?
Thanks and kill a few brain cells for me.
Also please turn that Fermi off Saturday for Earth Hour!!
 
excellent review guys and you touched on most aspects i was interested in. Heat, cost, and performance will keep me looking at the 5870 for now. But I'm still waiting on the 2gb version to buy, and also hoping for the price drop we all hope is coming for current 1gb versions.

Kyle, i'd also like to ask if you plan on a 480gtx vs 5870 2gb review(single card vs single card)? I am interested in the difference in the 1.5 vs the 2gb framebuffer aspect. Thx.
 
The Cobra said:
Not much of an improvement over the 5870. I am glad to see that...
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Why would you be glad to see that? Do you not want technology to improve at all over what you currently own? Sounds pretty silly to me. I have a 5870 too and I think it completely blows that my only real option for more performance is having to go with a dual GPU setup.
 
Hey Kyle/Brent can you post the math capability of the Femi cards here in the forums?
 
NIVO said:
excellent review guys and you touched on most aspects i was interested in. Heat, cost, and performance will keep me looking at the 5870 for now. But I'm still waiting on the 2gb version to buy, and also hoping for the price drop we all hope is coming for current 1gb versions.

Kyle, i'd also like to ask if you plan on a 480gtx vs 5870 2gb review(single card vs single card)? I am interested in the difference in the 1.5 vs the 2gb framebuffer aspect. Thx.
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+1 Completely interested in as well
 
I'm predicting high RMA Percentages.

I think this is a fantastic example of biting off more than you can chew. Nvidia clearly underestimated the task they were undertaking when they began designing this card, and now they're late to the party and have very little to show for it.

The other thing I see is a lot of small push backs in the release date, and small push backs mean quick fixes. when your as late as Nvidia with your product you cut corners (fewer stream processors, heat pipes), apply quick fixes, and generally don't put out as reliable a product. these GTX400 cards look to be competing now but how long will the hardware last?
 
Crinkle... crinkle... rip.... rip....

That's the sound of my $348 XFX 5870 with double warranty finally being opened up.

I got this sucker from CC and already got my CB but I was waiting to see if it was worth it to get a gtx480 as I'm addicted to Borderlands..... DEFINITELY NOT!

I would have dropped another 2 large if I could get at least 20-25% improvement over the 5870 but that's not looking like it's happening. Plus that furnace factor is def. something to think about.

My 4870 idles 36 C in my FT02 case.

Thanks for a great review! :D
 
Soggy said:
I'm predicting high RMA Percentages.

I think this is a fantastic example of biting off more than you can chew. Nvidia clearly underestimated the task they were undertaking when they began designing this card, and now they're late to the party and have very little to show for it.

The other thing I see is a lot of small push backs in the release date, and small push backs mean quick fixes. when your as late as Nvidia with your product you cut corners (fewer stream processors, heat pipes), apply quick fixes, and generally don't put out as reliable a product. these GTX400 cards look to be competing now but how long will the hardware last?
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+1 Don't buy this card without a guaranteed lifetime warranty. These cards won't have the same lifespan as anything else I'd wager. If you game a lot, that's a lot of 95'C mileage for hours at a time. That can't be good for the life of the card
 
Hornet said:
I'm beginning to think some comment posted over the months about GF100 more suited for a smaller FAB process is true. I highly doubt nVidia engineer designed a 512 sp chip just to sell them at 480 sp. The 512 sp was what intended to be nVidia's killer card (which I think it would have been had they been able to use all SP at the intended clock) unfortunately something went wrong somewhere and here we are with 480 SP only.

maybe we'll see a refresh with all SP in the future, I hope.
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Well it is possible that they statistically knew that X sp units would be bad per sq mm of wafer and thus they padded out the sp count so that they would end up with 480.
 
Great review, excellent thoughts, liked the vids, although I'm sure you've taken some more heat for being NV 'haters' :p

We will have to see how Surround plays on Fermi, but overall I am not impressed at all. However performance should increase when NV can hone in the drivers, we've already seen some decent gains from AMD's driver updates since the 5870 launch.

I am glad to see NV keeping the power usage down, it may not be at 5000 series levels but I was expecting much worse.

I am very interested to see the sales figures. Certainly die hard green fans have been waiting, but ultimately will consumers buy these products? Or has NV even priced themselves out of the 'semi-serious' PC gamers budget?
 
95C? That is some seriously hot hardware, and i don't mean stolen. Does it come with a water boiler add-on so you can make steam and power a turbine for all of the electricity it uses?

who would put something that used that much power and produced that much heat in their system?
 
I'm stuck with my old 285 gtx a while longer it seems. :(

thanks for the great review as always!
 
Nice review guys. I wonder if the GTX 470 will drop quickly in price to compete with the 5850.
 
Well, not the earth shattering card fanboys wanted, but not the massive failure haters predicted. This round is not an overall win for nVidia, but still ok for them.

If I was buying now, I'd probably get one just because I'm generally an nVidia guy. However the 5870 tempted me, so I won't be upgrading, or perhaps sidegrading more accurately.

I'll certainly be interested to see how these scale to 32nm though. Perhaps a "Fermi Mk 2" will be in the cards for me around Christmas :D.
 
Yup I'll be sticking with my 275's till at least the next gen, cause neither side has much to offer over them other than dx11.
Thanks for the good review [H].
 
tomiboy59 said:
Nice review guys. I wonder if the GTX 470 will drop quickly in price to compete with the 5850.
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why? they knew exactly how it would perform against the 5850 and chose to price it slightly higher. I dont think we will see any significant price cuts until they start getting plenty of cards out. in other words they will have no trouble selling the relatively small amount of cards they will have at msrp or better for now.
 
Bought my 5870 on launch day for $379 and I'm giggling like a school girl.

Early 5850 owners should be even happier than I am.

People who waited...

I feel sorry for you.
 
wrangler said:
Bought my 5870 on launch day for $379 and I'm giggling like a school girl.

Early 5850 owners should be even happier than I am.

People who waited...

I feel sorry for you.
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I got HD5850 for $250 shipped, I think it was my best purchasing decision next to a Q6600 for about $250.
 
Kinda a yawner. I think I will wait second gen and hopefully a better card. Meantime I am going to replace my cpu to 6 core extreme. I will wait another year. Games are still a long way off. So few for DX 11. Nice review Kyle. Definitely gonna wait till next refresh. Otherwords second gen.


Last note: little hot for my liking.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
I hope this does good things and we see DX11 become the new standard faster than it already is.
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the 'direct x standard' changes every 3 years or so... and new dx version games always come in older dx modes as well so it really doesnt matter unless you cant live without having subtle changes.
 
Very thorough article-an enjoyable read. I'd wholly agree with most of you-looks like the GTX480 isn't worth it if you already own a 5870. Also, talk about a hot running card...reminds me of when the 8800s first came out!

btw I caught a typo on the first page:

The maximum rated board power is 250 Watts and the recommended power supply is 600 Watts. The GPU Thermal Threshold is 105c, and we experienced high 90’s temperatures which will show you on page 7.
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Should be we will.
 
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