Should I buy a GTX 480 or wait for the 485?

euskalzabe

euskalzabe

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Now that the gtx480 is going down in price a little bit and can be found for 470$, I'm wondering if I should get it now or wait a few more months for the 485. I'm sure there's many people who know much more about specs than I do, so can anybody please give me some advice?

I sold my gtx260 a few months ago to get a fermi when launched, then convinced myself to wait a little more for prices to drop. Now I hear about the 485 and don't know if I should wait or not. Some more performance and cooler card sound good, even if a little pricier. It sucks using the integrated 8300 in my motherboard cos I can't really play anything in my computer (thank god for my ps3), but I can wait a little more if the 485's performance gain will be worth it, even at a slightly higher price tag.

I don't plan on buying another gpu until, say, windows 8 (I've decided to leave the mid-range and buy a high end gpu every new DirectX generation), so this gpu should last until then, even if not maxing all in games in 2012.

Right now, I just wanna make sure that Crysis 2 and Portal 2 will play well on the gpu I buy, be that gtx480 or 485.

So, what do you think? Any advice? Get the 480 now or wait for the 485?

Thanks for your time in advance.
 
You could play the waiting game forever. The 485 is just a rumor at this point, and the rumored specs aren't a whole lot more powerful than today's GTX 480. If you can find a good deal on a 480 then I say go for it.
 
Go for the 485(s) - that's what I'm doin' - little cooler, little less power...

I waited out the 280's for 2 285's - glad I did...
 
There is no 485. If you're firmly in the nvidia camp, get a 480 or a pair of 470s for a bit more oomph.
 
ok i just bought one!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!
sorry... excitement. it's been 6 months without a proper gpu.
CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!
 
Brahmzy said:
Go for the 485(s) - that's what I'm doin' - little cooler, little less power...

I waited out the 280's for 2 285's - glad I did...
Click to expand...

If the Gtx 485 does come out, it wont be any cooler or use any less power, it will be 512Shader card built on the same architecture and 40nm and it will actually take more power and run a little bit hotter unless they are using better cooler. 28nm is still over 8 months away until then you can forget about the low power GTX 485 that will run cooler.
 
If the 485 ever comes out, the core would be only about 7% faster if the core clock remains the same as the 480.

It could be more than 7% faster if the memory bandwidth is increased by more than 7%. If the memory controller issues have been ironed out very well, with GDDR5 clocking at say, 4400MHz effective, then the 485 would be like 12% faster than the 480 overall.

However, if the memory bandwidth remains the same as the 480, with the core clocks remaining the same as the 485 is released with 512 shaders, the 485 could be even less than 5% faster overall.

So, if Nvidia cannot fix the memory controller with the "new" GDDR5 architecture, then NV is not going to ever bother with releasing a 'full' Fermi 1 architecture.
 
That sucks ^^

Esp when/ if (speculating) the GTX485 is only 5-10% faster then the GTX480, most likely more power hungry, and hotter as mentioned and also more $$$
 
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