GTX480 reviews

[Asus]

Tom's Hardware
Anandtech
HardOCP - Pits the dual GPU 5970 vs GTX 480 in SLI
Hexus
FiringSquad

This is a paper launch as the cards will not hit retailers for at least 2.5 weeks. (April 12th). And from there we will have to see if they are sold out from lack of supply.

I quickly read through HardOCP's review and I was surprised how close a 5970 is to 2x GTX480 in SLI. I wonder how it would have turned out if they did 5870 in Crossfire instead (the 5970 is like 2 underclocked 5870's on 1 card).

The availability situation also has us concerned about card prices. NVIDIA is already starting off behind AMD in terms of pricing flexibility; 500mm3+ dies and 1.5GB of RAM does not come cheap. If NVIDIA does manage to sell the GTX 400 series as fast as they can send cards out then there’s a good chance there will be a price hike. AMD is in no rush to lower prices and NVIDIA’s higher costs mean that if they can get a higher price they should go for it. With everything we’ve seen from NVIDIA and AMD, we’re not ready to rule out any kind of price hike, or to count on any kind of price war.

Anandtech's last paragraph in their Final Words
"Finally, as we asked in the title, was it worth the wait? No, probably not. A 15% faster single-GPU card is appreciated and we’re excited to see both AMD and NVIDIA once again on competitive footing with each other, but otherwise with much of Fermi’s enhanced abilities still untapped, we’re going to be waiting far longer for a proper resolution anyhow. For now we’re just happy to finally have Fermi, so that we can move on to the next step."

 

[Krynn72]

Well this was a let down.

 

[VirusType2]

It's pretty good Krynn!

It's what, $150-$225 cheaper than the 5970 - the most powerful single GPU card in the world - yet in some games its GPU is equivalent, or nearly so. Of course, the 5970 may have a price drop if they can get them in stock in any meaningful quantity.

But anyway, it will be important to decide which games you need performance in. 60fps is 60fps, so 180fps isn't really useful. Need to look at games where both manufacturers are struggling, and pick the right card based on your gaming preferences.

Actually, yeah it's disappointing, but I think we've known for 6 months Nvidia was having problems.

EDIT: OK, I was comparing suggested retail to what these cards are going for -

ATI 5970 suggested retail price: $599
Nvidia GTX480 - suggested retail : $499

You're right, it's disappointing, since in some games, the GTX480 is running like a 5870 (which has a suggested retail price of $299)

 

[Krynn72]

It's pretty good Krynn!

It's what, $150-$225 cheaper than the 5970 - the most powerful single GPU card in the world - yet in some games its GPU is equivalent, or nearly so.

Nah, you're reading it wrong I think. The 480 is equivalent to the 5870, not the 5970. You need two 480s in SLI to match or slightly beat out the 5970. Unless I'm reading it wrong.

 

[VirusType2]

Nah, you're reading it wrong I think. The 480 is equivalent to the 5870, not the 5970. You need two 480s in SLI to match or slightly beat out the 5970. Unless I'm reading it wrong.

I'm not sure, I haven't looked at any of these benches yet. I'm going off what I picked up in the last thread.

Looking at one of them now. Yeah, the performance is just sporadic, so it depends which bench you go by.

Clearly here is the X2 indicating 2 cards:

And these ones don't have the X2:

It performs really well here.

But there's no question, the 480 performs quite poorly in some games/settings, in fact at about half as well as the 5970. I will go out on a limb and attribute that to drivers. I think it must be the drivers. Remember the ATI drivers have increased performance by 40% since the initial driver - in just 6 months.

Also, DiRT 2 was kind of a pact Codemasters had with ATi to push their DX11 cards, so they may have quite a bit of ATI lean on that game. Optimized drivers at least.

 

[Asus]

The 5970 is 2 GPUs on 1 card. You'd think they would have called it a 5870 X2 but they just went with 5970. The 4870 X2 is also 2 GPUs on 1 card. (2 card in crossfire would come up as Model Crossfire or 2x Model. X2 is different as it is part of the name.
The 5970 happens to be clocked a little lower than the 5870 core so 2x 5870's in crossfire (2 individual cards) will probably perform better.

The GTX480 is a single GPU on a single card. I'm sure there is a dual GPU version in the works but that is a long ways away really. The 480 is very large and hot so they would need to wait for a smaller process to fit 2x 480 dies on one card and within the right power envelope. Just like the GTX 295 (a dual GPU on a card solution) had to wait for the 55nm process to get power lowered. The GTX 260/280, the first cards launched from that series, were 65nm.

 

[VirusType2]

Oh yeah: CF [Crossfire] and SLI.

Sorry. I think if they use more than 2 cards, they might specify the quantity by X3 or X4? I don't know where I picked that up. Anyway.

 

[Asus]

TBH I think the power of the GTX 480 is what will hold it back from adoption by far rather than random performance and high price. Needing new PSUs and the heat and noise of it all.
Go down to the GTX 480 and 5870 videos.
The guy tells you what he does as the card goes from idle to load (3DMARK test). And you can watch the watts rise and the fan speed kick into high gear (on the 480 anyway). This is setup in open air so the card is pulling in room temp air rather than hot case air.

If TMSC can fix their supply issues with 40nm then we will have more ATI cards and more Nvidia cards. That at least would push prices down.

 

[Escaep]

I must've missed something but what happened to the 3xx series from NV? Or are those coming out after the 4xx series as a lower range card?

 

[Asus]

They skipped 'em?
Here is a 300 part but for OEMs (can't buy in a retail box by itself).
So my guess is that Nvidia will play their renaming tricks again and put lower performing GTX 200 parts as 300 models to spur sales. That's what they did to the 8800->9800 and other such cards.
Same specs but new name to look like they fit with the new tech cards.

And I don't think they would make midrange DX11 parts under the 300 series but rather keep all DX11 under GTX 400.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Hmm Ati seems to be quite the competitor. Aside from good personal experience with Nvidia, good sales, and the slight inclusion of physx (yeah yeah I know), I think I'd still go Nvidia on the next go around. Of course looking at the prices I'd probably get another $100-200 card, gotta love Moore's law.

 

[Asus]

Reading some other reviews and I'm noticing varying FPS numbers for GTX480 vs HD5870. I guess it depends how you plan on using the card. High res LCD or play specific games with with AA or with AF. Some games the GTX480 drops less frames when you increase AA while in others the 5870 holds it's FPS better.
ATI's does have a better AF pattern though over Nvidia's.

So another example of the above is in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 where it seems AA (not AF) needs to be on for the GTX480 to hold it's performance over the 5870. It looks like they are using FRAPs to benchmark so each review will be different.
AA off (anandtech)
Shows AA both off and at 4x (bit-tech)
Shows AA both off and at 8x (Tom's)

In bit-tech's review it seemed the GTX480 more often then not did not look good. But pretty much very game they benched with 16xAF on and then alternated 4xAA or AA OFF.

The GTX470 seemed even more random. In some games it was not far from the 5870/GTX480 but in others the 5850 beat it. And in that dirt2 link there it goes from beating the 5870 @ 1680x res but loosing to the 5850 @ 2560x res.

I'm really wanting to see more on tessellation and how real-world games yet to be released will use it.
Stalker is a DX11 game that uses a lot of tessellation but the ATI card comes out on top. And this one shows Nvidia on top. So it looks like what AA or AF you use rather than Nvidia's tessellation.
Of course Nvidia shows off the synthetic benchmark which looks like every surface has tessellation but that level was designed for benchmarking to show that off heavily rather than play.

 

[TwwIX]

Can't say that i am impressed. They require more power and quite hot. The 10-15% performance difference isn't really worth the extra money.

They better release a new and better revision soon or i am switching back to ATI.
Lowering the price would be a good idea too.

 

[VirusType2]

Can't say that i am impressed. They require more power and quite hot. The 10-15% performance difference isn't really worth the extra money.

They better release a new and better revision soon or i am switching back to ATI.
Lowering the price would be a good idea too.

They're like $200 dollars cheaper. But I don't think you'll find any in stock for about a year. EDIT: I'm just being cynical. I don't really know when they'll be in stock.

 

[Dinnesch]

3-way-SLI review.
http://www.ngohq.com/news/17574-nvidia-geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-review.html

 

[Asus]

Techreport's review

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Now that looks like it was made to play Counter Strike Source!

 

[Asus]

Except that isn't a depiction of what happens in the game but in your room when you turn the GTX480 on.

 

[VirusType2]

That must be the biggest chip I've ever seen.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Gotta put them processing thingamabobbers somewhere right.

 

[Ravioli]

This is by far the best review out there. 3-way SLI too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSPqLKgnQs