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Since the new cards are so power-hungry, Nvidia’s engineers designed a sophisticated, heat-pipe based cooler to keep the GPU and memory within the maximum rated 105 degrees C operating temperature. When running full bore, the cooling fan spins up and gets pretty loud, but it’s no worse than AMD’s dual GPU Radeon HD 5970. It is noticeably louder than the single chip Radeon HD 5870, however.
The cooling system design helped Nvidia build a board that’s just 10.5 inches long, a tad shorter than the Radeon HD 5870 and much shorter than the foot-long Radeon HD 5970. Given the thermal output, however, buyers will want to ensure their cases offer robust airflow. Nvidia suggests a minimum 550W PSU for the GTX 470 and a 600W rated power supply for the 480 GTX. The 480 GTX we tested used a pair of PCI Express power connectors – one 8-pin and one 6-pin.
Unlike AMD, Nvidia is sticking with a maximum of two displays with a single card. All the cards currently shipping will offer two dual-link DVI ports and one mini-HDMI connector. Any two connectors can be used in dual panel operation. Current cards do not offer a DisplayPort connector.
Nvidia is also beefing up its 3D Vision stereoscopic technology. Wide screen LCD monitors are now available with 120Hz refresh support in full 1920x1080 (1080p) resolution. One card will drive a single 1080p panel. If your wallet is healthy enough to afford a pair of GTX 400 series cards, 3D Vision is being updated so that you can have up to three displays running in full stereoscopic mode.
What’s the price of all this technological goodness? Nvidia is targeting a $499 price point for the 480 GTX and $349 for the 470 GTX. Actual prices will vary, depending on supply and overall demand.
The burning question, of course, is: when can you get one? Rumors have been flying around about yields and manufacturing issues with the Fermi chip. Nvidia’s Drew Henry stated categorically that “tens of thousands” would be available on launch day. We’ll just have to wait to see what that means for long term pricing and availability.
It’s possible we’re seeing the end of the era brute force approaches to building GPUs. The 480 GTX pushes the edge of the envelope in both performance and power consumption – and that’s with 32 compute units disabled. So even at 250 watts or more, we’re not seeing the full potential of the chip.
In the end, the 480 GTX offers superlative single GPU performance at a suggested price point that seems about right. It does lack AMD’s Eyefinity capability and its hunger for watts is unparalleled. Is the increased performance enough to bring gamers back to the Nvidia fold? If efficiency matters, gamers may be reluctant to adopt such a power-hungry GPU. The performance of the Radeon HD 5870 is certainly still in the “good enough” category, and that card is $100 cheaper and consumes substantially less power. If raw performance is what counts, the 480 GTX will win converts. Only the fickleness of time, availability and user desires will show us which approach wins out over the long haul.
Our test system consisted of a Core i7 975 at 3.3GHz, with 6GB of DDR3 memory running at 1333MHz, running on an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard. Storage included a Seagate 7200.12 1TB drive and an LG Blu-ray ROM drive. The power supply is a Corsair TX850w 850W unit.
We’re adding in performance of 3DMark Vantage as a matter of interest; FutureMark’s 3D performance test is increasingly antiquated, and not really a useful predictor of gaming performance.
We tested six different graphics cards, including a standard Radeon HD 5870 and the factory overclocked Radeon HD 5870 XXX edition. We also included results from older Nvidia cards, including the aggressively overclocked eVGA 285 GTX SSC and a reference 295 GTX. Also included was an HIS Radeon HD 5970, built with two Radeon HD 5870 GPUs.
For the most part, the Radeon HD 5970 won most of the benchmarks. One interesting point is the recently released Unigine 2.0 DX11 test. If you scale up tessellation to “extreme” the GTX 480 edges out the dual GPU AMD solution.
Let's check out performance first at 1920x1200, with 4xAA.
| HIS Radeon HD 5970 | XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX | Stock Radeon HD 5870 | GTX 480 | eVGA GTX 285 SSC | GTX 295 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3DMark Vantage Performance | 23530 | 19282 | 18862 | 18231 | 13964 | 19065 |
| 3DMark Vantage Extreme | 13678 | 9473 | 9058 | 9223 | 6238 | 9090 |
| Uningine Heaven 2.0 | 28 | 18 | 17 | 30 | NA | NA |
| Battle Forge | 73 | 49 | 47 | 61 | NA | NA |
| S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat | 54 | 38 | 36 | 39 | NA | NA |
| DiRT 2 | 92 | 73 | 72 | 87 | NA | NA |
| Far Cry 2 (Long) | 114 | 78 | 76 | 102 | 56 | 78 |
| Far Cry 2 (Action) | 75 | 65 | 63 | 75 | 48 | 60 |
| Tom Clancy's HAWX | 128 |
92 | 88 | 105 | 59 | 91 |
| Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising | 74 |
78 | 74 | 71 | 69 | 71 |
| Crysis | 44 |
33 | 32 | 31 | 21 | 30 |
Note that “NA” means the card doesn’t support DirectX 11
The GTX 480 wins about half the benchmarks against the single GPU Radeon HD 5870, and essentially ties in the rest. Where it does win, however, it generally wins big.
The GTX 480 “wins” in another test – power consumption – but not in a good way. The system idled at 165W with the GTX 480, exceeded only by the dual GPU HD 5970’s 169W. However, at full load, the 480 GTX gulped down 399W – 35W more than the 5970 and fully 130W more than the Radeon HD 5870 at standard speeds.
Up next, how do the cards perform under more challenging conditions?
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September 14, 2011 at 12:03am
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. So far, this is the best card i've ever owned. Couldn't be more satisfied with its performance, works wonderfully with nVidia 3D.
BFBC2, Resident Evil V and Metro 2033 (even Half Life 2) look absolutely stunning when compared with nVidia 9600 gt 1gb which is a very capable card and can handle 3D as well. Heat problem is well managed by stock fan, however i'll be swapping to liquid cooling once i find an acceptable and affordable solution.
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RJohnston
February 22, 2011 at 12:43pm
I own a 5870 in my personal computer and love it. I haven't had an overheating issues with it at all, and I monitor my temperatures pretty close. I do agree though- it's definitely a power hog. I look forward to the next line coming out from ATI, because I usually try to upgrade my video card every year or two.
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RiverLucky
May 10, 2010 at 9:33am
I still cannot figure out why Crysis is such a resource hog?
Has the game engine not been optmized?
I guess we will have to wait another 2 years to run it on max settings...
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coonsaa
April 03, 2010 at 6:46pm
Ok not to sound like a fanboy I bought Nvidia untill it went past the 9xxx series. I now roll ATI as for the drivers they are so much better in Win7.
OK now to my point. Take a stock 5870, $390 and a stock GTX 480, $500
5870 saves you $110 but looses an average of 7-13 frames per second.
5870 also saves energy
5870 is the win and here is why
one it does not run hot like the 480 so where you will fry you 480 OCing it the 5870 will not.
So OC the 5870 enough to make up for that 7 fps
OC 5870 = save $110, Save energy, Same FPS as 480, Less Heat
OC GTX 480 = RMA a burnt card.
HD 5870 FTW!
DBsantos77
April 04, 2010 at 11:01am
I agree with your points. However to justify the cost of Fermi you have to think about the CUDA architecture, as well as the other "new" things nvidia brought to the table, such as 32x aa.
-Santos
Nickompoop
April 06, 2010 at 3:13pm
Game playability depends on two variables: detail, and frame rate. MaxPC already cranks the detail up all the way in their benchmarks, so if you can make up those lost frame rates, the Fermi just ain't worth the money or heat.
Zazubovich
March 29, 2010 at 5:58pm
Just kidding. Still have a voodoo I and voodoo III stashed away, though, jic.
How is Nvidia going to catch up to ATI if it is out of cycle with ATI's development schedule? Will ATI rest on its laurels like Nvidia did and blow it again?
I might buy one of these cards just because it gets cold in Alaska and the free heat might warm up the office when the matanuska winds blow.
blobro
March 28, 2010 at 2:02pm
Brace Yourselves, this is gonna be long.
Because everyone was having this debate about which is better, i decided to end this once and for all with some mathematics. I calculated the difference in performance for each game form the 480 and the 5870, and then compared them to the difference in price. I only focused on games, and not 3dmark vantage, becuase that was what really matters. So, here are the (possibly mistaken) results:
So, the cheapest price on newegg i found for the 480 was $499.99 and $394.99 for the 5870. So i calculated that the fermi was about 19.2% more than the 5870, so that was what the improvement have to be for eafch game in a fermi vs. 5870 matchup.
Games:
Battle Forge: improvement from 5870 to 480:27.6%. Worth it? Yes.
Stalker: 8.3%. Worth it? No.
Dirt 2: 20.8%. Barely Worth it
Far Cry 2 (Long): 34.2%. Yes
Far Cry 2 (Action): 19.0%. Barely Not
Tom Clancy's Hawx: 19.3%. Baarely Worth it
Dawn of War 2: -4%. Not at all worth it
Crysis: -3%. Not worth it at all
So the average difference from 480 vs. 5870 is 15.3%, which is less that the 19.2% increase in price, so the 5870 is a bettweer bang for your buck, and the 5970 still beats it. Also, it has a much higher power draw than the RAdeon, 165W Idle vs. 27W and 399W full load vs. 293. Also, the 5000 series has eyefinity, so you can hook up three monitors to a single card, which the 400 series can't ,while they do have 3d and physics.
So, it depends on the games you play, but overall, the 480 isn't a better deal than the 5870, but it does fill a particular price-point that ATI doesn't fill.
RiverLucky
May 10, 2010 at 9:36am
This card is too rich for my blood.
Price Vs Performance does not justify it for me.
I just built my gaming PC for $1250.
DBsantos77
March 28, 2010 at 2:39pm
Holy crap, someone else that sees through the marketing tactics and actually looks at the numbers.
Kudos.
-Santos
devin3627
March 28, 2010 at 1:28pm
(newegg review on a 120hz viewsonic monitor!!!!) (pc gaming will be admired when they start selling 120hz computer monitors.)
Reviewed By: Jeff on 3/24/2010
Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
Pros: Excellent image quality, 120hz
Cons: Flimsy stand, no OSD
Other Thoughts: I love this thing. I made the switch from CRT to LCD in 2003. Now that I'm back on 120hz refresh, games like Quake Live just seem so much easier. Everything is very fluid. A definite must if you are a competitive FPS gamer.
Neufeldt2002
March 28, 2010 at 5:13pm
How does this relate to the topic at hand? This clearly falls into spamming the board. If this is to get MPC to review said monitor, there are other channels that are more appropriate.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I wanted a signature, but all I got was this ________
burpnrun
March 28, 2010 at 9:12am
They should be listed under "furnace suppliers", "all-time product failures", or "clowns".
RAMBO
March 27, 2010 at 10:37pm
IT SMOKES YOUR WALLET AND PC WITH COLD BENCHMARKS, WE ALL WAITED FOR THIS!
NVIDIA YOU HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE, GET RID OF OF YOUR HOT HEAD CEO AND START CRANKING OUT
SOME KICK-ASS VIDEO CARDS AGAIN, INSTEAD OF MILKING US WITH YOUR INCREMENTAL UPGADES!!!
GREAT COMPUTING ALL AND HOLD ON TO YOUR CASH FOR NOW... P.S. THE HAIR DOES LOOK COOL
BUT BETTER ON FIRE!
Caboose
March 28, 2010 at 9:08am
Contrary to popular belief, Caps lock is NOT cruise control for cool. It just makes you look like an idiot.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Scootiep
March 28, 2010 at 1:01pm
Amen to that one brother.
To start press any key...ohh, where's the "Any" key. - Homer Simpson
Keith E. Whisman
April 03, 2010 at 5:13pm
Well people that use the caps lock are usually trying to get people to understand that they are upset and are yelling like this... SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I agree with the posters use of all capitals but only on articles like this where it's kinda expected to piss off fanboys and I'm an Nvidia fan boy and it hurts me to have to buy an ATI card but I have to do what I gotta do.
SO IF YOUR UPSET AND FEEL THE NEED TO THEN YOU SHOULD GO AHEAD AND GO ALL CAPS. Believe me your among kindred spirits that feel your anger.
Caboose
March 27, 2010 at 1:21pm
Oops wrong post...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Shckr57
March 27, 2010 at 1:01pm
for now i really dont mind, even tho i would like dx11. just wait till they fix the heat issue, get all cores working( not with 1 disabled) and get better drivers designed just for this chip. it will take the most likely 2 months after release, and alot of these problems will be dimmed down and soon fixed. even tho ati has the lead, i still cant stand there drivers, they have gotten better, but still not good enough for me. also, you cant compare a single gpu to a duel card one, unless you compare 2 480s vs ati top end card. well you can, but id call it cheating.
GaMEChld
April 02, 2010 at 3:21am
Comparing the 480 to the Dual GPU 5970 is a valid comparison to make for an interesting reason. Normally, we would argue that a dual GPU card should only be compared with the competition's dual GPU card. However, Fermi cannot be released as a dual GPU card as it currently stands. The reason for this is because the single GPU Fermi is already at the TDP limits of the PCI-E Standard. Releasing a dual GPU version would easily push the card over this standardized limitation, stripping the card of its PCI-E compliance, and thus be unsupported by any OEMs.
ATI should not be punished for having GPU's that have sane levels of TDP. If Nvidia had engineered a better product, they too would have a dual GPU solution offered, but they did not, so that's on them. The 5970 is a video card that fits in a single PCI-E slot and offers more power than the 480 which also fits in a single PCI-E slot. That's all. How it accomplishes that is irrelevant.
However, it should be noted that if you are indeed comparing with a 5970, one must note that the 5970 is a more expensive card.
Ultimately though, Quadfire with two 5970's, would be cheaper than QuadSLI with 4 480's. All of these price points need to be considered.
DBsantos77
March 27, 2010 at 5:23pm
Or you can go for a Dual-GPU card that fits in one slot as well. That's what I would do, multi-card setups are costly, and run hot unless your under liquid.
-Santos
Shckr57
March 27, 2010 at 4:29pm
i have 2 cards in quad sli, and ill never do it again, i want a single powerful gpu. i hate haveing to wait 2 weeks after a game launches to get support for sli. and in the end it rly not worth it.
aluCard1462
March 28, 2010 at 1:52am
Wouldn't quad sli be four cards? Oh, and BTW I while I agree that it's a waste, it's good there is the option for multiple display setups.
