NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480 finally unleashed. Reviewed and rated.

[cleaverlch]

That is mental. There is no-way I'm having one of those things in my computer. It sounds louder than the fan-heater I use in winter.

How does it compare with the FX 5800?

[sammorris]

Probably not much louder, but much hotter!

[Terbinator]

If it's to say the new DX11 cards are unnecessary, you're very wrong.

I'm not saying that any card is unnecessary, but there's legions of people on any forum complaining about prices of cards and then trample Nvidia like its there fault. For those on a budget from my experience there is no need to splash out on the newer cards, given the current card you would be using. On the other hand as you point out if you can, you may as well go for the highest/best card - I'm just fed up of listening to people waiting for, namely, the 5850 prices to come down, blame Nvidia when they went and will continue to do so.

[OilSheikh]

So, ATI's 5xxx series is still better than the Fermi ROFL!

[sammorris]

Well, you can see their point - if the GTX480 were priced competitively, it may potentially spark a price war whereby the cost of ATI's DX11 parts would be reduced. However, since it's completely uncompetitive (presumably due to the fact nvidia would be making a loss on the cards if they were any cheaper, given all the production delays) technically, they have caused prices to stagnate, resulting in more expensive cards to the consumer.
The problem I have is that the new cards aren't going anywhere in terms of price, so I may as well buy them now and get more out of them, but in terms of cost per pound, the upgrade is farcical. My current cards cost me £540 for the pair and I'd need to spend £1150 to beat their performance by 55%, and even after selling the old cards, it'd still be an £800 outlay, it's crazy.

[j1979]

i wish people would stop using big words unless they understand them 100%!!

[Defiant]

Im very disappointed in NVidia, Im using a 4870x2 just now and found ATI's new 5 range to be disappointing so far. I had hoped that the 480 would give a 5870 a good ass woopin but the cost, noise and heat levels on it make it a none starter in my book.
Im no fan of either camp, but these prices are getting out of control. I'm very tempted to stay out of this generation of cards, nether camp is making me feel like buying.
I had hoped the 5970 would have been a worthy sucessor to the 4870x2 but its not since its nothing but a pair of 5850's and the performance as well in my book isn't steller.
Maybe the 5900 card coming with 5870 core speeds and 4GB of ram will improve things.

What I am certain of is there wont be GTX495 with those card temps and noise levels, well unless they rename it to HWBS495 for Home Water Boiler system.

[sammorris]

You do realise the 4GB HD5970 is going to be £850 right?

[Defiant]

You do realise the 4GB HD5970 is going to be £850 right?

There has been some talk of $1000 so far but no confirmation on that or even if the model will show even.
If it was that much I wouldnt consider it, £500-550 would be most I would push to.

[sammorris]

A standard HD5970 costs more than that, will never happen. The HD5870 will cost at least as much as two 2GB HD5870s, which is over £700. They will overcharge because it's one dual card, not undercharge. $1000/£850 seems about right.

[kalniel]

You do realise the 4GB HD5970 is going to be £850 right?

Source?

[sammorris]

It's cited in almost every article as being $1000. Add VAT, $1175 in GBP is £789. Given the fact that the HD5970 at $700 would work out to be £552, and most cards cost £20-£50 more than that, I imagine the 4GB 5970 will cost £30-£70 more than that estimate.

[Tarinder]

The Radeon HD 5970 4GB cards are about three weeks away from the usual review run. Having spoken to AMD's partners, word on the grapevine is that they'll cost around £700 all in.

But that may well be revised downwards if, as expected, a couple of GeForce GTX 470s in SLI prove to scale well.

[sammorris]

GTX 400 series SLI scales very well, as SLI always has. However, it is somewhat disheartening to see so many reviewers pan crossfire for bad scaling when they use almost exclusively nvidia's preferred test titles. Having made some comparisons myself, I see scaling of 300% or above with my QuadCF setup in loads of games, plenty enough to give SLI a run for its money.
If the 4GB HD5970 card can be kept at or below £700, I will be quite interested indeed. While I'd love it to be true though, I just can't help but have my doubts. I really do think 1GB per GPU is insufficient for use at 2560x1600 with reasonable levels of AA these days, so I do genuinely want a 2GB per GPU solution - GTA4 should be enough to show just how important the extra memory is, even the GTX470 obliterates the HD5870 there.
Given its a minimum of 4 weeks until I can actually afford to do any upgrades, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled. If the 4GB 5970s really do come out at £700, the normal 5870 I would expect to see a small price drop, as that's so close to the cost of a normal pair of 5870s in crossfire it wouldn't make much sense.
I eagerly await the benchmarks

[Percy1983]

Looks like my 5850 at £198 was a perfect choice, as my board is an X48 I could add a second at a later date.

[sammorris]

You could do the same with a P45 board as well
There's only a 2% performance drop for HD5870s at 8x versus 16x, I imagine the same is true for HD5850s. Good deal on the 5850 there