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

[kapitilist_pig]

nVidia should have gotten together with case & motherboard manufacturers on the SLi side of things, providing slots in cases & 'bread' sized gaps between pci-express slots so that one may cook toast between these cards whilst SLi gaming...

...just thinking of any 'real' uses for these cards
98 degrees centigrade whilst gaming? No thank you!, especially after the bumpgate fiasco!, in which my 8800gt died!, never again!

I was hoping for better so that it would at least bring the cost of ATi's cards down...

...but it seems these things are not even good enough for that, not even after being given a 6 months head start.

These things are only going to sell to the fanest of fanboys!
...well done nVidia...NOT

PS. Looks like semiaccurate.com is vindicated.
'Too hot, too late, too big, too complicated, almost unmanufacturable & seriously unprofitable
The same joke as gtx 2XX only with a more expensive punchline.

[Terbinator]

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

If it starts to really bottleneck just start bumping the PCI-e frequency up as well

[MadduckUK]

PS. Looks like semiaccurate.com is vindicated.
'Too hot, too late, too big, too complicated, almost unmanufacturable & seriously unprofitable
The same joke as gtx 2XX only with a more expensive punchline.

was never in doubt really - some would call me foolish but i tens to believe what charlie says as his whole reputation relies on him being right

[sammorris]

I agree, he's crazily opinionated and arrogant, but he does seem to be right the majority of the time. This is why I already knew not to expect much from Fermi, right from the beginning.

[ehhhhhhh]

If someone wants to sell an ATI card (5850 or 5870) to replace it with this .....khmm.... "thing", I would be more than happy to purchase it....

offers to nobrains at idiot dot co dot uk please

[00oceanic]

Can't say I'm impressed, especially when there's so much hype.
I also foresee an increase in launch-prices for "the latest and greatest" in future graphic cards

3870 = £140
4870 = £175
5870 = £300
GTX480 = £400

I don't think either company realise that your average gaming joe would only spend around £80 - £150 on something that can only play games? Anything more expensive and I'd rather get a cheaper card and a Caribbean Cruise! (In the case of the 480)

[GoNz0]

most apart from the XFx ones

[GoNz0]

there are world famous for overclocking cards that cant cope, followed up by one of the worst RMA services out there after you fry it.

[Perfectionist]

was never in doubt really - some would call me foolish but i tens to believe what charlie says as his whole reputation relies on him being right

Just read this:
semiaccurate.com/2010/03/23/nvidia-bends-definition-honesty-gtx480-benches

People with fragile egos, especially those tacked to dreams of enthusiast hardware just hate having their bubbles burst.

[..]For those unwilling to take such things as hard facts into account in order to protect their egos, we submit the above screenshot of the Dirt2 demo

Rollo must be APOPLECTIC.

I imagine the silence is because something like this happened: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SC0JGEAGMmA

[sammorris]

00ceanic: Not really, when the HD3870 came out, it was priced at £140 because it was not the greatest at all, the 8800GTX was, and that was still £350 at the time.
likewise, when the 4870 came out, the GTX280 was stillk king of the hill, and was £350 also.
Nothing new here really. The card that is truly the best tends to cost around £300 or so if it's ATI, £400 or so if it's nvidia. The only exception here is the HD5970 because it was so far ahead of the competition.
Both companies really do understand that most people can't afford top end cards, hence why they sell cheaper ones, like the HD5770 and GTS250. This is where the majority of sales end up.
GoNz0: I lol'ed. You probably have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, you just had one faulty XFX card and got a bad deal from the returns service. At this stage all the cards are identical. Assuming they come with identical BIOSes there's no reason any one brand would be worse other than for warranty.

[badass]

Assuming they come with identical BIOSes there's no reason any one brand would be worse other than for warranty.

You really believe that?

[sammorris]

Go on then, why wouldn't it be true?

[MadduckUK]

Go on then, why wouldn't it be true?

thinking the only thing that can fail on a mobo is the bios is daft?

[sammorris]

No, that wasn't the argument. It was suggested that XFX cards would be less reliable than other brands, but if they're all identical reference cards, what would be any different between brands other than the BIOS?

[GoNz0]

because XFX are known for overclocking cards without adding extra cooling and without testing the cards as i explained in my 2nd reply about them, it just seems this threads turned into a bitching fest now.

[sammorris]

Perhaps, but overclocking a card without adding cooling shouldn't be a problem. You can raise the fan speed in the BIOS, or just expect higher temperatures. If a card is going to crash if it isn't cooled well enough, it's not stable enough to start with.