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

[Perfectionist]

I don't follow hardware news all that much, I imagine a lot of people are reading and wondering this too, if stuff is able to be built at lower than 40nm why aren't they, is it too expensive or something?

also fermi v2? you reckon they will be making one that soon that it will be around the same time or before ATI's?

[scaryjim]

You have to design for a specific manufacturing node, so you can't just take a 40nm design and run it off on a 32nm / 28nm process. NVidia have essentially taken the same design paradigm as they had at 55nm and tried to make a smaller version of it (albeit with some interesting architectural design changes) and they've found that it just doesn't work. ATI found that out with the 4770, and did a lot of homework working out how to mitigate those manufacturing and yield problems, which is why we had a full line-up of 40nm GPUs from ATI before NVidia even managed to produce one. It's also worth remembering that there are a few different types of process for making silicon wafers and etching chips onto them, and they're not always suitable for every purpose. So basically, they chips aren't being made at 32nm because it would take an expense investment in redesigning for the process, and also because the current 32nm processes might not be suitable for GPUs.

As to Fermi 2, I've seen it quoted a couple of times that a respun fermi should be available before the end of this year. It won't be a ground up redesign, obviously, but I anticipate that they will be making some of the same kind of changes that ATI did to get better yields and more reliable components on TSMCs 40nm process. I guess they'll be looking to get a 512 shader GPU running at 1600MHz+ at acceptable power draw...

[Syllopsium]

I'm not impressed now - but I might be in the future.

Even allowing for my continued statement that I won't buy Nvidia whilst they're still pulling the PhysX lockout game, the 480 isn't that impressive.

There are some stunning gains in DirectX9 performance, but frankly - who cares? This, and the 58xx/59xx series, should be bought based on their DX10 and DX11 performance. Nvidia is not delivering where it really counts, and the noise, power and heat are ridiculous.

If they can manage a die shrink, if Fermi is scalable in new designs, if the yield improves and if AMD drop the ball, NVidia are in with a chance in the mid to high end market. As it is, the only advantage I can see they have is better drivers.

Still, it's good that AMD are finally meeting with some competition. That's good for all of us.

[kapitilist_pig]

I think the two companies should swap their logo colours, because ATi's 5XXX delivers more performance for a lot less watts and so is the 'greener' solution. Its also the more elegant solution for the same reasons. From what I read, it makes bigger profits and hence could take the biggest price cuts.
Ati should now drop the prices 20% or even more, across the board and go for the jugular, before fermi gets shrunk.
There is probably a lot of people like me, waiting for the 5XXX prices to drop, before they buy. Hell, I want 2 in crossfire!, but its the 5850 xfire I want, 5770/5830 aren't enough/too dear!.

I think its a bit irresponsible to release a gaming system that can consume approaching a kw (tri 480 SLi) of power in these days, where were supposed to be making things more frugal.
I thought the whole point of die shrinking was to reduce power usage and give higher clocks with less heat. What happened here then?. Is the next gen going to need 1.21 gigawatts and a flux capacitor based PSU?

I can see the dual chip card being 2x gtx 470 chips. It should be released along with the NEW medal of honour as the cards blower will sound like an air raid siren from the period and add to the effect.

As for Fermi itself, for me its an experiment that should have stayed in the lab and I won't be buying into that.
They had better not release a driver like the recent one that disabled cooling fans... Imagine that scenario on triple SLI gtx 480 ...oh dear Xo(


WHERE is this 5850x2 / 5950 card????!!!... that would be bought immediately!

[TooNice]

The 5970 is a 5850x2.

[Terbinator]

the 5970 is a 5850x2.

5890 ?

[ajones]

Come back Rollo.... all is forgiven....

[kapitilist_pig]

The 5970 is a 5850x2.

no it isn't... a 5950 would have less shaders, rop's etc... 5970 has 2x1600 = 3200
5950 would have 1440x2 = 2880, but hopefully... same clock speeds

c'mon sapphire!, 5950 please, you know you want to! ...well, I want you to!

[Terbinator]

no it isn't... a 5950 would have less shaders, rop's etc... 5970 has 2x1600 = 3200
5950 would have 1440x2 = 2880, but hopefully... same clock speeds

c'mon sapphire!, 5950 please, you know you want to!

If the AIB's have there way the '5890' is going to be faster than the 5970. IIRC.

[Ramon]

The 5970 is a 5850x2.

Nope... The 5970 is 2 X 5870 GPU, @ 1600 stream processing units each, but downclocked from 850 to 725Mhz. The 5850 has only 1440.

The hypothetical 5890 would be an overclocked version of the 5870 with presumably 2Gb of RAM.

Anyway, Fermi is a big Joke. It lost on all front: Price/power/heat VS performance ratio. The 470 barely beats the 5850, loose to the 5870. The 480 was meant to be faster than the 5970 and it is not.

Some say it's not fair to compare 1 GPU (480) against dual GPU (5970). Their logic is flawed. What counts is the number of transistors, then we can compare architecture/drivers efficiency. Both have roughly 3 billions and the 5970 still *easily* beats the 480 while taking less power and runs cooler. One can't fault ATI for their modular implementation VS Nvidia big monolithic approach. 480 VS 5970 is actually an apple to apple comparison.

Legit review reported that when you plug 2 LCD, the 480 don't clock down and actually idle at 90c!!! That's with perfect lab condition, at 22c room temperature and brand new, dust free card. What happen with a partially dust clogged heat-sink performing at only 75% efficiency on a hot summer day, like it will be in real life? 100c idle and 105-110c under load? Those cards should be sold with a fire extinguisher!

Also, XFX just pulled out: No Fermi card at all from them!! Talk about a slap in the face for Nvidia! When you loose your biggest AIB partner, something not right... Maybe it has to do with 90c idling and potential 105c at load!

With the refresh / HD 6000 coming in Q3 for ATI, Nvidia better clean its act rather quickly...



Ramon

[GoNz0]

Also, XFX just pulled out: No Fermi card at all from them!!

thank god for that !

[Ramon]

no it isn't... a 5950 would have less shaders, rop's etc... 5970 has 2x1600 = 3200
5950 would have 1440x2 = 2880, but hopefully... same clock speeds

c'mon sapphire!, 5950 please, you know you want to! ...well, I want you to!

Ajones compared 5970 to a 5850 X2. I think he meant a 5850 in crossfire. He never mentioned a 5950.

Anyway, the 5850 has the SAME number of ROPs as a 5870 which is 32... The only difference between a 5870 and a 5850 is the number of streams (shader units) down from 1600 to 1440, core clock down from 850 to 725 and memory clock speed down from 1200 to 1000Mhz.

[Ramon]

If the AIB's have there way the '5890' is going to be faster than the 5970. IIRC.

How could a 1600 stream processors GPU (5890) *ever* beat a 3200 stream (5970) setup? In order to beat a 5970, the 5890 would need to run at 1.45Ghz, if not more because FPS usually don't scale linearly with Mhz! LOL

This hypothetical 5890, even with TOP binned parts, will not be clocked beyond 1Ghz on air. From an engineering point of view, ATI needs to keep a safety margin of at least 10-15%. As for the memory, current GDDR5 chips can't officially clock beyond 1.2Ghz. They can run overclocked at up to around 1.4, but that's beyond specs for a part not manufactured by ATI. They won't go there. A 2GB buffer don't help much either, as proved by the newly released ATI 5870 Eyfinity 6 edition with a 2GB frame buffer. You see only marginal gain at 2560X1600 and some gain with min frame rate. All below 2-3%, if any.

[sammorris]

kalniel is absolutely right. The TDP of the GTX480 is 250W, but that's not really accurate. The HD5970 at 294W uses less power, so the GTX480 really does still have the 298W estimated TDP they were quoting, as far as I'm concerned.
There probably isn't going to be a 32nm Fermi refresh at all, ATI basically no-confidenced TSMC on 32nm (I believe TSMC have abandoned 32nm completely and are just trying to start over with 28nm) and kept 40nm for their new design, which does worry me as far as TDPs are concerned.
The yields of the GTX480 aren't helped by TSMC, but they're mainly nvidia's fault because the architecture is so bad. So very very few of the GTX480s made can manage even GTX470 specs, let alone GTX480 specs without needing over 300W TDP, that they're throwing away dozens of chips for every one they can sell. Don't expect stocks of the GTX400s to be even as good as the HD5800s were at launch, for many months to come.
TooNice: This is what I was thinking. If, by the end of the year they can come out with a GTX465 or something that can still take on the HD5850 but at a fraction of the power and cost, then they'll start to get sales, but right now, every geforce out there is overpriced except one, the GTS250. Nothing else is worth buying given the price of ATI alternatives.
Quite frankly, given that the GTX480's miniscule yields aren't even on sale for another fortnight, and by that time it will be almost a full 7 months into the dev cycle for the HD5000 series, ATI will be well ahead with R&D into Southern Islands (if that's what it's going to be called). Given it was around 16 months from HD2900XT straight to HD4870, with the HD3870 refresh in the middle, and only 14 months from HD4870 to HD5870, it's not unrealistic to expect Southern Islands by christmas, if it's a scaled back same process GPU.
As for what nvidia will put out next, you can suggest the HD3870 vs HD2900 style refresh, I have no idea if they will/won't pull something like that off. What I am, however, expecting is a GTX485, which cuts the TDP down by 15% or so (to be in line or better than the HD5970) and adds another 10% on top for performance by using 512 shaders at higher clock speeds. I don't expect it to be cheap though, and remember, while there wasn't as much 'hot competition' from ATI with the GTX280 vs GTX285, it did take them 6 months to produce it. If that's the case again here, it's October before it will happen, perilously close to a new release from ATI.
Syllopsium's point is also interesting, why is the GTX480 doing well at DirectX9? This doesn't make a great deal of sense.

The proposed HD5890 I have heard nothing about. Right now the only new card coming out soon is the 4GB HD5970, with the full 5870 clock speeds (do want). I imagine the HD5890/HD5870 will be rather like the HD4890/HD4870. Slightly higher power, higher fan speeds, but same cooler, moderate increase in price (perhaps in line with the 2GB HD5870 Eyefinity6 at £400, that after all would still be less than a 480). However, the GTX275 was a lot more powerful than the HD4870, so the HD4890 was underwhelming. Since the GTX480 really isn't that much faster at all (excluding the typical biased titles), then really the HD5890 should best it in all but the worst cases of bias. It should have a low 200s TDP, and cost less, be quieter, etc. etc.
So, when's it coming out again?

[Terbinator]

How could a 1600 stream processors GPU (5890) *ever* beat a 3200 stream (5970) setup? In order to beat a 5970, the 5890 would need to run at 1.45Ghz, if not more because FPS usually don't scale linearly with Mhz! LOL

My understanding from the CeBit show last month - the board makers [ones interviewed be Hexus] were touting the 5890 which was 2 5870's on one board which runs at the 5870 clocks - not 5970 clocks, and seen as your 1337 you'll know the 5970 features downclocked 5870 GPU's, right ?

[kalniel]

and seen as your 1337 you'll know the 5970 features downclocked 5870 GPU's, right ?

You did read his post, right?

The 5970 is 2 X 5870 GPU, @ 1600 stream processing units each, but downclocked from 850 to 725Mhz. The 5850 has only 1440.