Reviews - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB review. Fermi done right?

[Domestic_Ginger]

I agree but will see them with the 300 prefix due to not supporting DX11. IIRC thats the reason fermi was launced as the 400s. The 340 is already out or is it the 240? I'm lost already it seams.

EDIT: just remembered they have been trying to die shrink everything and it failed hecnce the 240/340 being the only salvageable part.

The GTX 460 looks like an interesting proposition and as said above I can't understand why they didn't try to launch with the 480 ala the 260 + 280. I suppose its because ATi are holding all the cards and they need to best the 5850?

[ilh]

So it costs ~£100 more than my 5850 i've been enjoying for 6, costs a lot more to run and is no better in BC2 or Crysis and marginally better in Dirt 2 (DX11) for the games that I play?

HA!

[HW_90]

So it costs ~£100 more than my 5850 i've been enjoying for 6, costs a lot more to run and is no better in BC2 or Crysis and marginally better in Dirt 2 (DX11) for the games that I play?

HA!

*facepalm*

look at minimum fps if you can find the results.

the 470 usually has a higher minimum fps than the 5870, even when the 5870 has a 15fps+ gain on the avg fps.

[dangel]

I'm possibly mad but..

I'd buy a 480.

...but not at the current price point. If it were ~350 i'd consider it - heat isn't an issue for me (i'd watercool it) and currently running a 'fat' 200 series (the 280) means i'm used to high power requirements (!).

I generally buy the fastest single gpu card I can, every other generation. I'm not in desperate need yet though so i'll wait to see how things pan out in ~2 months when prices drop for ATI and nVidia. Right now, i'd grab a 5870. In the interim a mild overclock of my 280 has nabbed me 30fps+ in just cause 2 @ 2052x1148. Metro 2033 kills it.

Not that i'm decided, it's just some thoughts based on where I am right now and I can't help but seeing the 480 as a parallel for my current card - fast, hot, first of a new gen of architecture. I don't give a stuff about which company builds my next card, never have.

[sammorris]

Sounds about right. I don't think they'd use the GTX285 for GTS450 though, probably the GTX275 instead.
dangel: If you knew how well Crossfire works these days you'd buy two 5850s, that's only an extra £40 or so over a GTX480 if you look in the right places, and it will destroy a GTX480, for less power too!

[dangel]

dangel: If you knew how well Crossfire works these days you'd buy two 5850s, that's only an extra £40 or so over a GTX480 if you look in the right places, and it will destroy a GTX480, for less power too!

I willing to listen - it's not something I keep up with - but does it ALWAYS scale to every game on release day? Nothing would bug me more than waiting for a profile update etc?

[traktor]

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB review. Fermi done right?

Nope. Unfortunately Done wrong. Heat, power, noise, performance.
Another 6 months to go.

[HW_90]

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB review. Fermi done right?

Nope. Unfortunately Done wrong. Heat, power, noise, performance.
Another 6 months to go.

heat - doesn't matter, it's a GPU, if you set it on fire it'll still work

Power - why do you think all of us have 650w+ PSU's for?

noise - I use headphones for gaming, couldn't care less

performance - look at minimum fps, the 470 beats the 5870 2GB by a few fps, let alone the 1GB version or the 5850.

6 months - more than that, ATI's next card comes out around this time next year if they do it at 28nm.

[traktor]

heat - doesn't matter, it's a GPU, if you set it on fire it'll still work

Power - why do you think all of us have 650w+ PSU's for?

noise - I use headphones for gaming, couldn't care less

performance - look at minimum fps, the 470 beats the 5870 2GB by a few fps, let alone the 1GB version or the 5850.

6 months - more than that, ATI's next card comes out around this time next year if they do it at 28nm.

Great Sarcasm there

Power - It does matter a lot ( I care because you do )

Noise - just can't stand it. Headphones? Hehehe, a good one

Performance - no real difference to 5850 as seen in many reviews ( hardOCP to be THE reference).

6 months - yeah 6 month late, perhaps another few month to be really available and Ati's new chip coming soon

cheers, nice weekend,
t.

[Tarinder]

Sounds about right. I don't think they'd use the GTX285 for GTS450 though, probably the GTX275 instead.
dangel: If you knew how well Crossfire works these days you'd buy two 5850s, that's only an extra £40 or so over a GTX480 if you look in the right places, and it will destroy a GTX480, for less power too!

We've thrown two Radeon HD 5850s, costing about the same as one GTX 480, and benchmarked them against all the cards in this review. Article live on Monday.

[HW_90]

Great Sarcasm there

Power - It does matter a lot ( I care because you do )

Noise - just can't stand it. Headphones? Hehehe, a good one

Performance - no real difference to 5850 as seen in many reviews ( hardOCP to be THE reference).

6 months - yeah 6 month late, perhaps another few month to be really available and Ati's new chip coming soon

cheers, nice weekend,
t.

looks like we have an ATi fanboy here, seeing

I fight for the best option, a month ago the 5850 was the best choice to buy, now it's the 470, whether you like it or not.

Tarinder, do you know when or if you'll be doing a GTX 470 SLI review?

[TooNice]

Performance - no real difference to 5850 as seen in many reviews ( hardOCP to be THE reference).

Yeah, many reviews. Like Anandtech, Firingsquad, and Hexus? Oh wait. By all mean, complain about the temperature and noise associated by the require cooling. Complain about value for money. But AFAIK, most reviews do back the notion that the 470 is faster than the 5850 overall, and I see little reason to believe hardOCP over other reviewers.

[traktor]

looks like we have an ATi fanboy here, seeing

I fight for the best option, a month ago the 5850 was the best choice to buy, now it's the 470, whether you like it or not.

No Ati funboy here, have only 1 ati card out of 7 cards. Just beeing realistic, love nvidia since its very beginning, but it seems like their PR is "making" cards not their engineers any more. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

[kalniel]

I fight for the best option, a month ago the 5850 was the best choice to buy, now it's the 470, whether you like it or not.

Really, it's not, if you're at all interested in power/heat/price. The performance difference to the 5850 is not worth the additional in those categories. If you don't care about those things then you'll be getting a 5970, or SLI 480 if you want nVidia.

[sammorris]

dangel: Almost always these days. The problem is you do sometimes get bugs. Right now I'd say roughly 80% of the big titles that come out work fine on launch day, the other 20% either don't scale or have bugs.
I lmao'ed at HW_90, I wonder how long before he gets banned. GTX470 faster than the HD5870, hilarious! Every single word of all his posts is completely false, just in the vain hope he'd convince someone that didn't notice the lies to buy his beloved Geforce. Why are there so many people like this out there?

I'll go into a little more detail.
False point #1: It's a GPU, if you set it on fire it'll still work. Apart from this obviously not being true, even taking a more sensible approach, nvidia GPUs are renowned for failing at high temperatures, aside from the 196.75 fan control driver problem, also remember the original 8800GT which suffered high failures due to the fan being too small, hence the redesign.
False point #2: Most people own a 650W+ PSU? Actually no, of all the people I know who play games, I would say around 30% of them have PSUs bigger than 550W, if that. Many of these people use high-end graphics cards. The GTX470 needing a 650W unit isn't technically true either, a two-connector 450W unit will do the job (but you could get a 380W unit to run an HD5870 absolutely fine if you used an adapter, so there's no excuse). People who don't own high-end PSUs and want geforce cards will need to buy them, artifically inflating the price. Since the GTX470 at £300 rivals the HD5850 at £240, add the extra cost of a decent PSU, being conservative we'll say £70. That means £370 vs £240 for the same performance, ignoring the extra electricity bill (which will add up to £100+ with 3 years of use)
False point #3: The GTX470/480 fan is so loud it will go straight through your headphones unless you turn the volume right up. Use a 40+ blade radial fan and turn it up to over 3000rpm, then tell me you could put up with that on a daily basis. My PC's graphics fans cut through my headphones too, but since I have enough performance for almost three GTX470s, I'm happy to have it that way
False point #4: Performance. This, obviously, is completely false. Even if you don't consider HardOCP's test (which I suspect is more accurate than many), the GTX470 is always considered an equal to the HD5850, not a superior. The HD5870 will never lose to the GTX470 except under the most extreme cases of bias.
False point #5: ATI's next card isn't going to be 28nm. It may well be more than 6 months after now, but not a lot more I don't suspect.
False point #6: The GTX470 is the best choice to buy? It costs 30% more stock, 50% more including the upgraded PSU, it's no faster at all, much hotter, much noisier and all you get for that is PhysX, which the GTX470 isn't powerful enough to use. Congrats, you have bought an HD5850 with a £70 electric fan heater attached.

I can't believe so many people are this thick. I assume there's trolls posting on different accounts going around.

[TooNice]

GTX470 faster than the HD5870, hilarious!

He didn't say that though, he was specific to minimum frame rate. I'd say it -is- debatable, it's not a straight win, nor a straight loss at least based on one review I quickly Googled: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-13.html

Aliens vs Predator, it's basically a tie (depends on AA)
Bad Company 2, it's win for the 5870.
Dirt 2 is a win for the 470, at all resolution except 2560.
Dragon Age, it's a win for the 5870.
FC2, win for 470 in both DX9 and DX10.
L4D, underwhelming win for the 5870 (there are ties and situations the 470 wins).
Metro 2033, underwhelming win for 470.
Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11): Tie (depends on AA, 470 win by slightly more margins than losses).

Basically, it would be silly to claim the 470 is faster than the 5870 overall, and it is not even true that it is faster in minimum frame rate. But based on this sole review I've Googled, it does look like the 470 is closer to the 5870 in minimum frame rate, than the 5850 is to 470 in overall performance. Note that this review was not purposely selected, I had no idea what the results were going to be when I first clicked it. By all mean, if feel free to point it out if it is inconsistent with 2-3 other reviews that shows minimum frame rates (I'll be honest, I am not that bothered - I don't think anyone would honestly pick the 470 other the 5870).

As to the post above, I dispute point 3 and 4.

Point 3 is theoretically correct if you are using closed (isolating) headphones. I'd know because prior my obsession with silent computing, I went through the 'overclocking with screaming Delta FTW' phase years ago. IEMs and isolating headphones will block the noise without needing you to increase the volume beyond what you'd normally use. However, I do more than gaming with a PC, and as much as I like listening to music via my headphones, I also want to give my ears a rest now and then, and the noise will drive me mad as soon as I take the headphone off (that's why I will only buy GFX card that I can cool with a 12cm fan spinning at no more than 1000 RPM nowadays).

And point 4, we've gone through this already. The 5850 = 470 from a performance point of view is at very best an opinion, and one that is not shared by many, let alone all reviewers.

@kalniel: Based on my own values (high importance in low noise), I agree that the performance difference is not worth the extra cost/heat/noise. Still, it is a pretty big gap between the price of the 470 and 480SLI/5970, so I do not think it is incomprehensible that someone with £300 burning in his pocket would pick the 470 over the 5850. The noise criterion is rather subjective and people will value it differently (both monetarily, and in terms of performance). Though I can believe that most would opt for the 5850 as having the better balance.