[Tech News] Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review

[Quetron]

Originally Posted by *The.Doctor

My biggest problem with the 480/470 are how incredibly hot they get, and how much power they use. Anand has the 480 hitting 94C while playing Crysis, while the dual-GPU 5970 only hits 81C, while the 480 uses more power, and the 470 uses close to the 5970. They also say the fan on these is the loudest they have ever tested.

check this out
Intel® Energy Checker SDK - Intel® Software Network

" (pixels rendered per joule consumed and joules consumed per pixel rendered)

man that is some cool software they do these days.

[>Omen<]

Originally Posted by *The.Doctor

Yeah, i think with a die shrink Fermi would have outright stomped the 5800's, but by the time a 32nm version is ready, ATI will either likely have the 5800 refresh cards out (5890 ect..), or the 6000 series ready to go. Also, i'm not sure if i'm buying those fan speed claims. Dropping 15C from just 10% more fan speed seems like a bit much.

The 480 is not even a full spec Fermi card. According to Anand, It has one shader cluster disabled to bring it to power use spec and manageable heat levels.

I wasn't talking about the die shrink in terms of being more competitive with ATI. I couldn't care less what hardware ATI comes out with as long as their drivers and support are inferior. That's a long subject that gets debated back and forth I don't care to get into though. Suffice it to say I'm only thinking about what I want in an Nvidia card vs what everyone including Nvidia thinks they need to do regarding ATI.

It's hard to say on the fan speed and claim of how much heat drop for a 10% bump. There is usually a sweet spot where you get an optimal noise to temp ratio though. It's often the point at which the fan reaches a speed where noticeably more standing air is pushed out of the GPU area. So there's usually one spot in a fan's speed range that has a bit more increase in temp drop.

(EDITED)
OverclockersClub verifies exactly what Guru3D said on the temp drop btw, stating that a mere 10% bump to 70% speed drops the load temp to 80c, while the noise levels remain acceptable. I also found TechPowerUp had a very interesting report on Pci-Ex bandwidth usage. They say the 480 exceeds 8x by a mere 2%, the exact same amount as does the 5870. So in bandwidth usage it's actually a bit more efficient considering it performs about 18% better (@ 1920x1200).