Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...0-480-review/1

Yup, that'll be my next card. It might be more expensive, but where it does pull ahead, it pulls ahead a lot.

They sum it up pretty well in a paragraph on the final page:

Funnily enough, in HardOCP's review, 480 SLI scales a LOT better than the 5970.

It must also be remembered that ATI have had months to refine their drivers while NVIDIA's cards are running betas.


Comments?

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

I have a comment: given that SLI is so good in Fermi and the rest of the card is merely mediocre, if you have the money then go with SLI. If you want a single card I'd still go with a 5870.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

Looks like the 5870 is running out of vmem at super-high res in comparison to the 480.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

Doesn't look half bad... I won't be surprised if prices change in the near-ish future...

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

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.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

Yeah, the HardOCP review has some videos of the fan noise, and they are really loud. Granted, all of them are loud under furmark load, but Fermi is the loudest and even that doesn't stop them from having by far the hottest cards. EVGA's already advertising the cards with waterblocks instead of the normal air cooler, I expect them to make a killing from that, it's really the only way to go if you have more than one Fermi card.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

From what I've read db is around 42 at load on the 480 with the stock 60% fan speed setting. Supposedly, adjusting it to 70% brings it down from 95c to 80c and is still within tolerable noise levels, depending on the case used of course.

I can't help but think after all I've read that they should have just came out with a 300 series with added units to compete with 5000s better, then kept R&D going on Fermi until they could make a working 32nm one. That would have solved most of the heat issues bringing the 480 down to maybe 200 TDP or less.

What forced their hand most no doubt is insisting on launching their DX11 line with this extremely radical architecture. Fermi seems to be a work in progress until they can shrink the die further.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

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.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

The shader cluster was disabled so that NVIDIA would - will - have enough cards on launch day. The 512SP version will be released, some time in Q3 I believe. It won't much hotter than this card, and it'll draw 295W. Think 260-216.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

Changed for you =p

Judging by the amount of people that might buy it along with supply it might look to be more of a paper launch on the 12th. Will have to see though and see if there are actually cards in stock or if they will sell out in 10mins like the 58xx cards did.

And "much" hotter isn't really a good sounding thing. Especially considering how much heat this thing already throws off. Even 20w more might push it over the edge. Nvidia start throwing out cards with a 3x120 rad kit and full cover block in the price if they keep it up.

I want to see some REAL overclocking from these cards. I've heard guys are having problems keeping this thing cool enough with LN2. FFS if LN2 cant keep it cold enough to bench properly. But supposedly if you can get it cool enough they scale extremely well with additional core frequency. Too bad the cards need to be -100*C to clock.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

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.

Re: Guru3D GTX 470/480 Review
 

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).