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GeForce GTX 480 and 470 Revealed, Benchmarked

by - source: Tom's Hardware US

IT'S FINALLY HERE. Yes, that means that there won't be any more leaks or board shots or box shots… well, until the next rumored GPU variant comes along. But today let's enjoy what Nvidia has to share with us, officially.

Today at PAX East, Nvidia officially debuted its much delayed, long awaited and highly anticipated GPUs built off of its Fermi architecture. We've had our own private time with the newest from Nvidia, and we're ready to tell you all about it.

When it comes to pushing pixels, the Fermi-based GF100 chips have a special advantage over the competition with hardware tessellation – something that Nvidia frequently boasts about. Check out the video below to see tessellation in action.

Nvidia Tessellation Tech Demo

As you've probably already heard if you happen to hang around the rumor mill much, retail versions of the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 cards won't be hitting stores until the week of April 12th (in two and a half weeks). These first round of cards, numbering in the tens of thousands, are all manufactured 'in-house' by Nvidia, so there will be little variation between products offered by different OEMs.

With all new GPUs, they're not going to be cheap. The GeForce GTX 480 will come in at $500 and the GTX 470 at $350.

Check out the full details, complete with exhaustive benchmarks in our Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 review.

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bogcotton 03/27/2010 1:42 AM
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I think this about sums up how many people are feeling about this release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZXhR1ibj8

darkgoth678 03/27/2010 1:51 AM
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tipmen 03/27/2010 1:55 AM
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Too little to late sorry Nivida. They are just too hot, too expensive, and not enough performance to make up for it. I was really hoping they would pull through and bring some much need competition.

back_by_demand 03/27/2010 2:07 AM
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Well, interesting, just got through the 35 page review on Guru3D an dthe 20 page review on Tom's and I and underwhelmed.
At the top end of single GPU nVidia has had a 6 month wait to produce a card that is $100 more expensive and only a few % better performance.
We expected more.
Point of order, the HD5970 is around $600, which is $100 more than the GTX480, has a bigger lead in performance than the GTX480 has over the HD5870, which it is $100 more expensive than.
On a price vs performance comparison I would have expected to see the GTX480 one of two things, either slighty cheaper to account for its position between the HD5870 and the HD5970 ... or ... same price but slightly better performance to put it close to the HD5970.
Yes I kinow you think I am comparing Apples with Oranges as the HD5970 is a dual GPU but as it stands until a dual-GPU GTX480 comes out (GTX480-X2?) ATI still holds the performance crown at a price which isn't prohibitive, because face it, if the prospect of paying $500 doesn't bother you then $600 shouldn't either.

nVidia, you should have released this 6 months ago, by the time this actually hits the shops you wont sell enough before the hype for the HD6000 starts. Christmas is the big market and you know it, if people sit on their hands and wait for the early new year to grab a HD6000 you will be in serious trouble.

thegreathuntingdolphin 03/27/2010 2:13 AM
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So I am assuming overclocking these beasts is out of the question? I wonder how an overclocked 5870 vs an overclocked 480 GTX (assuming it can't be overclocked that much) would fare. You can forget overclocking the gtx 480 in SLI...

henrystrawn 03/27/2010 2:15 AM
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I couldn't find a download for this Demo. Searched Google for Nvidia Water and Terrain Demo download, with no results. Has this been released yet? can someone bird dog it for me?

im_thelumberjack 03/27/2010 2:32 AM
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Usually I am not to concerned about power draw, but these cards are ridiculous.

micr0be 03/27/2010 2:38 AM
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I AM A PROUD OWNER OF ATI 4870x2 ... FEAR ME NVIDIA !!!

shin0bi272 03/27/2010 2:42 AM
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With the exception of physx games (yes I have a few) and high tessellation games which we might see later on this year or early next year the 480 is a very late, very luke warm response to amd's 5xxx series. Basically what you have in the 480 is a single gpu gtx 295 with dx11 support.

Hey Nvidia... maybe you shouldnt have disabled 6.25% of your GPU cores!

Hellbound 03/27/2010 2:58 AM
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About time we had some benchmarks. I read every word of it. And I tell you what. The GTX480 has a 10-15% performance increase over the 5870, but costs $100 more. Ontop of that draws as much power as the 5970. The only thing this benchmark assured me is that ATI should be my choice.

renz496 03/27/2010 3:01 AM
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shin0bi272 :
With the exception of physx games (yes I have a few) and high tessellation games which we might see later on this year or early next year the 480 is a very late, very luke warm response to amd's 5xxx series. Basically what you have in the 480 is a single gpu gtx 295 with dx11 support. Hey Nvidia... maybe you shouldnt have disabled 6.25% of your GPU cores!



even if they make it with 100% core people will still complaining (high power consumption, heat concerned and so on) XD

bhaberle 03/27/2010 3:23 AM
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Wow... just wow.... *Cries* =P

rockinthepe 03/27/2010 3:59 AM
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christop 03/27/2010 4:25 AM
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This was over hyped.. I was expecting super gpu or something. Ati will still hole the crown...

FloKid 03/27/2010 4:55 AM
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So the question is. If both ATI and Nvidia are DirectX 11 compatible, then shouldn't the tessellation work just as well on ATI cards? Seems like the ATI cards are still fastest.

Lutfij 03/27/2010 6:18 AM
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need to sell off my house to get this crappy card! WTH?!?!?! where are nvidia running into - a brick wall or stagnant evolution?

Anonymous 03/27/2010 10:59 AM
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@ rockinthepe , nvidia doesnt have the fastest single card , keep in mind that the 5970 is a single card

demonnn 03/27/2010 12:30 PM
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$500 is too much. add $200 and i could get a quad core pc. IDK why video cards cost so much these days

jfem 03/27/2010 2:28 PM
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Let's see what you got...

jfem 03/27/2010 2:34 PM
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Good job for the tesselation.

shin0bi272 03/27/2010 4:47 PM
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renz496 :
even if they make it with 100% core people will still complaining (high power consumption, heat concerned and so on) XD



true but higher performance (say 20-25% over the 5870) would negate a lot of the concerns about heat and power. Nvidia's site actually recommends a 600w psu for the 480. So in the end Im willing to bet most people already have enough power to run the card especially those in the bleeding edge gaming community that would be looking to buy the card the first day its available. We as gamers are interested primarily in performance, noise, and cost with heat coming in after all of those. No you wont be able to OC it as much if its hotter but if it already out performs the competition you dont really need to OC it much anyway. Thats why Nvidia is pissing me off with this GPGPU idea. It's like they dont care that the geforce is supposed to be the gamer card and the tesla or quadro is supposed to be the workstation/workhorse boards. But nvidia is trying to add stuff to the geforce line instead of just giving us the highest fps on the market. Yes they did break new ground with physx but thats a direct impact on the gamer's experience and they will end up losing that when the push for open standard physics that amd has been whining about wins out in the end.

theubersmurf 03/27/2010 4:48 PM
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alexmihai :
@ rockinthepe , nvidia doesnt have the fastest single card , keep in mind that the 5970 is a single card

I think he means fastest single gpu probably.

rambo117 03/27/2010 6:06 PM
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demonnn :
$500 is too much. add $200 and i could get a quad core pc. IDK why video cards cost so much these days


Seems like theyre just getting more and more expensive.. The 4870 at launch was $300, the 4850 at $190. Wouldn't it be nice if the 5870 and 5850 fell in those categories... *dreams*

bin1127 03/27/2010 9:21 PM
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this is sad. so we now know that Nvidia HQ was pissing their pants the last 6 months.

Thumbs up to ATI!

rockinthepe 03/27/2010 10:05 PM
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theubersmurf :
I think he means fastest single gpu probably.



that is what i meant should have clarified, my bad. I was not trying to say good job nvidia, i was trying to say that yes they're marginally faster but are so by cutting corners on AF and trowing the idea of reasonable temps and efficiency out the window.

zalittle 03/28/2010 1:34 AM
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That you tube video with Hitlers response for Nvidia is the funniest freaking thing I have seen in a while. I am so glad I own an ATI 5850.

JackNaylorPE 03/28/2010 6:09 AM
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zalittle wrote :

I am so glad I own an ATI 5850.




Don't really see the slam dunk you are referring to....I think they are pretty competitive, at least where I am looking, that is in the DX11 games at high settings f..... the 470 wins every benchmark but one and almost evenly splits the wins on a value (Dollars per frame) basis. Frankly I find it hard to pick one over the other unless price specials or specific application advantages enter the picture.

THG Review (Dollars per Frame)

Heaven Benchmark
nVid 470 8.22
ATI 5850 10.03

STALKER
nVid 470 8.11
ATI 5850 7.77

Dirt2 4AA
nVid 470 4.39
ATI 5850 4.32

BFBC2 8AA
nVid 470 5.57
ATI 5850 5.75

Metro 2033
ATI 5850 11.46
nVid 470 14.55

Hardware Canucks Review (Dollars per Frame)

AvP
nVid 470 7.73
ATI 5850 7.97

BFBC2 8AA
nVid 470 7.48
ATI 5850 7.14

Metro 2033
nVid 470 11.49
ATI 5850 11.58

Heaven
nVid 470 14.23
ATI 5850 15.33

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for [...] ew-32.html

Anonymous 03/28/2010 2:27 PM
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Who cares about 5fps? The real differences are CUDA, PhysiX, Tessellation and much better support for game developers. You can't benchmark those things.

Regulas 03/28/2010 4:30 PM
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micr0be :
I AM A PROUD OWNER OF ATI 4870x2 ... FEAR ME NVIDIA !!!


The only way the competition can compete with this new single chip monster is with dual or more chip solutions.

kronos_cornelius 03/28/2010 8:55 PM
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bogcotton :
I think this about sums up how many people are feeling about this release.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZXhR1ibj8



Thanks for the link... very funny. I feel in the Hitler position because I want to upgrade this year, but only sticking with Nvidia would I get to use my 8800 GTS for PhysX

theubersmurf 03/28/2010 9:13 PM
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Please knock off the pro/anti- ATI/nVidia crap. It's just tiring to hear ad nauseam.


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