Nvidia's GeForce GTX 480: Before And After A Year Of Driver Updates

By Andrew Ku
published

Are you dutiful about keeping your drivers up-to-date? Nvidia does a pretty good job of maintaining a regular release schedule. Today we look at how much performance you can expect from an old card in new games using four driver packages.

Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX11)

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Header Cell - Column 0 1680x1050AAA/4x AF1680x10504x AA/16x AF1920x1080AAA/4x AF1920x10804x AA/16x AF2560x1600AAA/4x AF2560x16004x AA/16x AF
Percent Gainfrom 197.41 to 266.585.04%6.14%4.72%3.52%3.72%10.13%

Metro 2033 was released on March 16, 2010, about one month prior to the 480's launch. So, over nine months, this card shows us a 4% to 5% improvement in Metro 2033. The only exception to this trend occurs at 2560x1600 with 4xAA/16xAF. In this case, there is a 10% increase in performance. Analyzing the results from the oldest to newest driver only tells half the story.

In 257.21, there is a slight performance drop with 4xAA/16xAF turned on. Meanwhile, in 260.89, lower resolutions reflect a drop in performance without anti-aliasing enabled. Only when you are at 2560x1600 with 4xAA/16xAF enabled do you see a fairly linear progression from 197.41 to the current 266.58.

Andrew Ku
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • -Fran-
    Heh, now it cooks my steaks 5 secs faster.

    Oh wait... I'm using a GT425M on my notebook... Damn!

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • theyohan
    I hear good things about that new Nvidia 270.51 beta driver.
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    Impressive results to say the least... well, except for WOW. That has to be a bit of a disappointment for the people who care about that title. But otherwise quite remarkable performance optimizations from the driver team.

    I have to agree with the conclusion, due to the recent nature of the Fermi architecture it probably took both Nvidia and developers time to get used to the new hardware. It just wasn't well optimized upon launch. Although I think it's worth noting that it still managed to perform well even on those early drivers.
    Reply
  • andy5174
    GTX480/470/465.... Fail
    Reply
  • ezodagrom
    In the World of Warcraft page instead of saying "Percent Gain from 197.41 to 266.58" it says "Percent Gain from 9.10 to 11.1". ;P
    Reply
  • acku
    9512364 said:
    In the World of Warcraft page instead of saying "Percent Gain from 197.41 to 266.58" it says "Percent Gain from 9.10 to 11.1". ;P

    Oops! My motto: Pobody's Nerfect. :kaola:

    Fixed!
    Reply
  • cpy
    257.21 looks best for me as wow player and sc2 player :)
    Reply
  • gofasterstripes
    TBH it looks like good work from the green team. Cool, my 470 is getting bumped for free
    On second thoughts, maybe 'cool' is the wrong word.....
    Reply
  • Mario75
    andy5174GTX480/470/465.... Fail
    Nope - trolls actually FAIL.Also your "comment" FAIL
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    mayankleoboy1only 465 was fail. just like the 5830.
    Cough 6790
    Reply