GeForce GTX 480 And 470: From Fermi And GF100 To Actual Cards!

Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DirectX 10/11)

Those are some of the ugliest charts I’ve ever posted, and the only explanation I can give is that this is a beast of a game with regard to its impact on performance.

You can switch from DirectX 10 to DirectX 11 from the display menu, which is nice. Perhaps the most glaring issue here is that the DirectX 10 cards get a massive performance boost versus the cards running in DirectX 11 mode, affecting the placement of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 285/295.

Disregarding those scores, you have the Radeon HD 5970 on top at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, followed by the GeForce GTX 480, Radeon HD 5870, GeForce GTX 470, and Radeon HD 5850. At 2560x1600, there’s only one ATI card able to run, and the GeForce GTX 480 is the only DirectX 11 board with enough memory to function with analytical anti-aliasing enabled. See the holes scattered throughout? Those are all settings where the given configuration would start, but then hover between zero and one frame per second. Clearly, ATI has some work to do enabling DirectX 11 with 4xMSAA turned on.

Just how significant is the performance fall-off from DirectX 10 to DirectX 11? Using the GeForce GTX 480, we can see the penalty is quite nearly double, regardless of the anti-aliasing mode you’re using. What could possibly exact such a poignant penalty? Turning on DirectX 11 enables a DirectCompute-based depth of field filter—a cool effect with significant performance ramifications. Clearly, you’ll need a graphics card capable of standing up to this title if you want to see it the way its Ukrainian developer intended.

It’s also worth noting that Metro 2033 supports PhysX. We didn’t benchmark with this feature enabled, but the effects affected by PhysX are numerous.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • restatement3dofted
    I have been waiting for this review since freaking January. Tom's Hardware, I love you.

    With official reviews available, the GTX 480 certainly doesn't seem like the rampaging ATI-killer they boasted it would be, especially six months after ATI started rolling out 5xxx cards. Now I suppose I'll just cross my fingers that this causes prices for the 5xxx cards to shift a bit (a guy can dream, can't he?), and wait to see what ATI rolls out next. Unless something drastic happens, I don't see myself choosing a GF100 card over an ATI alternative, at least not for this generation of GPUs.
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Completely unimpressed. 6 months late. Too expensive. Power hog. Performance not particularly impressive. The Radeon 5k series has been delivering a near identical experience for 6 months now, at a lower price.
    Reply
  • tpi2007
    hmmm.. so this is a paper launch... six months after and they do a paper launch on a friday evening, after the stock exchange has closed.. smart move by Nvidia, that way people will cool off during the weekend, but I think their stocks won't perform that brilliantly on monday...
    Reply
  • not at all impressed
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  • Godhatesusall
    high power consumption, high prices along with a (small, all things considered) performance edge over ATI is all there is. Are 100$ more for a gtx 480 really worth 5-10% increase in performance?

    Though the big downside of fermi are temps. 97 is a very large(and totally unacceptable) temperature level. IMO fermi cards will start dying from thermal death some months from now.

    I just wanted competition,so that prices would be lower and we(the consumers) could get more bang for our buck. Surely fermi doesnt help alot in that direction(a modest 30$ cut for 5870 and 5850 from ATI and fermi wont stand a chance). It seems AMD/ATI clearly won this round
    Reply
  • Pei-chen
    Wow, it seems Nvidia actually went ahead and designed a DX11 card and found out how difficult it is to design. ATI/AMD just slapped a DX11 sticker on their DX10 card and sells it as DX11. In half a year HD 5000 will be so outdated that all it can play is DX10 games.
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    Kinda impressed :/

    The minimum frame rates are quite nice at least...
    Lets talk again when a version with the full 512 SP is released.
    Reply
  • djtronika
    yawn
    Reply
  • The way we're meant to be dismayed, gg infirmi
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  • randomizer
    I'll keep my GTX275.
    Reply