MSI’s GeForce N470GTX & GTX 470 SLI

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• erple2 - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  Normally I'd agree with you, but I think that Ryan hit the nail on the head. I can recall when NVidia and ATI were optimizing the specific internal compilers specifically for 3Dmark. Tuning for one specific engine (which is what they had to do) is very time consuming and difficult, and takes more time away from optimizing the drivers in general (or for a more "worthy" cause - another popular game).
  
  I seem to recall the optimizations were things like:
  
  if product executable matches 3dmark.exe
  then
  do special tweaks that work only for the 3dmark app
  else
  do nothing
  endif
  
  I think that's the situation we're trying to avoid nowadays - optimizing specifically for a single executable (ultimately where you end up when you want your numbers to look "best"), hurts everything else but that one thing you're optimizing for.
  
  There's a difference between optimizing for the API vs. the specific executable...

• mapesdhs - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  
  I've spent some time trying to find out why my 8800GT SLI setup was the
  same or faster than a friend's 4890 CF system. Using 3DMark06 did prove
  very useful in working out the reason (shader performance). See:
  
  http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/pctests.html
  http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/stalkercopbench.txt
  
  Thus, though I agree with Ryan about the dangers of GPU makers
  optimising for these metrics, they can be revealing sometimes, in my
  case coming to the conclusion that, if one is still playing older games,
  then buying a newer card might not give that much of a speedup since
  the newer design may focus on newer features.
  
  What about including the Vantage results as a point of interest, kindof
  a 'by the way' addition, but downplaying the importance of such data?
  Focus on the game results, but include Vantage as an 'appendix' in
  terms of presentation.
  
  Ian.

• Porksmuggler - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link

  Wait, you're trying to find out why your 8800GT SLI is faster than 4890CF? You need to look elsewhere than the GPUs, 8800GT SLI is not even as fast as 4850 CF, I have both on otherwise identical setups. Your links show testing of just 3DMark06, and you tested with two entirely different systems?
  
  Ryan is spot on, don't use synthetic benchmarks to compare similar generation GPUs. They are primarily used for testing when the GPU is the constant.
  
  It seems from the replies above there is confusion about how the coding/engine of a synthetic benchmark (so-called? really?) is very different from actual games. Reviewers do far better with a battery of games, as Anandtech uses for their articles.

• imaheadcase - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  Thats listed in THE TEST, but its excluded from graphs.
  
  Would like to compare that to it, considering upgrading to this card from that.

• anactoraaron - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  Yeah I noticed that also. More importantly I'd like to see 2 of those in SLI along with 2 5770s in CF. I think the 2 5770's in CF has been the best bang for your buck for awhile now, especially 2 can be had for $270AR. As I recall, the 5770 (single card setup) was ~5% less than what a 260 core 216 would get you but it was cheaper (about $30 less ATM at newegg). If you have the ability to do CF/SLI having 2 lower priced cards makes the 460/470 & 5850 decision easy IMO. However since SLI scales performance better it would be interesting to see if the added $60 for 2 260's is justified against 2 5770's.
  
  Maybe for the next article?

• Kyanzes - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  MORE minimum frame rate measurements in the articles please!!! That's the whole essence of it! Ofc, for sheer comparison, max FPS could also be included for sure, but the MIN FPS is the real interesting part.
  
  Keep it up pls!!!!
  
  One of the reasons I tend to check out HardOCP is that they include MIN FPS.
  
  Please, please do it often. Do it every time.

• Tunnah - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  awesome review as usual but how come the focus on the 470 ? i thought with the release of the 460 the 470 was kind of like..its the core i7 940 to the 920 - sure it's faster but the price difference doesn't warrant the minor speed bump, and it OC's like a dream
  
  also, from what i've read the 460 has amazing scaling with SLI..and the temperatures are better
  
  but this is just what i've read in 1 review so waiting to read it here before i start to believe it :D

• ggathagan - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  RTFA
  
  3rd sentence:
  "As part of a comprehensive SLI & CrossFire guide we’re working on for next month we needed a second GTX 470 for testing GTX 470 SLI operation, and MSI answered our call with their N470GTX."

• Tunnah - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  yeah i read it, was just saying it seemed a little redundant to do a full article on an overpriced card that was being overshadowed by a cheaper, newer revision

• Matrices - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - link

  The 460 numbers are still there, so what's to complain about?
  
  And the 470 can be had for $275 now rather than the $350 MSRP.
  
  If you actually read the benchmarks, you'd see that it's hardly 'overshadowed' by the 460 on performance. It's noticeably faster in more demanding titles.