MSI’s GeForce N470GTX & GTX 470 SLI
by Ryan Smith on July 30, 2010 1:28 PM ESTFinal Thoughts
When the GeForce GTX 470 first launched we recognized that NVIDIA did an appropriate job on pricing it purely on a performance basis. Based on performance alone it was priced correctly versus AMD’s cards, so that it performed in-line with the price. With its much greater power consumption (and the consequences of that) this didn’t make it a must-have card, but it did at least keep the GTX 470 on the table as a practical card to buy.
Today we’re seeing the devolution of a structured pricing strategy in to an all-out war, and MSI is leading the way. Coupled with NVIDIA’s recent driver improvements, GTX 470 cards like the N470GTX are now very close to being performance competitive with AMD’s top-end Radeon 5870 while costing significantly less. As far as reference-derived cards go, the N470GTX brings to the table all the things we like and dislike about the GTX 470, along with a fantastic set of overclocking tools and a free game for a price that’s competitive with the slower Radeon HD 5850.
Ultimately this makes for a very straightforward verdict on MSI’s N470GTX: at $300 (or $280 after a MIR) it’s a heck of a deal, and like the rest of the GTX 470 family at that price it has no peers when it comes to performance. However the caveat about power and heat still remains – it’s a very fast card for the price, but it’s also significantly hotter and louder than the Radeon HD 5850 it’s priced against. When performance is the only concern the choice is clear, but if you need to worry about power and noise then you need to decide whether you value performance or power more.
Meanwhile the GTX 470 SLI situation takes everything we’ve said about performance and power and amplifies it. When it comes to the GTX 470, NVIDIA clearly has a multi-GPU scaling advantage over AMD’s Radeon 5800 series. Two GTX 470s can beat a 5870CF setup the bulk of the time, but the noise is immense and the power difference is no less.
Wrapping things up, we will have more about SLI and Crossfire scaling next month when we take a comprehensive look at SLI/CF scaling. The GTX 400 series in 2-way SLI is only half the story – there’s still the matter of 3-way SLI and Crossfire to look at, so stay tuned.
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Harm Nano - Sunday, May 8, 2011 - link
GTX470 SLI RUNS HOT NO MORE ! INSTALLED TWO ZALMAN 3000N COOLERS , TAKING ABOUT DAY AND NIGHT, WELL WORTH THE THE MONEY , TEMPS - BEFORE THE ZALMANS ---KOMBUSTOR 96C -100C LESS THAN A MIN! - FANS AT A 100 % ,LOUD! ,CRYSIS HIGH 80C- TO LOW 90 C, FANS AT 100% AS WELL -- ZALMANS INSTALLED -TEMPS NOW KOMBUSTOR 79C-83C AFTER 5 MIN STEADY AS A ROCK, CRYSIS 67C TO 76C , THE ONLY THING LOUD NOW IS THE CPU COOLER, AT IDLE THE CPU AND THE TWO ZALAMAN ARE AT THE SAME TEMPS 39C [ AMD CORE 23C] , GPU ARE MANUAL SET IN ASUS M4N98TD EVO, MOTHERBOARD BIOS TO RUN MANUAL SET, LOW SET AND HIGH SET ,ON A COOL DAY ,RPM ARE A LOW 1400 ,ON A HOT DAY 2800 TO 3200 RPM , AS AUTO AS YOU CAN GET , COOL AND QUIET , TO FIT SLI ,TWO THINGS, A MUST HAVE ,RIGHT MB ,ASUS M4N98TD EVO AND THE RIGHT CASE ,TEMPEST EVO.