NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470: 6 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait?
by Ryan Smith on March 26, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Crysis: Warhead
It’s been over 2 years since the release of the original Crysis, and “but can it run Crysis?” is still a common question even today. With a mix of dense foliage, long draw distances, and high quality textures, Crysis is still a game that can bring any machine to its knees, and is our first choice for testing any video card.
As far as this first game is concerned, things are looking so-so for NVIDIA. For the GTX 480, it’s in a solid 10-12% lead over the 5870, and unsurprisingly losing to the 5970. For the GTX 470 things are less rosy; it basically is breaking even with the 5850. Furthermore there’s an interesting pattern in our averages: the gap between the GTX 400 series and the Radeon 5000 series shrinks with resolution. Keep an eye on this, it’s going to be a repeating pattern.
We’ve also gone ahead and recorded the minimum framerates for Crysis, as in our testing we’ve found the minimums to be very reliable. And in doing so, we have some data even more interesting than the averages. The GTX 400 series completely tramples the 5000 series when it comes to minimum framerates, far more than we would have expected. At 2560 Crysis is approaching a video RAM limitation in our 1GB and under cards, which gives the GTX 480 cards a clear lead at those resolutions. But even at lower resolutions where we’re not video RAM limited, the GTX 480 still enjoys a 33% lead in the minimum framerate, and the GTX 470 is well ahead of the 5850 and even slightly ahead of the 5870.
For whatever reason AMD can’t seem to keep up with NVIDIA when it comes to the minimum framerate, even at lower resolutions. Certainly it’s obvious when the 1GB cards are video RAM limited at 2560, but if we didn’t have this data we would have never guessed the minimum framerates were this different at lower resolutions.
Finally we have a quick look at SLI/CF performance. CF seems to exacerbate the video RAM limitations of the 5000 series, resulting in the GTX 480SLI coming in even farther ahead of the 5870CF. Even at lower resolutions SLI seems to be scaling better than CF.
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mcnabney - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
You make the most valid point.As long as the consoles are in the driver's seat (this isn't going to change) DX11 and the features it provides won't be widely found in games until the next generation of consoles - in 2-3 years.
So really, without growth in the PC gaming market these is no need to upgrade from the last generation. Too bad really.
GourdFreeMan - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Thank you for listening to our feedback on improving your test suite of games, Ryan. I think your current list much better represents our interests (fewer console ports, a selection of games that better represent the game engines being used in current and future titles, fewer titles with GPU vendor bias, inclusion of popular titles that have staying power like BF:BC2, etc.) than the one you used to review the 58xx's when they were released. The only title that I feel that is missing from our suggestions is Metro 2033. Kudos!yacoub - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Good review. The grammar errors are prolific, but I guess this was rushed to release or something.So it's a hot, power-hungry card with a high pricetag. Not too surprising.
Would have liked to see a $150-range Fermi-based card sometime this year so I can ditch my 5770 and get back to NVidia, but the high temps and prices on these cards are not a good sign, especially comparing the performance against the 5800-series.
AznBoi36 - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
Fanboy much?yacoub - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
Fanboy of what?The ATI card I have now that I can't wait to get rid of?
The desire for NVidia to release something competitive so I can get back to a stabler driverset and remove all traces of ATI from this PC?
mcnabney - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
Ah yes, get back to Nvidia whose last trick was releasing a driver that turned off GPU fans causing instant-card-death.With 480, turning off the fan might actually start a fire.
Headfoot - Monday, March 29, 2010 - link
I bet you experienced that fan error IRL right?Just like how everyone who owned a Phemon got a TLB error 100% of the time right?
numberoneoppa - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
You know you have the best tech site around when a product review makes it seem like a ddos is in progress.As far as the review itself, it's very comprehensive, so thanks Ryan! The new NVIDIA cards seem to be just where most people thought they would be. It really makes me anticipate the next HD58xx card and the AMD price cuts on the current line up that will come with it.
Devo2007 - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Great review, although you may want to edit this sentence:"NVIDIA meanwhile had to deal with the fact that they were trying to produce a very large chip on a low-yielding process, a combination for disaster given that size is the enemy of high yields."
Shouldn't it be "large size is the enemy of low yields?" Either way, that end point seems a bit redundant.
SlyNine - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
No, Large size would be a friend of low yeilds. low yeilds are our enemy.