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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nyran125 - Monday, April 12, 2010 - link
Im going wiht the less power hungry ati 5000 series. I know a 5850 card will easily fit in my Case aswell. There no way id choose the GTX 470 over any of the ati s870 or 5850 cards. So that only leaves the GTX 480 against either the 5870 or the 5850. The performance increase and power increase is NOT worth me paying for a nvidia card thats higher in price over the 5870.I meen even looking at the games. The games ill probably play Crysis adn BAttlefield bad company 2 come out on top of the nivdia 480 GTX. so bla.
Nvidia you need to make a much bette rcard than that fo rme to spend money on a GTX 470 or GTX 480 ove rthe 5870 or 5850.
nyran125 - Monday, April 12, 2010 - link
oh and secondly, if your buying a 200 series nivida card or the GTX 480 it isnt fast enough to future proof your computer. You might aswell go spend less money on a 5970 or a single 5870 you know it will last for the next 2 years and the GTX 480 will NOT last any longer than teh 5000 series with its 10-15% performance increase. I didnt like the 200 series nvidia cards and im not interested in even MORE power hungry cards that. I want less power hungry cards and efficiency. To me a game plays bugger all different with 60 FPS average and 100 fps average. If you have a 200 series card save your money and wait for the next gen of cards or at least wait till a DX 11 game actualyl comes out not just Just cause friggin 2..vagos - Thursday, April 15, 2010 - link
ok all theese cards are nice. new technology is very welcome. but where is the games to push them?? if i spent 400$ or 500$ on a new card where i could see a really big difference against my old 8800GT?? they sell hardware without software to support it...2 or 3 games makes no difference to me. ps3 an xbox360 have very old graphic cards compared to ati 5800 series and nvidia 400 and still tha games are looking beautifull. an in some cases mauch better than on pc...make new games for pc and then i will buy a new card! until then i will stuck with my xbox360...
Drizzit101 - Sunday, May 9, 2010 - link
I have been running the GTX 295. The plan was to buy a second GTX 295. Looking at the prices, I was thinking about just buying two GTX 470's. What the better move?Krazy Glew - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link
See http://semipublic.comp-arch.net/wiki/Poor_Man%27s_...In particular
US patent 7,117,421, Transparent error correction code memory system and method,
Danilak,
assigned to Nvidia,
2002.
http://semipublic.comp-arch.net/wiki/Poor_Man%27s_...
Matt Campbell - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link
Ryan, what was the special sauce you used to get Badaboom working on Fermi? My GTX 460 won't run it, and Elemental's website says Fermi support won't get added until Q4 2010. http://badaboomit.com/node/507niceboy60 - Friday, August 20, 2010 - link
I have the same probleme on my GTX 480 , Badaboom does not work on fermi ,according with my own experience and Badaboom official web siteI dont think this benchmarks are accurate
niceboy60 - Friday, August 20, 2010 - link
I bought a GTX 480 based on this review as I do a considerable amount of video convertingJust to find out ,dispite the GTX 480 is showing very good resaults when using Badaboom
The truth is Badaboom is not compatible yet with any GTX 400 series according with The badaboom web site .
adder1971 - Friday, September 17, 2010 - link
The Badaboom website says it does not work and when I try it with the GTX 465 it does not work. How were you able to get it to work? I have the NVIDIA latest release drivers as of today and the latest released version of Badaboom.wizardking - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - link
I bought this card for it only ! I used badaboom with number which you use !!!!!!