NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 465: Cheaper Isn’t Always Better
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2010 3:26 AM ESTMass Effect 2
Electronic Arts’ recently released space-faring RPG is our new Unreal Engine 3 game. While it doesn’t have a built in benchmark, it does let us force anti-aliasing through driver control panels, giving us a better idea of UE3’s performance at higher quality settings. Since we can’t use a recording/benchmark in ME2, we use FRAPS to record a short run.
Mass Effect 2 was not a game the GTX 470 did particularly well at in the first place, so it should come as little surprise that the GTX 465 fares worse. The performance gap between it and the 5850 fluctuates some, but ultimately it’s around 20%. Interestingly enough, the gap between the GTX 465 and the GTX 470 fluctuates even more, with the deficit peaking at 1680 and shrinking to its lowest point at 1920.
Meanwhile we once again see the GTX 285 pull ahead of the GTX 465 in a game, and this time it’s even worse. The GTX 465 starts behind by 25% at 1680, and closes the gap to just 15% at 2560. Unlike Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect 2 is not a particularly easy game to render, so this isn’t just a case of the GTX 465 trailing with lighter games. Perhaps it’s optimization issues or perhaps it’s those texture filtering units, but the GTX 465 is definitely lacking something compared to the GTX 285.
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MadMan007 - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
Yeah I've got to agree. It's one thing to not rerun benchmarks with new drivers on older cards or ones that are well out of the intended competition envelope but to not redo cards that are new and might benefit greatly from the new drivers just seems lazy.Greenhell6 - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
My 4870X2 Is still rocking out!!! Faster than the 5870 in some tests and on par with the GTX 480. Cant complain since i picked it up for about nothing.SunSamurai - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
Whats the power cost to run those again? ;)Greenhell6 - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
Very little for me, since I only use my 4870X2 for gaming and nothing else- I have another rig that uses all low power components for everything else. And now with two kids my gamiing computer get's turned on less and less. You have to admit it though--The 4870X2 Numbers are still very impressive--Rock's your face off....Nighteye2 - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
In cases like this, it would be good if power costs are also taken into account. If a card is cheaper but uses a lot more power, you may still end up paying more through your electricity bill.Why not make a comparison based on lifetime costs, rather than only purchase price? You can estimate lifetime costs by adding the power usage over about 1000 hours on full load and 500 hours idle - and that'd probably still be a low estimate for some people.
C'DaleRider - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
OK.....but whose power costs are you going to use as a metric? Massachusetts? California? Idaho? Georgia? Michigan?Rural or urban?
Or should they be limited to U.S. figures only as this site is read internationally?
So, I guess AT should post your request with power figures from every state in the U.S., urban and rural averages per state, Canada by province, Mexico, Germany, Italy, England, France, Spain, and Turkey. Hope that's enough coverage for you.
On the other hand, I'd personally think that anyone with two functional brain cells can make a determination that consuming 100W of extra power will cost more to run. Simple point to make as this review made it.
Nighteye2 - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
Just use the US average cost/kwh. The prices in the articles are also in USD, so that would be most convenient. It doesn't need to be accurate to the cent, just give a decent indication/estimate.Oh, and I suspect global power costs to be similar enough for such a figure to have meaning to all readers globally (I'm not from the US, btw).
Apocy - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
If you are so interested in power costs, here is the basic calculation (take in mind I live in Bulgaria)Power cost during day - 0.12$ (US dollars)
Idle power gap - 9
Load power gap - 105
Given we use the system only during daytime we have ROI:
Idle - 185185,1852 hours
Load - 15873,01587 hours
So on average you will need 700 days to pay off these 20$ by saving power with 5850.
rbnielse - Monday, May 31, 2010 - link
Your calculation are off by an order or magnitude.It's actually 1587 hours (load) to pay off the 20$ pricegap, and frankly that's not a lot.
Most people who buy a highend graphics card like this are going to play at least 20 hours per week, which means they'd even out the costs after a year and half at the most. So for the majority of buyers I'd say the GTX465 is actually more expensive than the HD5850, in addition to being slower and louder.
Apocy - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Yep you are right, I placed 20$ as 20,000 cents not 2,000 that's why the numbers are 10 times higher.So ok then, 70 days roughly :)
In reality if you consider the power savings, yes 5850 will become cheaper with time. Guessing the average user will hit these 70 days of playtime mark by the 8th month if he plays roughly an average of 6-8 hours :)
So yeah, in conclusion, this card is totally useless unless you want physX and 3d Vision