NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 465: Cheaper Isn’t Always Better
by Ryan Smith on May 31, 2010 3:26 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, the toughest game in our benchmark suite. The GeForce GTX 465 trails the Radeon HD 5850 by about 4fps at every resolution. This translates to within 91% and 82% of the 5850’s performance, with that gap increasing with resolution. Ultimately NVIDIA just misses the sweet-spot at lower resolutions. Meanwhile the minimum framerates are almost tied with the 5850, which is roughly what we expect based on the fact that the GTX 465 doesn’t have a memory capacity advantage like the GTX 480 and 470.
Meanwhile compared to the GTX 470, the GTX 465 is between 20% and 27% slower on average FPS, and 18%-32% slower for minimum framerates.
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BoFox - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
Catalyst 10.4 refuses to work with 5830 cards. I'm not sure about 10.5's.. gotta check out the forums."""We've often thought that GPU performance in 3DMark's color fill rate test seems to be limited primarily by memory bandwidth. Notice how much faster the Radeon HD 4870 is than the Radeon HD 5770, for instance. The 5770 has a slightly higher theoretical peak fill rate, but the 4870 has nearly twice the memory bandwidth and proves markedly faster in this directed test.
The 5830, however, breaks that trend by delivering much a lower measured fill rate than the 5850, though their memory bandwidth on paper is identical. Heck, the 4870 outscores the 5830, too, even though it has slightly less theoretical peak fill rate and memory bandwidth. Something about the way AMD pruned back the Cypress GPU's render back-ends produces unexpectedly poor results in this test."""
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18521/5
Also, here's an excellent article with much more in-depth analysis on the issue: http://www.behardware.com...eview-radeon-hd-5830.h...
It's a very good read. The R800 architecture appears to have the ROP's linked to the memory controller (bus) in that cutting the ROP's in half really does affect the usage of the available bandwidth.
Simply put, the 5830 is even more of a castrated child of RV870 than the 465 is a castrated child of GF100.
Slayeristight - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
But that does not explain why the 5830 performs better on its original review vs this new review. On the HAWX tests show 50%+ slower speeds! I would have thought someone would have seen this problem before the review was posted.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
I'll rerun the 5830 later today. There's a pretty good chance I just wrote down the wrong numbers when compiling all of this date for the GTX 480 review, but ultimately you're right: there's something wrong with our HAWX data.Arbie - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
It isn't just the cost of the wattage to run the card. That doesn't add much when you consider what a small percentage of the time the thing is loaded. The dominant factor, in most moderate or hot climates, is the cost of air conditioning to keep the computer room comfortable. With central A/C, to cool off a single hot room you have to refrigerate the rest of the house. That is not only very expensive but also inconvenient and uncomfortable.==> After the inefficiencies of your PSU and A/C are taken onto account, each watt of idle power probably translates into 3-4 watts you have to pay for. That's just a guess, but it is clearly pointless to argue about small differences in GPU dissipation without considering these multipliers. That's where the hurt is. And that's one of the *many* reasons to favor ATI now.
Technically, the Nvidia Fermi line is junk, and nobody who doesn't need the few special features of the architecture should be conned into buying one. That means most gamers. Thanks for a good article that doesn't pull any punches on this, and in fact exposes the over-volting Nvidia is resorting to in order to move their leaky culls. The GTX 265 is clearly the worst of Fermi yet.
I apologize if this double posts but it seems to have been lost the first time.
Arbie - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - link
Typo: I meant "GTX 465" at the end, not 265.
Golgatha - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
This is a high end card review. I would personally like to see the 5770 and 5750 results omitted and replaced with 465/470 SLI and 5850 Crossfire results so we can make an intelligent buying decision based on an apples to apples comparison with currently shipping drivers.fingerbob69 - Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - link
see for yourself how a 5830 is rather lackluster even compared to the 4890 (which is already slower than GTX 275 and 465 in overall DX9/10 games).I'm sorry but that statement re275 v 4890 simply isn't true! If you examine the graphs for CrysisW. (in a "if it can render Crysis all other ingame rendering follows" moment) the 4890 matches or more often betters the 275 in every resolution bar one ...average frame rates@1900x1200 ...here the 275 manages a 0.3 better frame rate. That is a margin so small no human could perceive it, in game or anywhere else for that matter.
As for how the 4890 stacks up against the 465... the 465 never holds a lead greater than 4 frames on the average and 2.7 frames on the minimum, over the 4890. Considering the 465 is a year young new architecture and costs av £240 compared to the £160 the 4890 was, before it went eol, that is an appalling return for the extra £80 or so premium Nvidia expect you to pay.
The 465 is to Nvidia what the 5830 is to Ati, wrong on so many levels; the most important being performance v price.
RoninK - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Did anyone else notice that the benchmark results on Bad Company 2 show the 480 performing worse than the 470 and even the 465 (especially at the 1680 resolution)? In fact the fps numbers for the 480 are the same as the ones used in the old article where they performed the test using the OLD FIRMWARE VERSION:http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforc...
The new firmware definitely made a big difference so you definitely should not compare the 480 running the old firmware to the 465 and 470 running the new firmware. Shame on you, Mr. Smith!
GamerDave20 - Saturday, July 3, 2010 - link
This card should of been called the GTS 460. At some point in crippling a video card, it ceases to be a GTX. I know we are pulling for less naming confusion, but now NVIDIA has hemmed themselves in on their naming scheme with there third card. Now there is no room for continuity between the 485, 475, and 465 which will inevitably come out in a year.Also, in response to the question about posting typos - don't do it. I know it's irritating and unprofessional but it is petty to point out. Email the writer direct to point these out. The forum part of the article is for pointing out and discussing technical features, comparisons and inconsistencies.
Strangely, this article makes the 5830, 4890, and 4870 look good. In the past, the 5770 seemed to be the value leader, but in these benchmarks the 5770 looks like a poor choice for this years' games.
Anyways, as a long-time Anandtech reader I it odd that this article caused me to finally register and post, but I really think NVIDIA naming is about to become an issue again and was curious if anyone else agrees. Keep up the good work - I look the GPU reviews/comparisons as well as the gaming notebook reviews!
Dave
GamerDave20 - Saturday, July 3, 2010 - link
Ah ha...that's funny to talk about type-o and then make a few myself. Sorry, but posting from an iPhone works but is kinda cumbersome!Also, isn't it odd what a dog the 8800 GT looks like now - 3 years after being such a darling of the review sites!
Bring on another review of a powerful GPU!
Dave (GamerDave20)