Comment Thread for GTX 480 and GTX 470 Reviews

[SKYMTL]

I'll answer all the comments tomorrow. For now, I need some sleep.

However, methodologies are different from site to site and I was able to get a pretty good idea regarding the GTX 470's performance versus the HD 5850 by using the Comparative charts and especially the minimum framerates. Many people are bringing up ******* and the simple fact of the matter is that you just can't compare their results to anyone else's because of their methodologies. If you don't believe me, check out their review of the HD 5830; their thoughts were completely at odds with EVERYONE else.

I am not saying this is a bad thing in any way since it is always good to have another perspective but I'll take repeatable results over "highest playable" any day of the week, especially if I am gaming at a certain resolution which may not be covered by their methodology. This is exactly why you should read a good cross-section of reviews.

As for the GTX 470, I'm still on the fence about it versus the HD 5850 for my own system simply because of two aspects: power consumption and heat. Would I move from a HD 5850 to a GTX 470? Absolutely not. If I was looking to upgrade my GTX 260, I'd probably give it a MUCH closer look but only after seeing what ATI does in terms of pricing in response to this. I actually don't think they were expecting the GTX 470 to compete on a price / performance level with their HD 5850.

[Sushi Warrior]

Man, the forums are SOOO slow.

Is it just me or is [H] pretty ATI biased? I haven't read that many of their reviews but the general tone of their forums is "ATI FTW cuz Kyle says ____" and their reviews are always very positive of ATI.

Gotta say the best review was HWC because of the comprehensive charts, normalized results and FPS/$ and all that. Much more than just FPS.

[ayah]

Fermi looks like a great spaceheater.

[thenewguy001]

Originally Posted by rjbarker

For OC'ing the GPU I've always paid a little more for SC or SSC versions and they have never dissapointed me (better binned chips), the vanilla Cards are hit n miss, some OC well, some don't OC at all....
Perhaps after these Cards stretch thier wings we'll see SSC and FTW versions.....as for heat, that doesn't tun my crank at all (coming from Tri Sli 280's), would like to see the top heat numbers while gaming as apposed to looping Benchmarks...

As for Mark being banned....perhaps he was "tilting a few"......don't know exactly what transpired but I always feel folks deserve a 2nd chance....cut him some slack I say (unless the PM's were that bad).......

you don't always get a good chip with SC/OC versions. I actually have to underclock my SC card BELOW stock frequencies for it to be stable. I would RMA it but don't have a spare PCIe card. Since I have lifetime warranty, I figure if I wait a bit maybe the 9600GT will be scarce and I can get an upgrade.


As for the 2 new cards, I don't see how these will affect ATI 58XX pricing at all. 10-15% extra performance for 30% higher price and a ton more heat and power consumption. It seems like the ATI cards are priced exactly where they should be since they are still very competitive in terms of price/performance and efficiency.

[r0bc]

Yeah my friend had to rma a evga gtx 285 because he couldn't run at superclocked speeds.

[fruity]

Originally Posted by Soultribunal

Excellent! Come fold for HWC!!!

I actually think the 470 is really where it is at. Probably the mainstay card in nVidia's stable now for a while. As with all things eventually they will Iron out some of the issues with these cards as time progresses. As of course revised drivers down the road will help too.

True F@H numbers would be nice , but I imagine that depends on this cards ability to support it this early in the game.


Excellent Cards, nice to see them in the flesh so to speak.

ST

hmm maybe later
but there's reason why i fold in the team i do fold for and i think i've posted in the folding section.
yes the card does look very good for folding. should be tad bit under 295 i think. Seeing how most of pre orders are done now might as well wait until after summer. Hopefully i'll have a job.

[Zero82z]

Pretty much what I was expecting all across the board. Performance is pretty good, but not really anything groundbreaking, especially considering how long it's taken nVidia to release these cards. And the power consumption is just absurd. From a folding perspective, you can pretty much forget about building multi-GPU machines with these things. PPD/W will almost certainly be worse than -bigadv, and probably no better than GTX2xx cards (and possibly worse as well). Not to mention the issues you'd have from sandwiching a bunch of them together in a case, and the kind of PSU you'd need to power the whole thing. It doesn't matter if they produce double the PPD of a GTX285 if they run too hot to use more than two in the same system.

Originally Posted by Sushi Warrior

Is it just me or is [H] pretty ATI biased?

Just you. I have been reading [H] for many years, and Kyle will praise whatever product he thinks is better and bash whatever he thinks is crap regardless of brand. Regardless of whether or not people agree with his opinions, he is definitely not biased.

[lowfat]

Not all that impressed w/ the GTX480 and its current prices. You can grab an HD5870 for $130 less than it. The performance difference definitely isn't worth that kind of money. GTX470 looks alright though. Shame Nvidia decided to skip on DisplayPort, so no Nvidia cards for me.

EDIT: So it looks like it can do 7.1 LPCM, but no bitstreaming.

[MonsterSound]

ThnX SKYMTL for the best reviews.
Your Comparative Charts are very helpful and objective.
One area where [H] fails is that they are trying to subjectively review/graph (with different standards no less) what "playable" is. In contrast, you are producing objective data; Your Comparative Charts are a perfect example of that as objective information can be used and analyzed by us (the consumer) to determine what playable is. + Min fps is very helpful info too.

P.S. TSMC yields are up + nVidia is back in the fight = more DX11 cards to market = lower prices

[Silvgearx]

It would of been OMG WTF HOLY SHITZ if it was released 6 months ago.

Now its just meh.

Now, when can I expect a rebrand/die shrink and maybe DX11.1?