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Both the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards boast some very impressive specifications. Starting with the cores, the GeForce GTX 480 features 4 Graphic Processing Clusters, 15 Streaming Multiprocessors, 480 CUDA cores, 60 Texture Units and 48 Raster Operations Units.
 At around 30% cheaper than the GeForce GTX 480, the GeForce GTX 470 only has 7% less CUDA cores and Texture Units, while there are 17% less ROPs. This means in total the GeForce GTX 470 features 4 Graphic Processing Clusters, 14 Streaming Multiprocessors, 448 CUDA Cores, 56 Texture Units and 40 Raster Operations Units. The GeForce GTX 480 features a graphics clock speed for fixed function units of 700MHz, while the CUDA cores operate at a more aggressive 1401MHz. The GeForce GTX 470 suffers a graphics and CUDA core clock reduction of 13%, which sees the graphics clock speed for fixed function units operate at 607MHz and the CUDA cores at1215MHz.
 The GeForce GTX 480 is then teamed with 1536MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 924MHz (3696MHz DDR). Combine that with a memory interface of 384-bit, and the end result is a peak theoretical bandwidth of 177.4GB/s, that is 15% more bandwidth than the Radeon HD 5870 and 12% more than the GeForce GTX 285. The GeForce GTX 470 memory buffer has been reduced from 1536MB to 1280MB, which is a 17% reduction, while the memory interface has been reduced to 320-bit, which is also a 17% reduction. The memory frequency has also been reduced by 9% to 837MHz (3348MHz DDR). All up this makes for a 25% reduction in available memory bandwidth, reducing the theoretical peak bandwidth of the GeForce GTX 470 to 133.9GB/s.
 This horsepower means that the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 boast Thermal Design Power (TDP) of a staggering 250 and 215 watts respectively. For the GeForce GTX 480 the TDP is 33% greater than that of the Radeon HD 5870 and 23% greater than the GeForce GTX 285. Perhaps the most amazing thing about these figures is that the TDP of the GeForce GTX 480 is just 15% lower than that of the mighty Radeon HD 5970. Other than the PCI Express connector the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 draw in all this power through a pair of external PCI Express power connectors. Whereas the GeForce GTX 470 uses the more traditional 6-pin connectors like the Radeon HD 5870, the GeForce GTX 480 requires a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector. Nvidia recommends providing at least a 600 watt power supply when using the GeForce GTX 480, while they recommend a 550 watt unit for the GeForce GTX 470.
 The physical design of the GeForce GTX 480 is very similar to that of the GeForce GTX 285. In terms of size they are identical, while they also weigh roughly the same amount. That said, the GeForce GTX 480 does look like a turbo charged version of the GeForce GTX 285, with its four large heatpipes sticking out the top. Flipping the cards over, we see that again the GeForce GTX 480 looks very much like the GeForce GTX 285. The most noticeable difference are the two holes on the back side of the GeForce GTX 480 that are designed to improve air-flow. This design would work well for those planning on using a pair of these graphics cards in SLI. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 03/26/2010 10:19 PM
Awesome review but shame about the GeForce GTX 480, its a hot dog! |
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Renegade |
Posted on: 03/26/2010 10:26 PM
wow thank you ever much for the late night reading. what an honest review but you could have made it much shorter and just said that fermi blows LOL |
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Rizz |
Posted on: 03/26/2010 10:28 PM
The power usage is shocking you need your own power plant to run this. Anyway thanks for review. |
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gamer007 |
Posted on: 03/26/2010 10:33 PM
lol I thought this thing was meant to be a killer. it is slower than my old GeForce GTX 295 in Metro 2033 which is a game I read it would do very well in. I am massively disappointed in this release. |
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FULMTL |
Posted on: 03/27/2010 02:02 AM
look at those 2x 5770's go! Save $100 and some power. The crossfire 5770's seem plenty fine. |
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Horribleron Posts: 13 Joined: 2010-03-26 |
Posted on: 03/27/2010 03:48 AM
Since I'm trying to cut back on my power bill (check out my new Energy Star rated fridge!) I doubt this beast will find its way into my rig. But, it's good to see ATI get some competition so hopefully ATI prices will drop a bit. Hey Steve, what happened to my account? I had to recreate it. I thought that I had just lost the password during my switch to WIN7 but somebody there flushed it. Horribleron |
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Buuzzza |
Posted on: 03/27/2010 06:56 AM
poor Fermi  this is nothing like what I was expecting. I will be keeping my old Radeon HD 4870 X2 for a little longer. Well at least until the 5870 pricing drops. If that even happens now! |
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Zerg |
Posted on: 03/29/2010 12:40 AM
2 little 2 late I guess. Great review and I loved your comments about the power consumption  |
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billtiger |
Posted on: 03/29/2010 10:44 AM
So late, so hot, so hungry, its a shame on nvidia, i'll keep my good watercooled 4870x2, and when prices will drop a bit, i'll change for 5850 crossfire |
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tiger |
Posted on: 03/29/2010 08:05 PM
Great review! Makes me wonder if I should move back to ATI. After all I dont't own a power plant and I really don't want to grill my MOBO and RAM. Shame on you NVIDIA for blowing such a kick ass product ;-( |
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Horribleron Posts: 13 Joined: 2010-03-26 |
Posted on: 03/30/2010 01:36 AM
If what I have been reading on SemiAccurate is true we may not be seeing very many of these GTX480/470 cards. Basically, NVidia wanted Fermi to run at 750 Mhz with all 512 CUDA cores. It missed that mark badly. 480 cores at 700 Mhz is the best it could muster and have enough chips to sell and that's only after they upped the voltage. So pretty much all of the boards they will be selling have flawed GPU's. This mess is pretty much a money losing proposition for NVidia. Their best hope is a healthy GF104 with 256 cores at a decent clock rate and good yields sometime in May or June. Even if the GTX480 does beat the ATI 5870 it doesn't beat enough to justify the price difference (especially if ATI lowers prices in the future) plus I don't care to buy a flawed product or one that may not be around very long. The boys in green really need to rethink this business model of building stuff just fast enough to beat the competition in benchmarks but where they lose their shorts in profitability. I can guarantee you that the boys in red aren't losing money right now. |
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Ruzveh |
Posted on: 04/01/2010 03:47 AM
Whooaaaa! I m totally turned off with nVidia marketing strategies and all fake stories they made initially before the launch of this fermi based cards. M sure all nvidia fans will not start looking at ATi cards for their superior and first to launch Dx11 based cards. Ati cards r latest, more efficient and less priced. Atleast they hav not cheated like nvidia. Imagine how much time they wasted in making a dummy card like fermi? And they shamefully priced higher then the better cards which are available in the market. Who the hell now wants these Dx11 cards by nvidia. My advise to XFX "Good for the first time u made a smart decision to produce Ati cards and selling it" We are with u. Finally waiting so much for nvidia i have decided to go for ATI card who r winner at the moment. Nvidia it was a v bad strategy by you of keep waiting for ur products & then spurt all at one to boost initial sale because u knw from the back of ur mind that ur cards r not efficient. They r not fastest as u thought it to be. TATA nVidia.. Welcome ATI  |
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Artem |
Posted on: 04/01/2010 04:50 AM
Epic Fail |
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QmA |
Posted on: 04/01/2010 07:33 PM
Are you guys serious? I don't see how the 480 was a big failure. Its the fastest single GPU card! It deserves some respect for that alone. We have some excellent cards from ATi but frankly I don't know what they were smoking when they came out with those ridiculous prices. Lets keep the fan-boy crap out of the picture and see what we have. Nvidia has given us what we desperately needed and that is competition! We expected the 480 to compete with the 5870 and it does just that and it does that well. The 470 also competes very well to the 5850 and downright beats it for price/performance. I probably won't buy the Nvidia cards but to call them a failure is really stupid. Thanks for the review STEvE. |
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Dubs |
Posted on: 04/01/2010 08:34 PM
I agree with QmA its not that bad and I think the reviewer was smart to reserve his ultimate opinion on Fermi until production cards ship and drivers mature a little more. |
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Horribleron Posts: 13 Joined: 2010-03-26 |
Posted on: 04/02/2010 02:23 AM
I understand how you feel QmA and even agree that it's good to have some competition to drive prices down. And if NVidia wants to to lose money to provide me with a kick ass card who am I as the consumer to complain? It is a decent performing card but falls far short of what it was supposed to be. According to SemiAccurate, NVidia ordered 9000 wafers with 104 chips per wafer of the A3 spin and got roughly 30,000 working parts. That means out of 936,000 GPU's they only got 3% to work? Ouch! Apparently the only way to fix this is to do a new base level respin with a B series to correct the problems. This would take six months or more. But still, A fixed Fermi with all 512 cores working at 750 MHz would be a real 5870 killer and likely compete with ATI next refresh as well. And they could have it out by Christmas. This seems to me a base level respin is the only way to deal with the mess. And I DO hope they fix it but I just can't see NVidia continuing on with the A3 GPU in its current state. It's all crazy man. Of coarse, all the information I have read could be wrong and maybe everything is peachy at the fabs. But then they were 6 months late, 32 cuda cores short and 50 Mhz less than what they said would be released. And they also have a card that runs only 10C below the temp where it fails. My cat used to like to sit behind my computer back when was using my 2900XT. I'll bet she would love a Fermi. |
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Artem |
Posted on: 04/02/2010 05:28 AM
well why not fail? green guys promised super gpu that'll kill ati's for far its not very killing, it need huge amount of power, and you can toast toasts on it, and with closed pc case you can probably make a grill inside the pc case of cource its price is lower, they have no choise if they want to have a chance vs ati cards so far green cards are piece of crap they need do more research/tuning b4 releasing something worthy |
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leexgx Posts: 8 Joined: 2010-03-29 |
Posted on: 04/05/2010 12:53 AM
do not think its an big fail just its quite hot and maybe bit noisy in an warm places or in SLI 2x 5870 in CF look very good to me but drivers that really put me off i most likely only get an (i am buying) GTX480 as it should be 3-4x faster then an 9800GX2 (i had the GTX280 games ran mostly smooth but that died on me but i did get credit for it so only need to pay half for the GTX480) other site need to do test with lower cards to see if the GTX295 is really faster then 1 GXT480 |
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Casecutter |
Posted on: 04/08/2010 04:13 PM
Well most interesting... I notice there’s no power consumption or heat number for the 5770 C-F set-up, what up with that? |
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Hero |
Posted on: 04/08/2010 10:17 PM
I am looking forward to your follow articles on some production cards. |
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sertz |
Posted on: 05/21/2010 12:55 PM
First off, Ruzveh, go to school for a few more years or something... You are almost completely illiterate. As for the Fermi cards, I actually think this is excellent performance for the price. You have a card that, at times, gives the Radeon HD 5970 a run for its money in a single-GPU solution. Another point is the minimum framerate department. This particular review doesn't reveal minimums, but the minimum framerate in most games is doubled on the GTX 480 over the HD 5870, even though the average frames per second may be similar. The power consumption shouldn't be a surprise to any PC gamer. If ATI hadn't released the Evergreen to be so power efficient, Fermi's release would be the gaming equivelant of the second coming. However, seeing as most people were impatient and bought an HD 5870 before Fermi came out, they will defend their purchase to the death... Even if it is the lesser performing card. I am one of the few who actually sold my HD 5870 and used the money towards a new GTX 480 and couldn't be happier with the change. The drivers are much less buggy that the catalyst drivers (even though ATI has done great things recently with their drivers), all of my games have seen performance improvements, and the card is an absolute beast at tesselation. Another, less talked about fact is the framebuffer. While not important now, the extra bit of memory will become very important with next gen PC games releasing. My HD 5870 had 1GB memory, and while it served me well in most games, in GTA IV I was unable to max the settings out (even with the -nomemrestriction command) because the game became completely unplayable. Whereas with my GTX 480, I can completely max out the game without a problem because of the exra memory on the card. I'm sure the 2GB eyefinity edition Radeon wouldn't have an issue either, but I'm just pointing out one of my observations with the new GTX 480. All in all, to call Fermi a failure would be only to deny the fact that it's the fastest single-gpu card available. And with all the evidence out there showing it is a powerhouse, I think it's safe to say Fermi, while late and power hungry, delivered on the promises nVIDIA made about performance and potential in DX11 titles. |
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Bob |
Posted on: 05/08/2011 12:20 PM
I bought the Geforce GTX 480/470 around $500 last year...I run Flight Simulator, Rex 2 weather, and FScommander full blast which is fantastic...However, like someone said it gets very, very HOT...I think it might be on it's last stages out...sorry to say...Don't recommend due to the heat...It's a blast furnace... |