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The Palit GeForce GTX 470 is a serious looking graphics card, largely due to the massive heatsink and dual orange fan design. However the card itself is actually slightly shorter than those built to the Nvidia specification, measuring 23cm long, where as a standard GeForce GTX 470 is 24cm long. While 1cm may not sound like much, when you are trying to fit one of these graphics cards into a standard ATX case, it can make all the difference.
Like the Nvidia reference GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, this Palit version features a dual slot cooler, though the design has been improved. The heatsink found on the Palit version is much bigger, while also featuring not one but rather two fans, which provides a much more efficient means of keeping the GPU cool. Palit claims their design keeps the GPU around 12 degrees cooler under load, while generating 4dBA less noise.
The fans used are 75mm in diameter and use a traditional 2-ball bearing design opposed to the reference cards which utilize a blower type fan. Typically blower fans generate significantly more noise and this is likely why Palit has been able to create a quieter solution that provides even greater air-flow. Like the reference card, the Palit version does feature an exhaust system that pushes the hot air out of the case, though not all the hot air escapes out through the rear of the case.
The heatsink measures 17.5cm long, 7cm wide, and at its thickest just 1.5cm, so it is really quite a large heatsink. Palit has also designed a small fan shroud that directs more air-flow over the heatsink. Improving efficiency are three copper heatpipes that extract heat from the base plate directing it through the row of fins, and as you will find later on in the review, this setup works rather well.
Keeping the GeForce GTX 470 cool is serious business, as this complex GPU features 4 Graphic Processing Clusters, 14 Streaming Multiprocessors, 448 CUDA Cores, 56 Texture Units and 40 Raster Operations Units. The graphics clock speed for fixed function units is 607MHz, while the CUDA Cores operate at a more aggressive 1215MHz and Palit has not carried out any kind of factory overclocking with this graphics card.
When compared to the GeForce GTX 480 the memory buffer has been reduced by 17% from 1536MB to 1280MB, while the memory interface has been cut down in the same proportion to 320-bit. All up this makes for a 25% reduction in available memory bandwidth, putting the theoretical peak bandwidth of the GeForce GTX 470 at 133.9GB/s. Palit is shipping their custom GeForce GTX 470 with Samsung ICs on-board (K4G10325FE-HC05). These GDDR5 modules are already rated for 4.0GHz operation, so we don't expect to be able to push them much further. Palit has provided cooling for the graphics cards onboard memory chips, just as the reference design does, by incorporating them into the main heatsink.
When compared to the GeForce GTX 480 the Thermal Design Power (TDP) has also dropped from 250 watts to a more manageable 215 watts. But even at 215 watts the GeForce GTX 470 is likely going to be much more power hungry than the faster Radeon HD 5870. The card requires a pair of 6-pin connectors and Nvidia is recommending a 550 watt or higher PSU to help power this graphics card.
Another interesting feature of the custom Palit GeForce GTX 470 graphics card is its I/O capabilities. This card is equipped with advanced DisplayPort and HDMI, which Palit says makes it a future proofed graphics card. Furthermore, the card also features a single DVI and VGA port, for the complete range of monitor support. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 06/09/2010 12:06 AM
Nice looking card but I am not sure I would buy it over a Radeon HD 5850. |
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FanBoy |
Posted on: 06/09/2010 03:09 AM
Yeah I agree the Radeon HD 5850 does seem like a better buy right now but I wonder if this will change at all over the next 6 months. |
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Turtle |
Posted on: 06/10/2010 09:58 AM
I really like this new Palit card, thanks for the review. Sadly I cannot find this card online but I did come across a GTX 465 version which looks exactly the same. I should point out that the GTX 465 is not cheaper than the reference cards, though it is also no more expensive either  |
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Richie |
Posted on: 06/15/2010 08:35 AM
Given you just wrote an article showing that a pair of Radeon HD 5770 graphics cards smokes a GeForce GTX 470 while also saving a bit of cash I am not all that impressed by any GTX 470 product. |
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Chootia |
Posted on: 07/21/2010 10:12 PM
Having just read the GTX 460 overclocked review I see no need to purchase one of these anymore  |