If you were to say Nvidia’s GTX 480 was the top of the line card from the green camp, you’d only be partially correct. While it is, at face value, the “top of the line”, it is in fact a neutered second place finisher. You see, Nvidia deactivated one block of 32 cuda cores (the processing mini-brains in the fermi architecture) giving the card it’s 480 name — 480 processing cores. For some time, a fully unlocked 512-core version has been rumored. But nothing has come of it. Many claimed it was because of the 480′s already insatiable power requirements and hellish heat output were the main culprits. Others instead said it was Nvidia’s attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of end users later on down the road with a new “premium” card. Regardless of which route they took, it looks like the real GTX 480 is finally coming fruition if recently leaked benchmarks are to be believed…
Common practice for high-end video cards is gobs of power, big heat sinks, and endless smiles. While all are very flattering, sometimes you don’t want to take up gobs of space, as factory overclocked cards can often spill into a third PCI slot. The performance is definitely wanted, the extra girth from heat sinks is not. Thankfully, consumers now have cards such as the eVGA GTX 480 Hydro Copper to help them with such issues.
The Hydro Copper is actually a tweaked version of the reference GTX 480 that does away with the stock heat sink and fan, and instead slaps on their own very slick looking water block. You can see from above, this waterblock is huge, covering the entire card. A benefit to this is that it also reinforces the PCB of the card itself.
But the biggest *wow* factor is the size — it only takes up a single PCI slot while still managing two DVI-ports and an HDMI tucked away in the corner! Talk about an engineering feat.
The only hold up for a fair amount of consumers will be price. The stock GTX 480 is already pricey, topping out around $500 USD. The eVGA Hydro Copper pushes that number even higher, upwards of $650USD! For a single GPU card, that’s a lot of money. The dual-GPU ATI Radeon 5970 is faster in most benchmarks, yet costs a solid $50-$75 less depending on where you shop. Not to mention, if you shop around, you can pick up two ATI 5870′s in CrossFireX and really blow the single GTX 480 out of the water.
But even all of those cards can’t match one critical bullet point sitting under the Hydro Copper — the single slot design. Is it worth it to you?
I don’t know about you, but when new computer parts come out, I’m constantly re-evaluating my set up, comparing specs, and crunching god knows what kind of numbers in my head. With the lead up to Fermi and the GTX 4xx series cards, I was pretty stoked — being a long time Nvidia fan myself. And then the early reviews came out and it all got shot to hell. Not only to they run really hot, the price to performance benefit over the ATI 5870 (or for the sake of this post, CrossfireX 5850′s) isn’t worth it. We’ve already seen plenty of 5870 to GTX 480 comparisons so we’ve got that down hook line and sinker. But what about the value set up that often gets left out? The value I’m talking about is two cheaper cards — the 5850 — set up in pairs and put to the test. How would they fair against Nvidia’s best?
Pretty damn well actually. The fine folks over at Nexus put together just such a test and ended up seeing the CrossfireX 5850′s beating out Nvidia’s top of the line GTX 480 over 90% of the time. Now, the big story isn’t the actual raw frame rates. It’s pretty much a given that two high end cards against one super high end card are probably going to come away victorious. Likewise, two GTX 480′s would come away with the win easily. And lest we not forget price. Considering frame rates alone, the power of the GTX 480 would be the real story if it weren’t for it’s high premium.
But the real eye opener is power usage. Would you believe two ATI 5850 cards whether idling or at load consume less power than one GTX 480?! It’s pretty wild to think about. It leaves me wondering exactly what Nvidia has been doing these last few months.
There’s plenty of specs for you geeks to look over, so be sure to stop by the review over at Hexus.net. At the very least, it’s entertaining.
Anyone in the same boat as I was considering if they wanted top of the line Nvidia or mid-high end ATI CrossfireX?
Ever since we saw early specs and hands on previews (and now reviews) of the latest Nvidia cards — the GTX 470 and 480 — many were passing off hand comments that an egg could be fried on these new cards due their high operating temperature. In many circumstances, idling between 70-80 C isn’t uncommon. For a reference, my ATI CrossFire 5850 set up never goes above 50 C idling. Two different cards, two different architectures though.
Seeing as how the new Fermi cards run so hot, I really was curious if it could really fry an egg. Thankfully LegitReviews had a review sample (and carefully placed egg) to put the rumor to the test.
Does it actually cook? **Spoiler** — No. Unfortunately not. Think of how humorous/cool it would be to have a piece of computer equipment actually heat up enough to fry an egg. Looks like we’ll have to keep around those antiquated frying pans and stove a little longer…
What better way to wake up than to a fresh leak of information and visual representation of the latest and greatest graphics card to hit the market. If anything else, the heat pipes jutting out of the side make for quite the interesting sight. The DirectX11 toting GTX 480 is certainly a potent piece of hardware. If it weren’t for the lofty price tag (and perhaps the lack of DisplayPort) I’d have me one in a heartbeat. For now, dual ATI 5850′s will have to do. Feel free to take a stab at the Turkish statement below…
(Source page – Donanimhaber) Google Translated
Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards for DirectX 11 support enthusiasts waiting continues. 26 Mart’ta Boston’da düzenlenecek PAX East etkinli?inde tan?t?lmas? beklenen Fermi tabanl? GeForce GTX 470 ve GeForce GTX 480 için yeni bilgiler elimize ula?maya ba?lad?. PAX will take place in East Boston in the March 26 event is expected to be introduced in the GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480-based Fermi new information began to reach our hands. Bu haberimizde dünyada ilk defa GeForce GTX 480′nin görselini resmi Nvidia dökümanlar? e?li?inde sizlerle payla??yoruz. About this article for the first time the official Nvidia GeForce GTX 480s visually accompanied by documents we share with you.
Elimize ula?an dökümanlara göre GeForce GTX 480′nin hacimli üretime giren versiyonu, görüntüleri daha önce ortaya ç?kan erken mühendislik örne?ine göre bir tak?m farklar içeriyor. According to documents we receive, entering volume production version of the GeForce GTX 480s, images, according to previously emerged early engineering sample contains a number of differences. 40nm üretim teknolojisiyle haz?rlanan ve 3.2 milyar transistör içeren G100 GPU’sunun güç verdi?i DirectX 11 destekli ekran kart?, ?s? iletim borular? bezenmi? kasl? so?utucusuyla dikkat çekmeyi ba?ar?yor. Prepared and 3.2 billion transistors in 40nm process technology with the DirectX 11 supported graphics card G100 GPU’sunun power, heat transmission pipes adorned with muscular cooler manages to attract attention.
A beast of a processor and huge amount of RAM may make the typical office multi-tasker or video editing junky drool, but when it comes to games, it’s all FPS. Whilst gaming, a screaming processor can certainly help, the real meat of it all are the graphics cards. The better you have, the better you game will look, and the faster it will run. Who doesn’t want that?
The last six months or so have been in my eyes, in ATI’s favor. Their 5xxx series cards are an awesome lineup of top notch hardware that puts even Nvidia’s best to the test, beating them in many areas. But it’s Nvidia’s turn to hit back with their upcoming GTX 470/480 cards. How do they fare? Early benchmarks have the 480 performing slightly better than a 5870. Admirable and intriguing, though not enough to force me to open my wallet. So how do they look? I know looks take a backseat (and rightfully so) to specs and raw FPS performance, but it’s always nice to look at the new hot chick in class isn’t it?
You know, it’d be one thing to compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges, or graphics card to like graphics card. In Nvidia’s case, this time around went a little different. Some would say that Nvidia has been slacking as of late in the graphics arena as ATI’s chugs right on by. The 5850, 5870, and 5970 are some of the best DirectX11 graphics cards on the market with a somewhat delicate power thirst while Nvidia has so far failed to really tap into DirectX11 yet. Nvidia’s competing GTX 2xx series meanwhile are no doubt powerful on the higher end yet overall just “meh”. But the gloves are about to come off (supposedly) as Nvidia is prepping their new generation of Fermi GPU’s with the fist newcomer coming to market as the GTX 480. A lot is riding on this little guy. So how does it perform?
Sad thing is, the “official” benchmark released by Nvidia is a bit one sided. Nobody’s stupid. The GTX 480 is easily going to top $500 and possibly even approach and surpass $600. The ATI 5870 that the 480 is up against is practically half the cost. Obviously Nvidia wanted to come out ahead in the battle. Even still, the power and benchmarks the 480 has over the 5870 really aren’t all that great, though I’m sure with time and some driver finagling, a little bit more oomph can be coaxed from within. Still…it’s a bummer. Look like we’ll be waiting for the 48x and 49x variants to really knock our socks off.
To be fair, the 480 is one hell of a card. But not quite the card that everyone was hoping for…yet. A more appropriate match would have been the more equally spec’d and priced 5970 going head-to-head with the 480. How would it fair then? Much closer I think. What say you?
Get online with best value broadband & home phone bundles.
Choose between our Essentials or Plus packages -
both with introductory offers - & benefit from our ground-breaking HomeSafe online protection.
Compare our broadband and phone bundles with our competitors.
We think our Essentials and Plus packages are great value -
see for yourself by checking the breakdown of costs and features versus our biggest competitors.
When it comes to marketing your product it's essential to understand the visitor patterns in your shop. Heatmap software allows you to do just that by producing reports and visualizations that help you make the best decisions for your business.
If you were to say Nvidia’s GTX 480 was the top of the line card from the green camp, you’d only be partially correct. While it is, at face value, the “top of the line”, it is in fact a neutered second place finisher. You see, Nvidia deactivated one block of 32 cuda cores (the processing mini-brains in the fermi architecture) giving the card it’s 480 name — 480 processing cores. For some time, a fully unlocked 512-core version has been rumored. But nothing has come of it. Many claimed it was because of the 480′s already insatiable power requirements and hellish heat output were the main culprits. Others instead said it was Nvidia’s attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of end users later on down the road with a new “premium” card. Regardless of which route they took, it looks like the real GTX 480 is finally coming fruition if recently leaked benchmarks are to be believed…
