470 gtx overclock: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 Overclocking with Voltage Adjustment

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 Overclocking with Voltage Adjustment

Video Cards & GPUs

NVIDIA GeForce GPU

We’ve already attacked the GTX 480 with more voltage. Thanks to a new Afterburner release from MSI, it’s the GTX 470s time to wind up.

Published Apr 27, 2010 9:09 AM CDT   |   Updated Tue, Nov 3 2020 7:02 PM CST

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

14 minute read time

Introduction

We knew it was coming because MSI had said to us the GTX 470 would get the same love as the GTX 480 when it came to adjust the voltage of the core. To many the adjustment of voltage is something that doesn’t interest them, or more commonly is something that scares them.

Honestly, though, if you go online, do some research and really find discussions on overclocking, not only will you learn more about computers, but you’ll find out what voltages are safe without risking the life of your hardware.

Overclocking on its own is a great way to get more performance out of a product without having to spend any more money. What the ability of adjusting voltage does is really open up the flood gates. What was an impressive overclock before with the default voltage, is nothing now compared to what you can achieve using more voltage.

With that said, there’s always a risk involved when it comes to adjusting something like the voltages of any product. In doing some research, this should mean that you won’t run into any problems. But of course, we can’t promise that.

For now, though, we’ll be looking at the GTX 470 and the latest version of Afterburner which is 1.6.0 Beta 5. While still offering the ability to adjust the core voltage on the GTX 480, this version also offers the ability to do the same on the cheaper GTX 470.

The GTX 470 hasn’t had the best introduction to the world. While the noise and heat we can get past, its performance has been a bit subpar. Today hopefully that will all change.

GTX 470 Overclocking

If you had a look at our GTX 480 Overclocking with Voltage adjustment article you’re not going to see much difference here when it comes to the overall process. We of course used the latest version of Afterburner as we mentioned in the introduction, which comes in at 1.6.0 Beta 5.

MSI told us that we could max the core voltage, so that’s exactly what we did. What happened then, we didn’t expect, however.

With a bit of time we ended up moving the core from 608MHz to 774MHz which is an absolute mammoth overclock; much greater than we saw out of the GTX 480. This of course meant that the Shader clock also went up a massive amount from 1215MHz to 1548MHz. Also hoping to get that memory clock rounded off to 4GHz QDR, we fortunately did.

Too give you an idea of what the voltage adjustment did for us; when we first looked at the GTX 470 overclocking we ended up at a core speed of 687MHz and a Shader clock of 1374MHz. Previously we also had trouble getting 4GHz QDR on the memory; instead we ended up with 3920MHz QDR.

Hopefully this massive overclock brings with it some massive gains for the card that has struggled at higher resolutions against the much cheaper HD 5850 from ATI.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage

We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASRock, Kingston, Western Digital, Noctua and Thermaltake.

Like our GTX 480 Overclock article we’ll be running our whole benchmark line up. This means we’ll be able to add to our TPR and TVR graphs. We’ve added a number of cards in the graphs today which include the GTX 470, of course at its stock speeds, which is 608MHz on the Core, 1215MHz on the Shader and 3348MHz QDR on the memory. The same card overclocked to 774MHz on the Core, 1548MHz on the Shader and 4000MHz QDR on the memory.

We’ll also be including in stock forms the big brother GTX 480 and the top single GPU card from ATI, the HD 5870. With some impressive clocks gained with the voltage adjustment, let’s hope we’ll see some big performance out of the card here today.

Let’s get started!

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

It doesn’t take long for the GTX 470 to really stretch its legs. Thanks to the overclock, not only do we have a massive gain in performance, but we also see the model sits almost directly on top of the more expensive GTX 480.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Version and / or Patch Used: 1 and 2
Developer Homepage: http://www. unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

Note: If a card doesn’t support DirectX 11 the benchmark will be left out, if it does it will be included along with the DirectX10 results.

In both versions of Heaven see a massive boost in performance and see the model line up more with the GTX 480. You can see compared to the HD 5870 its performance is significantly higher.

Benchmarks — CINEBENCH

CINEBENCH

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10 and Release 11.5
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net

CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer’s performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).

R11.5 performance is slightly up when overclocked, but nothing major here; no real surprise.

Benchmarks — Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: www.residentevil.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.residentevil.com/

Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on September 18. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

We again see some very big gains; the GTX 470 overclocked is outperforming the HD 5870 and performing pretty much on par with the GTX 480.

Benchmarks — BattleForge

BattleForge

Version and / or Patch Used: Auto Patched at Load
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www. battleforge.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.battleforge.com/

The Gods have disappeared and the old sun has died, letting a vile twilight engulf the world of Nyn. In exchange for all treasures the mortals possessed, the evil giants agreed to forge a new sun and hurl it into the sky.

But the deal was betrayed, the treasure stolen and now the mortals flee the wrath of the giants. Under the light of a new sun the mortals stumble into a world changed and twisted by an age of twilight. The long journey home has become a conquest of survival.

Note: Supporting DirectX 11 we have seperated the graphs for NVIDIA and ATI cards. While the numbers between the two brands can be compared you have to make note that ATI based HD 5000 series cards are running DirectX 11.

The same picture we’ve seen all along here with performance being almost on top of the GTX 480. At 2560 x 1600 it’s a single FPS behind the HD 5870.

Benchmarks — Tom Clancy’s H.

A.W.X.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx
Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X is an arcade-style flight simulator video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPhone OS.

The fundamental gameplay mechanics are similar to those of other console-based flight series. Players take on enemies with over 50 aircraft available. Each mission is at real world locations in environments created with commercial satellite data. A cockpit, first person, and third person view are selectable. The third person view gives the player an external view of both their plane and the target.

Set above the skies of a near-future world, increasingly dependent on private military companies with elite mercenaries who have a relaxed view on the law. As these non-governmental organizations gain power, global conflict erupts with one powerful PMC attacking the United States.

Again, a massive boost in performance with the card performing only just behind the GTX 480.

Benchmarks — Darkest of Days

Darkest of Days

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.4
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php
Product Homepage: http://www.darkestofdays.com/index.php

Darkest of Days takes the player through time into historic battles in an effort to save key individuals from certain death. The battles range from Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 to fighting in Pompeii as ash and fire rain down from an erupting Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Other locations include the battles of Antietam and Tannenberg, and a German World War II P. O.W. camp. There are different missions in every time period and the game takes about 4 hours to complete.

The game features over twenty weapons, both from the original time period as well as those brought back from the future. In addition, there are artillery weapons from different time periods to assist in battle.

Note: With the PhysX set to Medium or High Darkest of Days take advantage of the NVIDIA PhysX abilities. For that reason we will test ATI cards at the Low preset, NVIDIA based cards though will be tested at Low and High.

The big gains continue and you can see the performance increase is just massive compared to the stock clocked model. Going from 80 FPS to 93 FPS at 2560 x 1600 is just insane.

Benchmarks — Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www. ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here

The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

It doesn’t matter what we test under, the big gains are seen again and again. At 2560 x 1600 you can see we’re on the edge of that 30 FPS minimum. Overclocked and we’re way past it.

Benchmarks — Batman Arkham Asylum

Batman Arkham Asylum

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/
Product Homepage: http://www. batmanarkhamasylum.com/

Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum — Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum.

Using a wide range of Batman’s gadgets and abilities, players will become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker’s demented scheme.
Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini, whose credits include Lost season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

Note: With support for PhysX NVIDIA based cards will be tested with the technology on and off, ATI cards will be tested with the technology off due to it not being supported on their cards.

Nice gains across the board with PhysX both on and off.

Benchmarks — Dark Void

Dark Void

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.airtightgames.com
Product Homepage: http://www.darkvoidgame.com/

The game’s story takes place during World War II and centers around a cargo pilot named William Augustus Grey (voiced by Nolan North) who is teleported to another world while flying through the Bermuda Triangle. In this world, known as the ‘Void’, Will encounters an alien race as well as other humans, which are known as the Watchers and the Survivors respectively.

Will reluctantly joins the Survivors who are engaged in a feud with the alien race to satisfy his desire to return to Earth. While aiding the Survivors, Will discovers that the Void is a middle ground that connects both the Watchers homeworld and Earth. It also becomes apparent that the Watchers are supplying the Axis powers with various supplies for reasons unknown. With the help of Nikola Tesla, Will utilizes retrofited Watcher technology to combat the Watchers and eventually find a way to escape the Void.

Already big numbers become even bigger. At times we even see it out perform the GTX 480 here.

Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF

High Quality AA and AF

Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren’t struggling before they will start to now.

Far Cry 2

The GTX 470 already performs strong under Far Cry 2. The overclock just makes those numbers even more impressive.

Resident Evil 5

Again we see a significant gain. We move away from the bare minimum 60 FPS average and get to a massive 76 FPS.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

While we’re just under that 60 FPS average we want to see, we do again see a massive gain in performance.

Benchmarks — Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor

Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor

Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 51
Timedemo or Level Used: Sample File
Developer Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.elcomsoft.com/ewsa.html

ElcomSoft has pioneered many software innovations that have made it easier to recover passwords protecting various types of resources. For the first time in the industry, the company’s patent-pending GPU acceleration makes its way into Wi-Fi password recovery, reducing the time required to recover Wi-Fi passwords up to a hundred times.

Supporting up to four NVIDIA boards such as GeForce 8, 9, and 200, as well as ATI video cards such as RADEON HD 4000 Series and up, Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor allows building servers with supercomputer performance at a fraction of the price.

With the overclock we see a boost in performance. Unfortunately the GTX 400 series doesn’t perform the best under WSA.

Benchmarks — Badaboom

Badaboom

Version and / or Patch Used: Release 1. 2.1.7
Developer Homepage: http://www.nvidia.com//
Product Homepage: http://www.badaboomit.com/

Badaboom eliminates the frustration of video conversion by providing users with speed, efficiency, quality, and a sleek interface. In a practice that used to take several hours, Badaboom converts feature-length movies in a matter of minutes while keeping the videos looking crisp and clear.

By harnessing the power of NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs, Badaboom offloads the CPU to allow users to continue browsing the Internet or checking email without decreased system performance, making transcoding high-quality video fast, easy, and painless.

Note: With the requirement for a CUDA enabled graphics card to run Badaboom, this means that we can only use NVIDIA based cards for this test.

Not much to see here; keep moving along.

Temperature and Sound Tests

Temperature Tests

With the TES 1326 Infrared Thermometer literally in hand we found ourselves getting real-world temperatures from the products we test at load (3D clock speeds).

There are two places we pull temperature from — the back of the card directly behind the core and if the card is dual slot and has an exhaust point we also pull a temperate from there, as seen in the picture.

Thanks to the 100% fan speed the core temperature is down.

Sound Tests

Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

Of course this comes at the cost of a bucket load of noise.

Power Consumption Tests

Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or «Power Thingy» as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum — only a 7,200RPM SATA-II single hard drive is used without CD ROM or many cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

Power draw at load was left pretty much unaffected. Idle power draw did jump up a fair bit, though.

Total Performance Rating (TPR)

Total Performance Rating

The TPR graph is a combination of all our benchmarks in which NVIDIA and ATI are on an even playing field. This includes benchmarks where PhysX can be forced off like Dark Void and Batman: Arkham Asylum, but not Darkest of Days.

The TPR number is a combination of:

3DMark Vantage, Heaven Benchmark V2, CINEBENCH R11.5, Resident Evil 5, BattleForge, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X., Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PhysX Off), Dark Void (PhysX Off) and our three High Quality tests which include Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5 and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

All of the benchmark results achieved are then combined into a single number. As this graph will grow over time and cards won’t be re-tested, next to each model you’ll find the driver version that was used when the card was benchmarked.

While we said it all along, you can see here in our TPR that the GTX 470 when overclocked offers performance almost identical to the GTX 480. It sits only slightly behind.

Total Value Rating (TVR)

Total Value Rating

The TVR graph is the TPR score divided by the price of the video card. The price of the video card is based on the list price of the model on Newegg.com. In the event the card isn’t listed, it will be based on the U.S. $ MSRP given to us by the manufacturer.

In the event we can’t source a price from either, the product will not receive a TVR rating. As with our TPR graph, the amount of video cards on the list will grow over time and the price of the model won’t change from what it was when first reviewed. For this reason the U.S. $ price that the card is based off will be included next to the name of the model.

In the event you want to find the TVR rating yourself based on the current price, all you have to do is simply divide the TPR number by the list price.

TVR numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number; 100.3 will be 100; 100.8 will be 101 and 100.5 will be rounded down to 100.

The fact that you’re getting GTX 480 performance at a GTX 470 price does wonders for the overall value. Of course, you have to consider that we did have the fan at 100%, so for most it’s not really a great option running these kinds of speeds 24 / 7.

Final Thoughts

The results we got from the GTX 470 when it came to overclocking was very interesting. To be honest, we wonder if NVIDIA held back the power of the GTX 470 a little because they couldn’t get the power out of the GTX 480.

The question now is what kind of overclock can we achieve out of the card with the fan on auto and what voltage is safe? — We did a bit of testing at around 75% on the fan and we didn’t really have any noticeable issues at the same presets as we used in our graphs. Honestly, by dropping the voltage a little and the clocks slightly you could probably get similar performance with the fan on auto.

What really makes this exciting, though, is wondering what the potential of the model is when we see companies attack it with new coolers. We’re sure that MSI are hard at work on doing something new while Galaxy and Palit both have non-reference models coming out.

With a better cooler we might be able to get even more performance with the card, suppressing the performance of the GTX 480.

MSI as usual have done a fantastic job of making a card so much more valuable. Looking at our TVR you can see with this massive overclock it’s the best valued card to date that we’ve tested.

No doubt we’ll be looking at Afterburner again when we start to see some GTX 400 series cards that move away from the reference cooler. For now, though, Afterburner has added another dimension of performance which is fantastic.

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Shawn Baker

Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.

GIGABYTE Extends Super Overclock Series with GTX 470 SOC Graphics Card | أخبار

2010/08/06

Taipei, Taiwan, August 6^th, 2010 – GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics
cards, introduces a powerful new addition to its Super Overclock Series: GTX 470
SOC (GV-N470SO-13I). To qualify for Super Overclock Series, a GPU must go
through GIGABYTE’s innovative GPU Gauntlet™ Sorting process and it must be
equipped with Ultra Durable VGA or VGA⁺ boards. Designed specifically for
overclocking competition and gaming battle, GIGABYTE’s secret weapon GTX 470
Super Overclock Edition is built with NVDIA GeForce GTX 470 GPU. Based on 40nm
processor and advanced GDDR5 memory technology, the powerful new GPU consists of
ground-breaking features including Microsoft DirectX® 11 and NVIDIA PhysX™ which
leads to incredibly immersive HD gaming experience and unrivaled performance.
GV-N470SO-13I also features WINDFORCE™ 3X, 14 phase PWM design, OC Guru graphic
card smart tuner and voltage read point.

 

WINDFORCE^{TM –} GIGABYTE’s Latest Cooling
Solution

GIGABYTE introduces WINDFORCE™, the latest cooling technology that
differentiates the brand’s graphics cards from the rest. GIGABYTE understands
that a fan is crucial to the graphics card, so only the fan with the most
efficiency is selected for WINDFORCE™. To qualify for WINDFORCE™, the cooling
solution must be equipped with anti-turbulence inclined-fin, ultra quiet PWM fan
and pure copper heat pipe. Inclined-fins redirect airflow and help to reduce
excessive heat and turbulence. Depending on its orientation, there are 3 types
of inclined-fin designs: parallel-inclined, mirroring-inclined and 3D-inclined.
Each type contributes to generating excellent exterior airflow for efficient
heat dissipation from the interior GPU core.

 

 

WINDFORCE^TM 3X: Anti-turbulence
Cooling

GV-N470SO-13I is equipped
with WINDFORCE™ 3X cooling solution. WINDFORCE™
3X features 3 ultra quiet PWM fans. The special inclined triple-fan design
effectively minimizes the flow of turbulence between three fans. With a unique
vapor chamber, WINDFORCE™ 3X is
able to transfer heat from the hot spot to the cool spot as thermal energy
becomes evaporated to the surrounding air. By capillary action, the condensed
liquid droplets circulate back to the base of chamber. The cycles of evaporation
and condensation enhance heat dissipation for greater cooling efficiency.
Moreover, WINDFORCE™ 3X is
equipped with three copper heat pipes to strengthen the speed of heat
dissipation.

 

 

Pure Power Architecture

GV-N470SO-13I has incredibly pure power. It is compatible with ATX
standard length PCB. 14 phase PWM design includes 12 for GPU, 2 for memory.
Standard GTX 470 graphics card has five power phases whereas GIGABYTE’s GTX 470
SOC has 12, two times the reference card. Not only does GV-N470SO-13I have three
times power phases than reference card, the 12 power phase status LED indicators
indicate graphics card’s current power phase, helping users monitor power
consumption. This feature ensures a more stable system and better overclocking
capability.

 

 

GPU
Gauntlet™ Sorting

GIGABYTE’s very own GPU Gauntlet™ Sorting process is the key to the
best GPUs for Super Overclock Series. A GPU must pass a sequence of tests to be
selected. This unique process offers three major advantages. First,
full-throttle performance tuning improves overclocking ability by at least 10%
to 30%. Second, optimized thermal efficiency lowers extra temperatures by 5% to
10%. Fan speed is guaranteed at standard rpm in high-rated 3D and
physics-accelerated games to reduce noise for an absolutely quiet environment.
Lastly, expert power switching lowers power switching loss by 10% to 30%. With
GPU Gauntlet™ Sorting, GIGABYTE SOC graphics card guarantees higher overclocking
ability.

 

Ultra Durable VGA⁺

Thanks
to Ultra Durable VGA⁺ that features 5+1 quality components,
the Super Overclock Series supports top performance in graphics benchmarking.
GIGABYTE Ultra Durable
VGA⁺’s 5 proadlizers on graphics cards are able to provide
1.6 times purer power supply compared to traditional power design (zero
proadlizers).

 

Proadlizer® Quintuple

One of the quality components of Ultra Durable VGA⁺ is
GIGABYTE’s exclusive use of proadlizers. Unlike other leading brands that only
use one proadlizer on their graphic cards, GIGABYTE generously uses five units
of NEC Proadlizer®, also known as film capacitor, to provide amazing current
capacity up to 5000uF and extremely low ESL/ESR for super overclocking ability.
Five times the regular capacitance indicates the amount of electric energy
stored is fivefold. By placing five proadlizers around GPU, electric currents
are able to be charged and discharged rapidly to support super overclocking
activity. The quintupled proadlizers transmit more stable power even during
heavy loading.

 

OC Guru –
Graphic Card Smart Tuner

GIGABYTE proudly improves its graphics card smart tuner OC Guru. This
graphics card tweaking utility puts together the best combination of
software/hardware overclocking. It now features 3 profiles: OC (for overclocking
mode), Gaming (for gaming mode), and Green (for power saving mode). The
different modes cater to users’ different needs. GIGABYTE’s distinctive
adjustable software offers gamers to adjust tuners for memory, voltage, and fan
speed. OC Guru, the user-friendly software, gives hardcore gamers liberty when
overcloking.

 

Voltage
Read Point

GIGABYTE’s specific voltage read point supplies hardcore gamers an
ultimate benching experience at overclocking competition. Heavy users can change
the voltage simply through software instead of manually adjusting any components
on PCB. It is easy for overclockers to master the platform and monitor GPU
workload at any time just through voltage read point.

  

The GIGABYTE Super
Overclock Series includes HD 5870, HD 5770, GTX470, and upcoming GTX460. For
more details about the Super Overclock Series, please visit the GIGABYTE VGA
website at: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/main.aspx?s=43

GIGABYTE SOC:
http://www.gigabyte.com/MicroSite/72/index.html

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GIGABYTE-VGA/138376338834?ref=nf

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/GIGABYTE_VGA

Gigabyte GTX 470 Super Overclock

Tony Chartrand


September 22, 2010
Hardware, NVIDIA, Reviews & Articles, Video Cards/Graphics Cards

Leave a comment

When a factory clocked video card doesn’t supply enough gaming power, but you don’t want to shell out a bunch more cash for the step up an overclocked card can be a good middle ground. Today we have Gigabytes overclocked version of the GTX 470.

 

Introduction

In this competitive market, the most well performing card wins, and these cards often come at a steep price. Even upgrading can be expensive. To help bridge the gap between two cards, we can take a lower end card and overclock it. For users who cannot or do not wish to tinker with their card’s clock speeds, GIGABYTE is now offering an overclocked edition of the popular and powerful GTX 470. The step up to a GTX 480 can cost as much as $200, depending on the manufacturer or memory size chosen. This GTX 470 of course costs more than a normal 470, but it is still much cheaper than a 480.

Features

GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series

1. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 SOC Edition
2. Overclock: Core/Mem clock: 700/ 3348 MHz
3. GIGABYTE WINDFORCETM 3X Cooling Design
4. 12 Power Phase
5. GPU GauntletTM Sorting Technology
6. Ultra Durable VGA+ High Quality Components
7. Voltage Read Point
8. OC Guru-graphics card smart tuner
9. 12% performance better than generic GTX 470
10. 18% temperature lower than generic GTX 470
11. 17% power consumption lower than generic GTX 470

 

 

 

 

RoHS Compliant

As a citizen of the global village, GIGABYTE exert ourselves to be a pioneer in environment care. Give the whole of Earth a promise that our products do not contain any of the restricted substances in concentrations and applications banned by the RoHS Directive, and are capable of being worked on at the higher temperatures required for lead free solder. One Earth and GIGABYTE Cares!

 

 

Microsoft^® DirectX^® 11

World’s first DirectX 11 GPU with full Shader Model 4.0 support delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realims and film-quality effects.

 

 

PCI-E 2.0

PCI Express^® 2.0 –Now you are ready for the most demanding graphics applications thanks to PCI Express^® 2. 0 support, which allows up to twice the throughput of current PCI Express^® cards. Doubles the bus standard’s bandwidth from 2.5 Gbit/s (PCIe 1.1) to 5 Gbit/sec.

 

 

HDCP Support

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of copy protection technology designed to prevent transmission of non-encrypted high-definition content as it travels across DVI or HDMI digital connections.

 

Microsoft Window7

Microsoft Windows 7 is the next generation operating system that will mark a dramatic improvement in the way the OS takes advantage of the graphics processing unit (GPU) to provide a more compelling user experience. By taking advangate of the GPU for both graphics and computing, Windows 7 will not only make todays’s PCs more visual and more interactive but also ensure that they have the speed and responsiveness customers want

 

HDMI Ready

High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a new interface standard for consumer electronics devices that combines HDCP-protected digital video and audio into a single, consumer-friendly connector.

 

CUDA Technology

NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology unlocks the power of the hundreds of cores in your NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics processor (GPU) to accelerate some of the most performance hungry computing applications. The CUDA™ technology already adopted by thousands of programers to speed up those performance hungry computing applications.

 

Windows Vista^®

NVIDIA’s fourth-gereration GPU architecture built for Windows Vista gives users the best possible experience with the Windows Aero 3D graphical user interface.

 

PureVideo™ HD

Available on HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs, high-definition movies are bringing an exciting new video experience to PC users. NVIDIA^® PureVideo™ HD technology lets you enjoy cinematic-quality HD DVD and Blu-ray movies with low CPU utilization and power consumption, allowing higher quality movie playback and picture clarity.PureVideo HD technology provides a combination of powerful hardware acceleration, content security, and integration with movie players, plus all the features found in PureVideo.

 

PhysX Technology

NVIDIA^® PhysX™ is the next big thing in gaming!Delivering physics in games is no easy task. It’s an extremely compute-intensive environment based on a unique set of physics algorithms that require tremendous amounts of simultaneous mathematical and logical calculations. The best way to get real-time physics, such as explosions that cause dust and debris, characters with life-like motion or cloth that drapes and tears naturally is with an NVIDIA^®PhysX™-ready GeForce^® processor. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games, is used by more than 10,000 registered users and is supported on Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC. PhysX™ technology will take gaming to a whole new level.

 

 

Shader Model 5.0

Shader Model 5.0 adds support for indexed temporaries which can be quite useful for certain tasks.Regular direct temporary access is preferable is most cases. One reason is that indexed temporaries are hard to optimize. The shader optimizer may not be able to identify optimizations across indexed accesses that could otherwise have been detected. Furthermore, indexed temporaries tend to increase register pressure a lot. An ordinary shader that contains for instance a few dozen variables will seldom consume a few dozen temporaries in the end but is likely to be optimized down to a handful depending on what the shader does. This is because the shader optimizer can easily track all variables and reuse registers. This is typically not possible for indexed temporaries, thus the register pressure of the shader may increase dramatically. This could be detrimental to performance as it reduces the hardware’s ability to hide latencies.

 

 

40nm Technology

Faster clocks, double the transistor density of earlier 40 nm technology. 40nm technology helped make GTX 470 series products the most advanced GPUs ever highest clocks speeds, incredible feature integration, full performance and precision all the time, and ability to take advantage of future, higher-speed memories.

 

 

OpenGL 3.2^® Optimizations

Ensure top-notch compatibility and performance for all OpenGL 3.2 application.

 

These are many of the same features that you will find in any other GTX 470. PhysX is always a nice selling point for Nvidia cards. The inclusion of DX11 is considered a strong suit for the new GeForce 400 series because of their ability to do tesseleation so well.

Specifications

Specification	470 GTX OC	470 GTX
Series	GeForce 400 Series	GeForce 400 Series
Chipset	GeForce GTX 470	GeForce GTX 470
Key Features	SOC	N/A
Core Clock	700 MHz	607 MHz
Shader Clock	1400 MHz	1215 MHz
Memory Clock	3348 MHz	3348 MHz
Memory Type	GDDR5	GDDR5
DirectX	11	11
D-Sub	Yes (By Adapter)	Yes (By Adapter)
DVI	Yes	Yes
HDMI	Yes	Yes
DisplayPort	N/A	N/A

Compared to the stock clocked GTX 470, we see that though the overclocked version’s GPU clocked quite a bit higher, the memory is still clocked at the reference level. This is a little bit of a dissapointment, since the extra bandwidth that a higher memory clock gives would definatly complement the higher core clock.

Pictures & Impressions

The box is a little more plain than most overclocked edition cards. We are used to seeing fantasy creatures, or attractive women on the cover. This is not to say that the design is bad, or that it even matters since our main concern is with the product inside the box.

Inside we find a GTX 470 in a layer of foam, with the included accessories packed around the card. The card also has an anti-static bag around it to prevent any static from bricking the card before the box is opened.

Above we can see the accessories enclosed with the card. From left to right, we have two Molex-to-PCI-E 6 pin adapters, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, an HDMI cable, and a manual. Inside the manual is a CD with the drivers and software for the card, but as always, we suggest you download the latest drivers directly from the chipset manufacturer (Nvidia’s site).

From here we can see all three fans included on the card’s cooler. In theory this should allow the card to run cooler at the same noise level as the stock cooler. This cooler is a different design from the stock cooler, but not necessarily larger. The extra CFM from the fans should help keep the card cooler though. The size of the fans also make a difference. A larger fan can push the same amount of air as a smaller fan, but does so more quietly.

From the side we can clearly see that this card still only occupies two slots, like the stock cooler. The curved design makes it more attractive. This should allow some more room for the fans to draw in air (this is especially helpful for users running an SLI setup). From this angle we can also see the heat pipes going from the GPU into the fins of the cooler. The heat pipe is made out of copper, which is a great heat conductor, meaning the heatpipes will disspiate heat faster.

Here we have the back of the card. It is interesting to note that there are 12 LED’s on the back of the card. We have not seen LED’s on the back of a graphics card since the Sapphire 4870. Users who do not like LED’s in their case may want to stay away from this card.

Methodology

To test this card, we did a fresh load of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, applied all the patches and updates for the OS, then updated all the motherboard drivers and made sure that we had the latest GeForce 258.96 drivers. We didn’t install any video drivers on the test rig at first, instead installing the basics and cloning the hard drive using Acronis. This way, when we switch from the ATI GPU to the Nvidia GPU, we can have a fresh load without any of the old drivers interfering with the result.

We ran each test 3 times and reported the average of these results here. Below is a detailed list of the components used during testing.

Test Rig
Case	NZXT Vulcan
CPU	Intel i7 920 @ 3. 9 Ghz
Motherboard	DFI X58 Jr
Ram	(6x2GB) DDR3 @ 1560 9-9-9-22
CPU Cooler	D-Tek Fuzion
Hard Drives	Corsair P64 Western Digital 750 GB
Optical	LiteOn DVDR
GPU’s Tested	Sapphire HD 5970 Sapphire HD 5770 Asus HD 5770 Gigabyte GTX 470
Testing PSU	Corsair HX1000 Watt

 

Synthetic Benchmarks & Games

Synthetic Benchmarks & Games

3DMark 06

3DMark Vantage

Crysis

Crysis Warhead

Far Cry 2

Hawx

Resident Evil 5

Grand Theft Auto 4

 

Temperatures

To test the temperatures of the card we first let the card idle for an hour, and then recorded that temperature.  To test the load temperature, we ran FurMark for half an hour. We then recorded the highest temperature reached and recorded this as our load temperature.

Though this is not a terrible result for a Fermi card, the load temperature is too high, especially considering the fact that the card comes with an aftermarket cooler. The load temperature was just under 90C. However, Nvidia claims that these temperatures are safe, so users should be fine.

3DMARK06 V. 1.1.0

3DMark06 developed by Futuremark, is a synthetic benchmark used for universal testing of all graphics solutions. 3DMark06 features HDR rendering, complex HDR post processing, dynamic soft shadows for all objects, water shader with HDR refraction, HDR reflection, depth fog and Gerstner wave functions, realistic sky model with cloud blending, and approximately 5.4 million triangles and 8.8 million vertices; to name just a few. The measurement unit “3DMark” is intended to give a normalized mean for comparing different GPU/VPUs. It has been accepted as both a standard and a mandatory benchmark throughout the gaming world for measuring performance.

 

The GTX 470 gets off to a great start here. Its score was not too far behind the CrossFire setup 5770’s, which is a respectable score in our opinion.

3DMark Vantage

For complete information on 3DMark Vantage Please follow this Link:

www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmarkvantage/features/

The newest video benchmark from the gang at Futuremark. This utility is still a synthetic benchmark, but one that more closely reflects real world gaming performance. While it is not a perfect replacement for actual game benchmarks, it has its uses. We tested our cards at the ‘Performance’ setting.

 

The GTX 470 is able to just barely pull ahead of the 5770’s in CrossFire. Please note that PhysX was disabled for the GTX 470 to provide uniform testing conditions.

Crysis v. 1.21

Crysis ws the most highly anticipated game to hit the market in the last several years. Crysis is based on the CryENGINE™ 2 developed by Crytek. The CryENGINE™ 2 offers real time editing, bump mapping, dynamic lights, network system, integrated physics system, shaders, shadows, and a dynamic music system, just to name a few of the state-of-the-art features that are incorporated into Crysis. As one might expect with this number of features, the game is extremely demanding of system resources, especially the GPU. We expect Crysis to be a primary gaming benchmark for many years to come.

The Settings we use for benchmarking Crysis

 

 

Even at a low resolution, Crysis is still limited heavily by the GPU. Here we see the GTX 470 has no issue playing the game at a good clip, and the best part is it doesn’t dip below 30 FPS, so users should experience rock solid game play.

When we increase the resolution we see that the 470 is just a shade behind the CrossFire 5770’s again.

The 470 looses a bit of ground to the 5770 CrossFire here, but this is probably because of the higher bandwidth that a double-card setup produces.

CRYSIS WARHEAD

 Crysis Warhead is the much anticipated standalone exansion to Crysis, featuring an updated CryENGINE™ 2 with better optimization. It was one of the most anticipated titles of 2008.

The Settings we use for benchmarking Warhead

The 470 takes a lead here over the CrossFire 5770’s.

The 470 is barely able to hold back the 5770 CrossFire in average FPS, but it posts up a decently higher minimum FPS.

The CrossFire 5770’s beat out the 470, but only by a slim margin. In fact, the 470 still produces a higher minimum frame rate.

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2, released in October 2008 by Ubisoft, was one of the most anticipated titles of the year. It’s an engaging state-of-the-art First Person Shooter set in an un-named African country. Caught between two rival factions, you’re sent to take out “The Jackal”. Far Cry 2 ships with a full featured benchmark utility and it is one of the most well designed, well thought out game benchmarks we’ve ever seen. One big difference between this benchmark and others is that it leaves the game’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) running while the benchmark is being performed.

 

 The Settings we use for benchmarking FarCry 2

Right from the start we see the 470 take the lead over CrossFire 5770’s. However the 5770’s did manage to put up a better minimum frame rate.

When the resolution increases, we see the 470 loose quite a bit of ground in average FPS, but it gains on the 5770’s in the minimum FPS category.

When we get to the final resolution, we see that the 470 is no longer able to match the 5770 CrossFire, merely staying closely behind.

HawX

The story begins in the year 2012. As the era of the nation–state draws quickly to a close, the rules of warfare evolve even more rapidly. More and more nations become increasingly dependent on private military companies (PMCs), elite mercenaries with a lax view of the law. The Reykjavik Accords further legitimize their existence by authorizing their right to serve in every aspect of military operations. While the benefits of such PMCs are apparent, growing concerns surrounding giving them too much power begin to mount.

Tom Clancy‘s HAWX is the first air combat game set in the world–renowned Tom Clancy‘s video game universe. Cutting–edge technology, devastating firepower, and intense dogfights bestow this new title a deserving place in the prestigious Tom Clancy franchise. Soon, flying at Mach 3 becomes a right, not a privilege.

The Settings we use for benchmarking HawX

HAWX is one of the most unpredictable gaming benchmarks we have used. Our chart looks a lot like scrambled eggs, with the 5970 losing to the 5770’s CrossFire, and the 470 taking the lead.

We see a similar picture to what we saw at lower resolution.

The 5970 is finally able to match the 5770 CrossFire here, but the 470 outperforms all.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is the latest addition to the popular Resident Evil franchise. Set in Africa, you play as Chris Redfeild who is part of the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). You are sent to capture Ricardo Irving who is trying to bring a bio-organic weapon to the black market. However you quickly unravel something bigger…

The settings we used in Resident Evil 5

The 470 takes a decisive lead over the 5770 CrossFire here.

The 470 again comes out on top, however it does loose a little bit of ground to the 5770 CrossFire.

Though the 470 keeps loosing ground to the 5770 CrossFire, it still manages to hold it off at the highest resolution.

Grand Theft Auto 4

Grand Theft Auto 4 is the latest edition to the GTA franchise. The game takes you back to Liberty to play as Niko Bellic. Niko has come from an unnamed European country to “live the dream” with his cousin. He soon finds out that his cousin has been lying to him, and he must do odd jobs for big name criminals as well as high ranking officials just to stay alive.

The settings we used in GTA4

Grand Theft Auto 4 is one of the games that don’t seem to go very high over 60 GPS.

We see the same exact results here as with the lower resolution.

We really wish the GTA 4 engine would yield higher FPS, but at least it is able to constantly output 60 FPS, which keeps the action smooth.

Conclusion

The Gigabyte GTX470 Super Overclock is a very powerful card, as shown by our testing. With the ability to compete with a CrossFire 5770 system, this card packs a considerable punch. Unless users decide to go for high end models, however, the CrossFire 5770 setup costs a considerable amount less. Conversely, the single 470 setup eliminates the headache caused by CrossFire errors, and a single card also takes up less room in a case.

Unfortunately, Gigabyte does not back any of their cards with a warranty. This shows a lack of confidence in their cards, but we have not had too many issues with Gigabyte cards yet. Nonetheless, the high temperatures reached by the Fermi cards makes us wish that Gigabyte would include a warranty. Our main complaint with this card is that DX11 is barely used, and for the same price users can buy an AMD/ATI card and have better performance in everything but DX11 games.

OUR VERDICT: Gigabyte GTX 470 Super Overclock

Performance 7.5 Value 6.5 Quality 8 Features 8 Innovation 7 We are using an addition to our scoring system to provide additional feedback beyond a flat score. Please note that the final score isn’t an aggregate average of the rating system. Total 6.5 Performance in DX11 Aftermarket Cooler Overclocked  CrossFire system is cheaper DX11 is not used very much

Summary: The Gigabyte GTX 470 Super Overclock is a well-performing card, especially in DX11 applications. Its only downfall is the cost compared to a CrossFire or SLI setup. DX11 just doesn’t have enough support to justify buying this card over a CrossFire/SLI setup.

 

Palit GeForce GTX 470 — better than the benchmark / Graphics cards

Every year the competition in the graphics accelerator market becomes more and more fierce. In order for the buyer to choose a product manufactured under a particular brand, he must meet a number of requirements, among which, in addition to reliability and price, there are other factors that determine the choice. The purchase of individual components has recently become the lot of advanced users and enthusiasts who constantly follow the latest, know their technical characteristics and understand how one video card differs from another. First of all, such buyers turn their attention to the increased frequencies of the GPU and video memory, the efficiency of the cooling system and the improved design of the printed circuit board.

Increasing the operating frequencies of a video card can be provided by almost any manufacturer, there are no problems with installing a high-quality cooling system either, but not everyone can recycle a printed circuit board so that it also makes sense. Palit is well known among enthusiasts and has repeatedly pleased with well-overclocked video cards. Today we will talk about the Palit GeForce GTX 470 accelerator, made on the basis of Palit’s own PCB. Let’s see how the modifications affected the consumer characteristics of the product.

Departure from the reference design does not always entail a change in the operating frequencies of the video card. In this case, the Palit GeForce GTX 470 frequencies are no different from those for the reference GeForce GTX 470 accelerator and are 607/1215/3348 MHz for the graphics core, shader domain and video memory, respectively. The number of GPU functional blocks and the memory subsystem have also not changed, so in the nominal mode there will be no difference in performance with regular versions of the GeForce GTX 470. However, the non-standard cooling system and the redesigned PCB design of the Palit GeForce GTX 470 may well affect the operating temperature and overclocking potential of the video card, which we will check today.

You can learn more about the technical characteristics of the GeForce GTX 470 in our previous review, but let’s move on to the Palit GeForce GTX 470.

mechanical influences. Fortunately, Palit designers have abandoned the use of a space frog image on the front of the packaging, as was the case with younger models of accelerators. The design of the box is quite strict, all the features of the video card are clearly highlighted and the potential buyer will not lose sight of them.

Opening the box. Immediately under the cardboard cover is a soft foam pad that covers the compartment with the video card, packed in an antistatic bag.

The Palit GeForce GTX 470 kit does not differ in special richness, in addition to the video card, it contains:

• brief installation instructions
• two discs (with drivers, electronic manual and NVIDIA demos)
• DVI-I/D-Sub adapter
• power adapter from two Molex connectors to 6-pin PCI-Ex

Of course, we would like to see at least some bonuses with a product of this class, but on the other hand, the manufacturer has equipped the Palit GeForce GTX 470 with everything necessary for a successful start, and this is the most important thing.

So, here is the video card Palit GeForce GTX 470. It is obvious that we are not facing a standard product, but a significantly revised solution compared to the standard. First of all, the cooling system attracts attention, which is very different from the standard GeForce GTX 470 cooler. We will talk more about the Palit GeForce GTX 470 cooling system a little later, but for now let’s dwell on one more feature of this video card.

Output panel of the GeForce GTX 470 reference version on the example of the video card Zotac

Palit GeForce GTX 470 output panel

Palit GeForce GTX 470 output panel contains not three, but four video outputs: two DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort, while the reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 has only three — 2 DVI-D and 1 mini-HDMI. Please note that without activating SLI, only two connectors can be used at the same time to connect output devices.

To meet the power needs of the Palit GeForce GTX 470 accelerator, you will need to connect two 6-pin PCI-Ex power connectors.

Remove the cooling system. Note that both CO fans are connected to the same connector located on the very edge of the board.

Video memory, power subsystem elements and other components are in contact with the heatsink base through special thermal pads. To protect against short circuits, a part of the radiator base is covered with a special protective film made of hard plastic.

The protective cover of the graphics chip contacts the copper core through a layer of rather thick thermal paste. Note that the video card was disassembled after testing, that is, all GPU temperature measurements were made with “native” thermal paste.

To evenly distribute heat over the entire area of ​​the aluminum radiator, three heat pipes are provided in the design of the cooling system. In turn, heat is removed from the radiator fins by means of two Power Logic PLA08015B12HH fans fixed on the CO plastic casing. The design looks very good, but the effectiveness of this cooling system and its noise characteristics can only be judged after practical tests.

Palit GeForce GTX 470

reference GeForce GTX 470 on the example of the video card Zotac

Let’s move on to the inspection of the printed circuit board. The photo above shows the Palit GeForce GTX 470 graphics card and its equivalent, based on the reference design developed by NVIDIA engineers. Of course, even with the naked eye, differences in wiring are visible. The most important thing that Palit engineers managed to achieve was to reduce the length of the printed circuit board. If the reference sample is about 24 cm long, which in itself is not much, then the Palit board has become shorter by almost 1.5 cm. In some cases, even this reduction in PCB size may be enough to successfully fit the Palit GeForce GTX 470 inside not very spacious system unit.

The GPU power subsystem is 4-phase and is controlled by the ON Semiconductor NCP5392 controller.

The video memory power is controlled by the Richtek RT9259 chip.

The total amount of video memory installed on board the Palit GeForce GTX 470 is 1280 MB. The memory access bus, as expected from the GeForce GTX 470, is 320-bit. The memory chips are manufactured by Samsung and are marked K4G10325FE-HC05. The nominal frequency for these memory chips is 4 GHz QDR, however, on the Palit GeForce GTX 470, as well as on the reference version of the GeForce GTX 470, the memory operates at a frequency of 3348 MHz.

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Practical tests

The Palit GeForce GTX 470 video card was tested with the following configuration:

CPU	Intel Core i7 870 @ 4.0 GHz (200×19)
Cooling system	GlacialTech F101 + 2x120mm cooler
Motherboard	ASUS Maximus III Extreme
RAM	DDR3 Super Talent 2×2 GB @ 1890MHz @ 9-9-9-24
Power supply	IKONIK Vulcan 1200W
Hard disk	Samsung SpinPoint 750 GB
Housing	Cooler Master Test Bench 1. 0
Operating system	Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Driver version for AMD cards	Catalyst 10.6
Driver version for NVIDIA cards	ForceWare 257.21

Tested with the following applications:

3D Mark Vantage	Performance, High, Extreme Presets
Battleforge DX 10	Maximum detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Maximum detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
Colin McRae DiRT 2DX 11	Ultra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Ultra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
Crysis v 1. 2 x64 DX 10	Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Very high detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
Just Cause 2DX 10	Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Very high detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF.
Alien versus Predator DX 11 Benchmark	Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Very high detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
FarCry 2 DirectX 10 benchmark	Ultra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Ultra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF

The following video cards took part in testing:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 (648/1476/2484)

GeForce GTX 480 (700/1400/3696)

Palit GeForce GTX 470 (607/1215/3348)

Radeon HD 5850 (725/4000)

Radeon HD 5870 (850/4800)

Since the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 is the only non-DirectX 11 GPU in our review, Alien versus Predator and DiRT 2’s DX11 mode do not have graphs showing test results for this graphics card. Check out the GeForce GTX 285 results in DiRT 2 DX9 here.

First, let’s find out how the Palit GeForce GTX 470 cooling system copes with the hot temper of the GF100 video chip.

Tests show that the cooler installed on the Palit GeForce GTX 470 cools the GPU only slightly better than NVIDIA’s reference cooling system. Agree, the temperature difference of 1-2 degrees in favor of the Palit solution can hardly be called significant. However, even at maximum load, the Palit GeForce GTX 470 cooling system keeps the GPU temperature within safe limits.

As for the noise level, the situation is as follows. When idle, the Palit GeForce GTX 470 cooler is fairly quiet and does not stand out from the general noise generated by the rest of the system components. When testing in games, although noise stands out, it does not greatly affect the comfort of working on a PC, but the maximum load in FurMark makes the fan blades installed on the Palit GeForce GTX 470 rotate at full speed, while the noise emitted by the impeller begins to annoy.

Pay attention to the fact that AMD solutions are still colder than their NVIDIA-made competitors, despite the use of non-standard air coolers by the Californian partners.

If you look at the system’s power consumption, then here AMD solutions are ahead, and by a significant margin. The load generated by the FurMark utility causes a system with a Palit GeForce GTX 470 graphics card to consume slightly more power than a similar system with a reference GeForce GTX 470 graphics card.

Obviously, in terms of power consumption, the GeForce GTX 470 video card does not look the best against the background of AMD solutions, but this is not Palit’s fault, rather it is NVIDIA’s problem, which is not yet able to make its flagship video chips cooler and more economical.

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Overclocking

Whenever we get a video card with a non-standard cooling system, and even made on the original printed circuit board, we expect a better overclocking potential from it compared to the reference solutions. Did the Palit GeForce GTX 470 that came to us for testing justify the overclocker’s hopes placed on it? Let’s check.

To overclock the Palit GeForce GTX 470, we used the MSI Afterburner utility, which provides not only the ability to change the clock frequencies of the accelerator, but also allows you to control the fan speed, as well as monitor all the parameters of the video card. We used the FurMark 1.8.5 utility to test stability. As a result of our manipulations, the frequencies at which the video card withstood a half-hour stress test amounted to 750 MHz for the graphics core, 1500 MHz for the shader domain and 3800 MHz for the video memory. Well, quite a decent result.

It would seem that our hopes were justified, but after overclocking the accelerator suddenly refused to pass the AvP DX11 Benchmark test. During the launch of AvP DX 11 Benchmark, artifacts were observed, and after a temporary freeze, the system reset the core and video memory frequencies to nominal values. Most likely, when testing AvP at high resolutions with activated tessellation, full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, a load is created that is unattainable when warmed up by the FurMark utility. As a result, we had to reduce the operating frequencies of the core, shader domain and video memory to 700/1400/3560 MHz, respectively. And this result is already quite comparable with the performance of the reference versions of the GeForce GTX 470. Nevertheless, those overclockers who use air cooling systems in their experiments will be able to pass the tests they need at maximum frequencies.

⇡#Testing

Testing with the Performance profile in 3DMark Vantage shows a slight advantage of the Radeon HD 5850 over the non-overclocked Palit GeForce GTX 470 video card, but this is not for long. Moving to heavier graphics settings makes the Radeon HD 5850 lose the palm in this test of Palit’s GeForce GTX 470.

The increase in clock frequencies did not allow the Palit GeForce GTX 470 to catch up with the Radeon HD 5870, which, in turn, is inferior to the leader of the race — the GeForce GTX 480.

In Battleforge, the Palit GeForce GTX 470 is faster than the Radeon HD 5850, but this is not enough to successfully compete with the Radeon HD 5870. Moreover, even overclocking does not allow Palit’s brainchild to compete on equal terms with AMD’s single-chip flagship, not to mention the GeForce GTX 480 video card, which has a larger number of functional units and a wider memory bus.

Palit GeForce GTX 470 position in relation to Radeon HD 5850 does not change in DiRT 2. The Palit GeForce GTX 470 accelerator is still ahead in most cases. Interestingly, the DiRT 2 engine reacted so positively to overclocking the Palit GeForce GTX 470 that at higher frequencies, the brainchild of Palit managed to overtake the AMD Radeon HD 5870, although the older brother, the GeForce GTX 480 video card, still cannot be reached.

Without the use of full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the GeForce GTX 470 accelerator is, though slightly, but still faster than the Radeon HD 5850. However, the inclusion of AA and AF allows the brainchild of AMD to recoup, although this gap cannot be called serious.

Overclocking the Palit GeForce GTX 470 does not allow it to catch up with the Radeon HD 5870, which actively resists the onslaught of the GeForce GTX 480, though not always successfully.

Judging by the results obtained, the Just Cause 2 engine has warm feelings for AMD video chips. In this game, the Radeon HD 5850 easily bypasses the non-overclocked Palit GeForce GTX 470, and also manages to compete on equal terms with the accelerated GeForce GTX 470 from Palit. Showdowns in the higher spheres also ended in favor of the “reds” — the Radeon HD 5870 turned out to be faster than the GeForce GTX 480.

But in FarCry 2 it’s the opposite. Palit GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 are the absolute leaders in this game. Moreover, the main character of our today’s review, the Palit GeForce GTX 470 accelerator, bypassed the Radeon HD 5870 in all modes, even without overclocking!

Before commenting on the AvP DX11 Benchmark results, let’s recap what we talked about a couple of months ago. After the release of the GeForce GTX 480, NVIDIA representatives have repeatedly made statements that their new video cards based on the GF100 (Fermi) chip are optimized to work with the most complex scenes that use tessellation. At that time, this could only be verified using the Unigine Heaven 2.0 synthetic test package, which allowed you to adjust the level of tessellation and really gave preference to products based on Fermi in the most difficult modes. However, there were no games at our disposal where we could test how good the GF100 chip architecture is at handling complex scenes while using full-screen anti-aliasing and tessellation. Now there is such an opportunity.

The AvP DX11 Benchmark test package allows you to evaluate how the game Alien versus Predator will work with both tessellation and full-screen anti-aliasing enabled. So what do the results say? If you do not use AA / AF, coupled with maximum texture detail and tessellation, then the AMD Radeon HD 5850 easily bypasses the non-overclocked Palit GeForce GTX 470 accelerator and keeps on par with its overclocked counterpart. However, as soon as we activate full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the Radeon HD 5850 loses its lead and even the non-overclocked GeForce GTX 470 accelerator from Palit, which in such modes came close in terms of performance to the Radeon HD 5870.

⇡#

Conclusions

All in all, Palit has launched a rather interesting product on the market, which in some respects turns out to be slightly better than NVIDIA’s reference solution. Our testing showed that the Palit GeForce GTX 470 video card in most cases is faster than the Radeon HD 5850 accelerator. Yes, the results obtained will certainly please the owners of NVIDIA video cards playing in super-heavy modes, however, it is too early to transfer these indicators to all games without exception. Let’s wait for new releases and conduct new tests, and only then it will be possible to more accurately characterize the trends in the world of computer games.

Studying and testing overclocking on the radeon rx 6900 xt

BIOS

As high-level solutions based on NVIDIA chipsets are supposed to be, the motherboards reviewed today have wide possibilities for fine-tuning the system. In addition to the ability to increase the system bus frequency to 625 MHz and the main voltages, in the BIOS Setup of the XFX MB-N780-ISH9 board, you can control the number of active processor cores, as well as a parameter such as GTLVREF for each core, which allows you to compensate for voltage drops when the processor is heavily loaded . The level of adjustable voltages is not so high and is within reasonable limits, which is unlikely to suit hardcore benchers. Naturally, the unique ability to change the memory frequency regardless of the FSB frequency (Unlinked mode), which is inherent in solutions based on chipsets from the Californian company, is also present in this motherboard model. If necessary, you can select the «synchronous» mode of operation of the memory modules (Linked mode), when the memory and FSB frequencies are tied to each other. The number of timing settings is at the proper level, it is also possible to set the Command Rate 1T, which increases the speed of the memory, but reduces its frequency potential. Recall that in Intel chipsets, until recently, this parameter was tightly locked at 2T.

ASUS Striker II Formula is in no way inferior to the reference solution, and even surpasses it. So, the FSB frequency can be increased to an unrealistic 800 MHz, the voltage settings vary widely (maximum 2.4 V for the processor and 2.78 V for the memory!), and the GTL_REF parameter (similar to GTLVREF) can be configured both for the processor and both for chipset and memory. It is possible to asynchronously change the memory frequency, and the number of variable timings is 15. The monitoring section in the BIOS allows you to track all the necessary system parameters and set the protection threshold for overheating of the north or south bridges (70-90°). For beginner overclockers, there are presets that allow you to overclock your existing processor up to 20% of the nominal frequency.

Model	XFX MB-N780-ISH9	ASUS Striker II Formula
BIOS
BIOS type	Phoenix Award	Phoenix Award
Ability to start the motherboard if the BIOS is damaged	—	—
Monitoring and control of cooling systems
Number of controlled power lines	8	11
Number of cooling system lines monitored (temperature)	3	7
Number of controlled cooling system lines (cooler speed)	5	8
Cooler speed versus temperature system	+	+
Ability to shutdown the system in case of overheating	—	+
Overtemperature alarm	—	+
Cooler failure alarm	—	—
Optional	—	—
Overclocking options
Changing the processor multiplier (does it really work)	Yes, only works on processors with an unlocked multiplier	Yes, only works on processors with an unlocked multiplier
Changing frequencies (indicate within what limits and in what steps)
Front tire	400 to 2500 MHz in 1 MHz steps	533 to 3200 MHz in 1 MHz steps
Bus frequencies	PCI Express: 100 to 200 MHz in 1 MHz increments	SPP<->MPC Ref Clock: 200 to 500 MHz in 2 MHz steps PCI Express x16(1,2): 100 to 200 MHz in 1 MHz steps
Memory frequency (when using test modules)	400 to 1400 MHz in 1 MHz steps	400 to 2600 MHz in 1 MHz steps
Change in food levels (indicate to what extent and in what increments)
To CPU	0. 50000 to 1.80000 V in steps of 0.0625 V	1.10000 to 2.40000 V in steps of 0.0625 V
To FSB, PCI-Express or others	CPU FSB: 1.2 to 1.5V in 0.1V steps HT SPP<->MCP: 1.20 to 1.55V in 0.05 steps BMCP Auxiliary: 1.50 to 1.70 V in steps of 0.10 V	1.2V HT: 1.20 to 1.95V in 0.05V steps CPU VTT: 1.20 to 2.46V in 0.02V steps CPU PLL: 1.50 to 3.00V in steps 0.02 V Bridge Core: 1.20 to 1.55 V in 0.05 V steps
For memory modules	1.800 to 2.500 V in 0.025 V steps	1.50 to 2.78 V in 0.02 V steps
At NorthBridge (northbridge)	1.500 to 1.750 V in 0.025 V steps	1.25 to 1.91 V in 0.02 V steps
At SouthBridge (southbridge)	1.30 to 1.55 V in 0.05 V steps	1.50 to 1.85 V in 0.05 V steps
Number of changeable memory times	10	12
Enumeration of variable memory time delays	tCL, TRCD, TRP, tRAS, tRRD, TRC, TWR, TWTR, TREF, CMD	tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS, CMD, tRRD, tRC, tWR, tWTR, tREF, tRD, tRFC
Dynamic overclocking capability	—	—

GTX 470 Overview

The reference model of the video card has a turbo design: a closed case with a length of 24. 1 centimeters with a single fan. The card occupies one PCIe x16 slot. A single fan blows air through the video adapter case and leads directly out of the system unit, however, depending on different manufacturers, the cooling system may vary.

So, if in the reference model there are five heat pipes inside, then in the version from Palit there are two fans and a metal plate with an aluminum radiator for heat dissipation.

The GTX 470 originally had a suggested price of $349, making it both powerful and relatively affordable. Now the cost of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 470 video card in rubles can be only a few thousand. Currently the card is not produced, it can only be found through private announcements.

What power supply is needed for the GTX 470

According to the manufacturer, the video card is designed for a power consumption of 215 watts. However, since peak loads can significantly exceed this value, the recommended power supply is 550W.

With an average computer configuration, this is sufficient. If several video cards are used in a bundle or other productive components, the power of the PSU can be increased in proportion to their requirements. Often enough 700 watts.

How to overclock the Nvidia Geforce GTX 470

To increase the performance in games and applications, you can overclock the GTX 470. For this, the MSI Afterburner utility program is suitable.

Overclocking of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 470 video card is done by raising the voltage and frequency of the shaders. It is their frequency in the video card that is the main one. By raising the voltage to 1 Volt in the reference version of the device, it is possible to achieve an increase in the core frequency up to 763/1525 MHz. Stability is maintained at a frequency of 1550 MHz — for this you need to raise the voltage to 1.1 watts. The memory is overclocked to 3620 MHz.

The video card from Palit maintains stability when the core runs at 860 MHz. The shader domain frequency is 1720 MHz, while the memory frequency is 965 (3860) MHz

It’s still important to keep an eye on the cooling and if necessary forcefully increase the fan speed. The procedure may be accompanied by a noticeable increase in noise levels.

The overall performance gain when overclocked can rise up to 27%, which makes it possible to mine on the GTX 470. On average, the mining performance of this card reaches 97 mhash/s when working with bitcoin.

Increased power limits

Initially, there was not even a choice to stay within the factory limits or not — of course, we will increase them. To do this, we will use the More Power tool application — an extremely useful utility, but within the latest generation of Radeons, it can only help with an increase in available power consumption and current. Other values ​​important for overclocking cannot be changed without physical intervention. Let’s set 360 W as a limit on the chip, and increase the allowable current not so much — up to 360 A.

Against the background of the results obtained above, as expected, it was necessary to make a correction to the values ​​of the maximum and minimum core frequencies: first, by 50 MHz minus, and during further testing, they had to be lowered by another 50 MHz.

In the case of a high load on an unheated card, the boost algorithm most likely climbed along the frequency voltage curve into the instability zone, and in the case of operating temperatures, these values ​​were no longer included in the selection of possible ones and the tests passed without errors. As an additional option, in comparison, there will be the same overclocking, but with the fan speed fixed at maximum.

In the Time Spy Extreme stress test, for the first three minutes, both right options performed similarly in terms of frequencies and FPS, but after that the mark of 110 degrees was reached by the Hot Spot of the video chip and the effective frequency began to decrease.

Without the maximum fan speed of 400 W on the chip, it was expectedly too much for the reference cooling system. Naturally, 3000 rpm is no longer very suitable for constant use, but it was interesting to look at the behavior in such conditions.

In the resource-intensive Resident Evil Village, the temperature effect is slightly less pronounced, but still noticeable in the final result. Using such a high limit on an ongoing basis, and even more so in a closed case, does not look safe.

On the other hand, this game really stands out for its ability to use all available power consumption.

In the same Watch Dogs: Legion, the situation looks much more acceptable, but the difference between the maximum fan and car speeds is only visible in temperatures, it no longer affects the FPS result.

In most games, the picture will be similar. Tests are located in the final block.

Testing in games

At the time of release, the video card showed good results in games. With a screen resolution of 1920×1200, the number of frames per second in the then popular projects was:

• James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game — 50-75 fps;
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 — 56-73 fps;
• Crysis: Warhead — 22-36 fps;
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat — 28-55 fps.

Performance is affected by settings, overclocking enabled or disabled, and cooling efficiency. Modern games are still supported by the GTX 470, however, for a comfortable game, you may need to significantly lower the graphics settings, down to the minimum values.

Test in games Geforce GTX 470 passes much more confidently when two video cards are connected in SLI. In The Witcher 3, fps stays at 30-35, in Hitman — 20-30 fps, in Battlefield — 50-70 fps, in Watch Dogs — 37-47 fps.

Overclocking and temperatures

There have been long and persistent rumors on the Internet that a full-fledged GK110 will overclock well. The fact is that previous NVIDIA cards usually showed mediocre overclocking, without outstanding results until a serious change in cooling. We’ll test overclocking the GTX 780 Ti with stock cooling and see if it surprises us.

Characteristics NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti

So, the stock clock frequency of the video processor is 875 MHz. In self-acceleration mode, we are promised up to 928 MHz

But NVIDIA paid special attention to GPU BOOST 2. 0 technology. Let’s check how the clock speed of the video processor actually is under load

The load was created by the 3DMark 13 benchmark.

NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti performance

The clock speed was at around 1020 MHz all the time. It is worth noting that this is a very high-quality and serious benchmark that loads the map completely and does not let it relax. Especially since we ran it in Extreme mode. Therefore, here we got exactly what the card really can do, without the influence of the crooked code of some toy.

This result is good news, especially considering that this is a stock cooling system. And the clock frequency of new video processors in auto-overclocking also depends on temperature. Speaking of temperature. We got the maximum value of 78 degrees, which is very good.

We will overclock the video processor at the standard voltage without making any changes to the operation of the entire device as a whole.

Overclocked NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti specifications

The video processor was able to operate stably at 1126 MHz. This is a very good indicator. Relative to the stock 875 MHz, we received an increase of 251 MHz. This is indeed a very good result, especially considering stock cooling and native voltage. Let’s see what the real frequency is under load. Video memory overclocked to 8000 MHz. This is also a very high figure.

NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti Overclocked Performance

Actual clock speed was solid at 1270 MHz. What can I say, this is a great result. Frankly, we expected to get no more than 1100-1150 MHz. NVIDIA has really released a great GPU. If you change the cooling system to a more efficient one and increase the voltage on the video processor, the result can exceed all expectations. The temperature at the same time increased only to 81 degrees.

As for the temperature in the popular FurMark utility, we got the following results. Under load at nominal value, the card warmed up to 84 degrees, which is only 1 degree more than NVIDIA promised.

Warming up NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti

Under load, we got the same 84 degrees during overclocking. The fan speed increased from 59% to only 61%. Of course, the noise level has not changed, which is very nice. It should be noted that the card does not make any noise under load.

Overclocked NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti

GeForce ShadowPlay Beta

A new version of GeForce Experience 1.8 has become available on GeForce.com. In addition to new profiles, updated settings, and some other new features, GeForce Experience 1.8 includes the much-anticipated GeForce ShadowPlay gaming image capture tool.

A quick, free and easy tool, ShadowPlay is a new approach to gameplay recording powered by the NVENC H.264 hardware encoder built into the GeForce GTX 600 and 700 series GPUs. 10 to 20 minutes of play into a temporary hard disk buffer. If you’ve done something amazing, just press Alt + F10 to save that memorable moment to the right folder. To prevent clutter of video files on the hard drive, ShadowPlay saves the file only when hotkeys are pressed.

The saved footage can then be edited in popular editors such as Sony Vegas, Adobe Premier, the free Windows Movie Maker, or any other . mp4-compatible video editor, and immediately uploaded to YouTube. You can also upload the raw file to YouTube first and then edit it with the built-in tools. In future versions of GeForce Experience, ShadowPlay will be integrated with the Twitch.tv online service, which will allow ShadowPlay users to send recorded files directly to Twitch.

ShadowPlay uses the H.264 hardware encoder built into the GeForce GTX 600 and 700 series graphics cards to record at 1920×1080 at 60 fps. All games using DirectX 9 or later versions of this interface are supported. Compared to software solutions that use CPU resources to record gameplay, GPU hardware encoding reduces performance by only 5-10% when recording videos of maximum quality at a bit rate of 50 Mbps. With automatic H.264 encoding, compression and MP4 recording, ShadowPlay prevents huge multi-gigabyte files from cluttering up your hard drive.

If you want to record your entire game session, select manual mode using the Alt + F9 key combination — in this mode, the tool works similarly to traditional gameplay recording applications. In the case of Windows 7, due to the nature of the OS, the file size is limited to 4GB, but in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, the file size is limited only by the availability of hard disk space, so you can easily create hours of video.

Immediately after the release of the beta version, NVIDIA released an update that includes the following changes/additions:

• Win7 removes the 3.8 GB file size limit.
• Record game video up to 20 minutes in Shadow mode.
• Unlimited manual recording.
• When a file reaches 3.8 GB, ShadowPlay creates new files.
• Record video without rescaling up to 1080p. At higher resolutions, the aspect ratio is preserved.
• Added microphone recording.
• Video recording at 60 fps instead of 62 fps.
• Image judder of recorded video has been reduced.

The utility looks very interesting. In the future, we will definitely devote a separate text to its study.

Power Consumption, Temperatures, Noise and Overclocking

In power consumption measurements, we found that MSI’s N470GTX core voltage differed by 0. 0625 volts from that of Nvidia’s reference card, the largest difference we’ve ever seen when comparing voltages similar video cards.

Voltage at the core of video cards of the GeForce GTX 400 family
Reference GTX 480	Reference GTX 470	MSI N470GTX	Reference GTX 460 768MB	Reference GTX 460 1GB
0.987 volts	0.9625 volts	1.025 volts	0.987 volts	1.025 volts

On the slides above you can see the temperatures of the card under load. By itself, the audibility of the operation of the cooling system grows in parallel with the increase in the temperature of the graphics core of the video card.

According to our data, MSI’s version of the GTX470 consumes 7 watts more than the reference sample running at the same frequencies in Crysis. And when it comes to the “hairy donut” (Furmark), the difference becomes much more obvious — the MSI card starts eating 37 watts more electricity than the usual GTX470! We must remember, however, that in regular games there will be no such difference and we will most likely see the same picture as in Crysis.

Here, in the noise test, we observe a direct dependence on the warming up of the card and the speed of rotation of the «turbine» of the N470GTX cooling system. In Furmark, the card yells 3.7 decibels louder than the reference card. Of course, it is worth mentioning that Furmark warms up the video card more than any game and the noise level in it and in toys is incomparable (in Furmark the card is louder).

⇡ Test conditions

Test bench configuration:

CPU	Intel Core i7 870 @ 4.0 GHz (200×19)
Cooling system	GlacialTech F101 + 2 x 120mm coolers
Motherboard	ASUS Maximus III Extreme
RAM	DDR3 Super Talent 2×2 GB @ 1890MHz @ 9-9-9-24
Power supply	IKONIK Vulcan 1200W
Hard disk	Samsung SpinPoint 750 GB
Housing	Cooler Master Test Bench 1. 0
Operating system	Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Driver version for AMD cards	Catalyst 10.6
Driver version for NVIDIA cards	ForceWare 257.21

Tested with the following applications:

3DMark Vantage	Performance, High, Extreme Presets
Battleforge DX10	Maximum detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Maximum detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
Colin McRae DiRT 2 DX 11
Crysis v 1.2 x64 DX 10
Just Cause 2 DX 10	Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
Alien versus Predator DX 11 Benchmark	Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AF Very fine detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF
FarCry 2 DirectX 10 benchmark	Ultra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 no AA/AFUltra detail, 1920×1200/ 1680×1050 4xAA/AF

Specifications Nvidia Geforce GTX 470

The 2010 graphics adapter is based on the GF100 core. The device includes 14 multiprocessors, 56 texturing units, five rasterization arrays, five 64-bit memory controllers.

In general, the characteristics of the GTX 470 look like this:

• 448 cores;
• frequency of raster/shader units 607/1215 MHz;
• texture fill 34 billion pixels per second;
• memory clock speed 1647 MHz;
• 1280 MB GDDR5 memory;
• bus width 320 bits;
• bandwidth 133.9 Gb/s;
• maximum resolution is 2048×1532 when the monitor is connected via VGA and 2560×1600 when connected via HDMI;
• PCIe 2.0 x16 motherboard connection interface.

Supports SLI technologies (connecting several cards in a bundle), NVIDIA PureVideo, PhysX, CUDA, DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, GeForce 3D Vision, Windows 7. Thanks to a bundle of two video cards, you can achieve more than 2 Gb of memory.

All processors on the market now work perfectly with this graphics adapter. For comfortable work, 4 GB of RAM is enough, but for modern games, the recommended minimum is 8 GB.

Power and strength! 6GB monster duo — Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP2 video card review / test! Edition in SLI mode

08/15/2011 19:00

Slayer Moon

Contents
Power and strength! 6GB monster duo — Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP2 video card review / test! Edition in SLI mode
Test bench configuration
Overclocking / temperature / power consumption of the video card Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP2! Edition
Game tests
Synthetic tests
conclusions

Test bench configuration

Let’s see on which PC such a powerful video card is being tested, and even in SLI.

• Processor – Intel Core i7 920 @ 4GHz
• Motherboard — ASUS Rampage III Extreme
• RAM — 6GB (3x2GB) OCZ Blade DDR3 1600MHz, timings 7-8-7-20 C1
• Power Supply — Antec High Current Pro 1200W
• Drives — GSkill Falcon 128GB & Hitachi 250GB
• CPU cooler — Prolimatech Super Mega (with a pair of Prolimatech Vortex 140mm fans)
• Chassis — Lian Li PC-P80
• Monitor — Dell 3007 WFP-HC

Appearance of all this disgrace:

Under the spoiler is a list of video cards that will take part in the tests

• Zotac GTX 580 3GB AMP2! + SLI — Forceware 275. 33
• GIGABYTE GTX570 1280MB ‘SOC’ Edition — Forceware 275.33
• Zotac GTX560 1GB AMP! Edition 950/4200MHz — Forceware 275.33
• SLI NVIDIA GTX560 1GB 950/4200MHz — Forceware 275.33
• HIS HD6970 2GB IceQ [email protected] 880/5500MHz — ATI Catalyst 11.5
• Lucid HydraLogix = HIS HD6970 2GB IceQ Mix & MSI nGTX580 3072MB Lightning Xtreme Edition @ stock
• MSI nGTX580 3072MB Lightning Xtreme Edition @832/4200MHz & 975/4400MHz overclocked — Forceware 275.33
• ASUS HD6990 @830/5000MHz & AWSUM enabled (pre-overclocked) 880/5500MHz & Further Overclock of 930/6000MHz — ATI Catalyst 11.5
• HIS HD6970 2048MB IceQ Turbo @ 900/5600MHz pre-overclocked & 1000/6000MHz overclocked — ATI Catalyst 11.5
• Gigabyte GTX560 1024MB @ 830/4008MHz & 841/5016MHz overclocked — Forceware 275.27
• MSI R6970 2048MB Lightning @ 940/5500MHz pre-overclocked & 1010/6000MHz overclocked — ATI Catalyst 11.4 (8.840.3.0)
• Inno3D GTX560Ti 1024MB @ 820/4008MHz & 950/4300MHz pre-overclocked — Forceware 266. 66
• Inno3D GTX570 1280MB @ 732/3800MHz, 800/4000MHz pre-overclocked & 901/4220MHz overclocked — Forceware 263.09
• ASUS GTX580 1536MB @ 782/4000MHz & 903/4220MHz overclocked — Forceware 262.99
• ASUS HD6970 2048MB @ 890/5500MHz & 949/5896MHz overclocked — ATI Catalyst 11.4 (8.840.3.0)

A rather hard-to-read list, but nothing can be done about it.

Reportedly using MSI Afterburner for overclocking.

Used games:

• Crysis Warhead
• Metro 2033
• Dirt 3
• Mafia II
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Far Cry 2
• Alien vs. Predator

Synthetic benchmarks:

• Futuremark 3DMark 11
• Unigine Heaven 2.5
• Tessmark 0.2.2
• Furmark 1.9.0

Temperature readings of the card, the level of its (their) noise and power consumption were measured using FurMark.

Before overclocking the card, we are given a look at the menu of the CD with Zotac software:

In addition to a bunch of different software, you can install a driver for a video card and PhysX 9 from useful0003

Particular attention is paid to the Firestorm utility, an analogue of MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision and other similar utilities. Her appearance is as follows:

As you can see, the design of the utility is not particularly sophisticated, but it is easy to use. In addition to changing frequencies and fan speeds, this software does not seem to be able to do anything; voltage on the core will have to be regulated by other means.

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How to update Nvidia Geforce GTX 470 drivers

To get the best performance from your video card, it is recommended to download the drivers for Nvidia Geforce GTX 470. You can do it on the official NVIDIA website. You need to go to the «Drivers» section and in the page that opens, select the version of the video card and your operating system, and then click on «Search». Next, a page with the latest version of the driver will open, all that remains is to download it and install it on your computer.

For Windows 10

File size: ~400.00 MBDriver version: 391.35 (WHQL) dated 03/27/2018; Language: Russian Operating system: Windows 10 32/64-bit, Windows 7 32/64-bit, Windows 8.1 32/64 -bit, Windows 8 32/64-bit, Windows Vista

Overclocking

Using the Aftrerburner software, we managed to raise the voltage on the N470GTX core to 1.0875 volts, which is 0.0625 volts higher than the standard voltage. If good cooling is organized in the PC case, then the video card will not change its temperature regime much with such manipulation of the voltage.

	Default frequencies	Maximum acceleration	Voltage at the core of the video card by default	The voltage on the core of the video card, set for overclocking
MSI N470GTX	675MHz	790MHz	1. 025 volts	1.087 volts

By raising the voltage to 1.0875 volts, we managed to drive the card through the core up to 790 MHz (shaders rose synchronously to 1580 MHz), which gave us a 30% increase in the frequency of this very core of the card. Perhaps if you raise the voltage higher (and this is not necessary on stock cooling), you could drive the card over 800 MHz, but at 1.0875 volts at frequencies above 790MHz, the card started to artifact.

Overclocking is not able to lift the GTX470 to the heights of the GTX480, however, it is quite capable of bringing it closer to this kind of «Olympus». There were also cases when the overclocked 470 won over the formidable rival Radeon 5870, such a situation has never happened to the GTX470 without overclocking.

Of course, you have to pay for overclocking with a higher temperature of the graphics core of the card and, accordingly, a higher noise level from the cooling system. Imagine that the overclocked N470GTX card is slightly inferior to the 480 in terms of performance, but dominates it in terms of noise, not the most pleasant situation, you know. Not everyone can handle the noise of a GTX470 CO spinning at 100% RPM, there has never been such a noisy sample in our entire test set of video cards.

The choice here is either to use the N470GTX at standard frequencies and play comfortably, albeit with a slightly lower FPS than in overclocking. Or play tricks with voltage and frequencies (winning a couple of FPS) and get PC noise in your room, comparable in volume to a running hair dryer.

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Conclusion

However, such conclusions are not new at all, and even more so the final excellent results with liquid cooling were expected from the very beginning. The laws of physics remained impregnable: the better the cooling, the better the result.

One can only once again express the common truth that the most wonderful side of liquid cooling is the ability to include a video card in the circuit, the most voracious element of a gaming computer, and not only a gaming one too.

In addition, the removal of more of the heat generated by it outside the case automatically improves the temperature regime of all elements inside.

That’s all, see you soon!

Results

The flagship of the GeForce GTX 700 series of discrete video cards according to ASUS turned out to be very successful. ASUS GTX780 DirectCU II OC is based on the original PCB with enhanced power regulator subsystem. The exclusive version of the cooler copes with the cooling of the GK110 much better than the reference model. At the same time, high-quality components allow you to count on a serious afterburner. In our opinion, the manufacturer was somewhat modest, indicating the basic frequencies for this adapter. The potential of the hardware platform in this case is ready for much greater gaming loads. Whoever has a desire will be able to verify this on their own experience. We checked, and as a result — «Editor’s Choice: Best Quality».

GeForce GTX 780 is not cheap, besides, the recommended price of the original version from ASUS is higher than that of the reference models (~$750). One thing, for owners of monitors of impressive diagonals, who do not intend to give up the maximum graphics quality due to high resolution, the cost of a video card with a GK110 chip will be justified. In addition, minimal overclocking makes it easy to overtake the GeForce GTX TITAN, and the ability to have the fastest single-chip video card is also worth something.

+ Efficient Dual-Slot DirectCu II Cooling System

+ High Performance

+ 3 GB of Memory

+ Very Good Overclocking Potential

— Expensive

Test Device Provided by ASUS www.asus.ua

ASUS GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5Notify when available Type Video card GPU GK110 Memory size, MB 3072 Memory type GDDR5 Interface PCI Express 3.0 Cooling system active GPU operating frequencies, MHz 889-941 Memory frequencies, MHz 6008 Memory bus bit 384 Output connectors 2xDVI Dual-link (1xDVI-I and 1xDVI-D), 1xHDMI, 1xDisplay Port Dimensions, mm 287×147. 3×40.6 Low profile — Power supply 1×6-pin, 1×8-pin DirectX

support

DirectX 11.1 Miscellaneous support for NVIDIA PhysX, NVIDIA SLI, NVIDIA 3D Vision, NVIDIA Adaptive V-Sync, DirectCU II 9 cooling system0088

Pros:
Efficient dual-slot DirectCu II cooling system, high performance, 3 GB of memory, very good overclocking potential.

Cons:
High price.

Conclusion:
GeForce GTX 780 is not a cheap pleasure, besides, the recommended price of the original version from ASUS is higher than that of the reference models (~$750). One thing, for owners of monitors of impressive diagonals, who do not intend to give up the maximum graphics quality due to high resolution, the cost of a video card with a GK110 chip will be justified.

Specifications

support

Type	Video card
GPU	GeForce GTX 780
Memory, GB	3
Memory type	GDDR5
Interface	PCI Express 3. 0 x16
Cooling system	active
GPU operating frequencies, MHz	941
Memory frequencies, MHz	6008
Memory bus bit	384
Output connectors	2xDVI Dual-Link (1xDVI-I and 1xDVI-D), 1xHDMI, 1xDisplayPort
Dimensions, mm	287×147.3×40.6
Low profile	—
Power supply	1x6pin, 1x8pin
DirectX	DirectX 11.1
Miscellaneous	support for NVIDIA PhysX, NVIDIA SLI, NVIDIA 3D Vision, NVIDIA Adaptive V-Sync, DirectCU II cooling system

Conclusions

Despite a certain stagnation in NVIDIA regarding new developments, Californians still managed to release an alternative to high-level Intel solutions that supports the newfangled PCI Express 2. 0 interface and 45-nanometer processors of the Penryn family. Let this be achieved by a banal addition of one more chip and the release of updated revisions of old chipsets that make up the new nForce Intel Edition line. Thanks to the nForce 200 chip, 3-Way SLI will finally work in full-speed mode, which was so lacking in the nForce 680i SLI. The appearance of the ESA standard will simplify control over the system and its overclocking — it’s a pity that only the older chipset in the line received such an interesting feature. Everything seems to be fine, but the only thing missing is the official support for the 1600 MHz FSB, which can still be easily compensated by overclocking.

As for the XFX MB-N780-ISH9 board, unlike its predecessor, it looks more spectacular. And this applies to all reference solutions based on nForce 780i SLI. Extensive BIOS Setup options and good functionality make the board an excellent choice for enthusiasts and those who want to build powerful gaming systems with SLI support.

The ASUS Striker II Formula board, unlike the reference solutions, is based on its own design and has a more advanced cooling system and processor power subsystem. More BIOS options than XFX MB-N780-ISH9, especially for regulated voltages. And the delivery set is richer. But its cost is $100 higher, and whether it is worth it is up to you to decide.

The XFX MB-N780-ISH9 is awarded the Ferra Approved mark for good functionality and features, as well as a reasonable price for boards of this level.

Return to section:
Motherboards

Gainward GeForce GTX 470 GS review. Nanotechnology in the form of factory overclocking in action.

Introduction.
The products of the company Gainward have been familiar to our readers for a long time. Despite the fact that Palit products are often hidden under the Gainward brand, the products of the first company are more trusted by users and often cost a little less than Palit products. In today’s article, the Gainward GeForce GTX 470 Golden Sample series video card will be introduced.

Gainward’s Golden Sample series includes overclocked versions of video cards, usually with a modified cooling system of their own production. Practically similar characteristics in products under the Palit brand are occupied by the Sonic series, also known firsthand to our regular readers.
The video card presented in today’s review boasts a modified cooling system, the radiator of which is based on six millimeter heat pipes. Two 80 mm fans are responsible for cooling the fan, the frequency of which is regulated by the PWM controller. The video card has a good factory overclock, the advantage of which we will evaluate during testing.

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Complete set.

The video card comes in a black box. The front of the box features the Gainward logo. Among the other inscriptions that attract attention, one can note the one that symbolizes the relation of the video card to the Golden Sample series. It should be noted that the design of the box does not correspond to the status of the video card.

In the box with the video card was found:

— CD with drivers.

— CD with software.

— Instruction.

— Power adapter.

— DVI-to-VGA adapter.

Among the supplied software, it should be noted the Gainward Expertool product, which allows the user, manufacturer, additional soft overclocking of the video card. Also included is the program Super LoiLoScope for video editing. There is a coupon for a 25% discount for those wishing to purchase its licensed version — it is unlikely that there will be such among domestic users.

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Visual inspection of the video card.

Immediately striking is the modified cooling system with large 8 cm fans. The casing of the cooling system is black, and the blades are made in red tones — we were not very impressed with this design, and we cannot recommend this video card for case modding.

The video card needs additional power supply via two six-pin connectors located in the standard place for this series of video cards. The kit comes with one power adapter, apparently counting on the fact that the user has a recommended power supply with a capacity of at least 550 watts. Such power supplies are always equipped with PCI-Exp power connectors.

The entire modern range of ports for displaying images is soldered on the video card: 2xDVI, HDMI, DisplayPort.

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Video card specifications.

1. Number of CUDA cores: 448

2. Core frequency: 607MHz

3. Shader frequency: 1215

4. Memory frequency: 1674 MHz

5. Memory: 1280MB GDDR5

6. Memory bus: 320-bit

7. Slot: PCIe 2.0 x16

8. Maximum core temperature: 105 degrees Celsius.

9. Minimum power supply: 550 watts

As we already mentioned, Gainward’s Golden Sample video cards are always factory overclocked. Our video card had a core clock of 650 MHz and a memory clock of 1700 MHz. In relative terms, overclocking can be expressed as 7% for the core and 2% for memory.

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Video card testing.
Like all video cards of this series, the product from Gainward was installed in our basic configuration:

1. Intel Core i7 920 processor.

2. Motherboard ASUS P6T.

3. 2×3 Gb Samsung Original DDR3-1600

4.WD 1TB WD1001FALS Caviar Black SATAII

5. Hiper M1000 power supply.

6. Thermaltake Mambo case.

7. The room is 27 degrees.

8. The system is assembled in a closed case.

The system is running Windows 7 64 bit operating system.

1. The temperature regime of the video card.

From the test results it can be seen that the cooling system from Gainward is somewhat inferior to the cooling system of the video card from Galaxy, which also had a modified cooling system. Most likely, this is due to the regulation of the fan speed. Taking into account the fact that the cooling system of the tested video card works quite quietly and the temperature regime of the video card completely satisfies us, we give a positive assessment of this modification from Gainward.

2. Video card overclocking.

The video card was unable to cross the 810 MHz line in the core, which is a kind of record, since earlier we were only able to conquer the frequency of 800 MHz. From memory, we got the most stable frequency equal to 1944 MHz.

3. Performance level in Crysis Warhead.

The image was displayed on the LCD panel, so only FullHD resolution was used.

The video card from Galaxy has a factory core overclock to 625 MHz, which did not allow it to achieve any advantage over a video card operating at reference frequencies in this game. The video card we tested from Gainward has a core overclock of up to 650 MHz, which allowed it to show a performance increase of about 13% compared to the reference product.

4. Performance level in BattleForge DX 11.

In the second game, we see a performance increase of about the same 13% compared to the reference solution and about 10% compared to the Galaxy video card.

5. Far Cry 2 performance level.

The smallest performance gain was recorded in the game with the lowest requirements — it amounted to about 9% compared to the solution running at factory frequencies from NVIDIA.

6. Performance level in 3Dmark Vantage.

The synthetic test also reacted quite sensitively to the increased frequencies of the Gainward video card by increasing the number of final points assigned. We deliberately did not present to your attention the results of testing a video card in overclocking, since the overclocking of each video card is individual and does not depend much on a particular user.