Gtx 480 minimum power supply: What are the power requirements for Geforce GTX 480 and the Geforce GTX 470

196 Comments

IndexMeet the GTX 480 and GTX 470, ContThe GF100 RecapOdds & Ends: ECC & NVIDIA Surround MissingTessellation & PhysXComputeImage Quality & AAThe TestCrysis: WarheadBattleForge: DX10BattleForge: DX11HAWXLeft 4 DeadBattlefield: Bad Company 2STALKER: Call of PripyatDIRT 2Mass Effect 2WolfensteinTemperature, Power, & Noise: Hot and Loud, but Not in the Good WayFinal Words

Temperature, Power, & Noise: Hot and Loud, but Not in the Good Way

For all of the gaming and compute performance data we have seen so far, we’ve only seen half of the story. With a 500mm2+ die and a TDP over 200W, there’s a second story to be told about the power, temperature, and noise characteristics of the GTX 400 series.

Starting with idle temperatures, we can quickly see some distinct events among our cards. The top of the chart is occupied solely by AMD’s Radeon 5000 series, whose small die and low idle power usage let these cards idle at very cool temperatures. It’s not until half-way down the chart that we find our first GTX 400 card, with the 470 at 46C. Truth be told we were expecting something a bit better out of it given that its 33W idle is only a few watts over the 5870 and has a fairly large cooler to work with. Farther down the chart is the GTX 480, which is in the over-50 club at 51C idle. This is where NVIDIA has to pay the piper on their die size – even the amazingly low idle clockspeed of 50MHz/core 101MHz/shader 67.5Mhz/RAM isn’t enough to drop it any further.

For our load temperatures, we have gone ahead and added Crysis to our temperature testing so that we can see both the worst-case temperatures of FurMark and a more normal gameplay temperature.

At this point the GTX 400 series is in a pretty exclusive club of hot cards – under Crysis the only other single-GPU card above 90C is the 3870, and the GTX 480 SLI is the hottest of any configuration we have tested. Even the dual-GPU cards don’t get quite this hot. In fact it’s quite interesting that unlike FurMark there’s quite a larger spread among card temperatures here, which only makes the GTX 400 series stand out more.

While we’re on the subject of temperatures, we should note that NVIDIA has changed the fan ramp-up behavior from the GTX 200 series. Rather than reacting immediately, the GTX 400 series fans have a ramp-up delay of a few seconds when responding to high temperatures, meaning you’ll actually see those cards get hotter than our sustained temperatures. This won’t have any significant impact on the card, but if you’re like us your eyes will pop out of your head at least once when you see a GTX 480 hitting 98C on FurMark.

Up next is power consumption. As we’ve already discussed, the GTX 480 and GTX 470 have an idle power consumption of 47W and 33W respectively, putting them out of the running for the least power hungry of the high-end cards. Furthermore the 1200W PSU we switched to for this review has driven up our idle power load a bit, which serves to suppress some of the differences in idle power draw between cards.

With that said the GTX 200 series either does decently or poorly, depending on your point of view. The GTX 480 is below our poorly-idling Radeon 4000 series cards, but well above the 5000 series. Meanwhile the GTX 470 is in the middle of the pack, sharing space with most of the GTX 200 series. The lone outlier here is the GTX 480 SLI. AMD’s power saving mode for Crossfire cards means that the GTX 480 SLI is all alone at a total power draw of 260W when idle.

For load power we have Crysis and FurMark, the results of which are quite interesting. Under Crysis not only is the GTX 480 SLI the most demanding card setup as we would expect, but the GTX 480 itself isn’t too far behind. As a single-GPU card it pulls in more power than either the GTX 295 or the Radeon 5970, both of which are dual-GPU cards. Farther up the chart is the GTX 470, which is the 2nd most power draining of our single-GPU cards.

Under FurMark our results change ever so slightly. The GTX 480 manages to get under the GTX 295, while the GTX 470 falls in the middle of the GTX 200 series pack. A special mention goes out to the GTX 480 SLI here, which at 851W under load is the greatest power draw we have ever seen for a pair of GPUs.

Idle noise doesn’t contain any particular surprises since virtually every card can reduce its fan speed to near-silent levels and still stay cool enough. The GTX 400 series is within a few dB of our noise floor here.

Hot, power hungry things are often loud things, and there are no disappointments here. At 70dB the GTX 480 SLI is the loudest card configuration we have ever tested, while at 64.1dB the GTX 480 is the loudest single-GPU card, beating out even our unreasonably loud 4890. Meanwhile the GTX 470 is in the middle of the pack at 61.5dB, coming in amidst some of our louder single-GPU cards and our dual-GPU cards.

Finally, with this data in hand we went to NVIDIA to ask about the longevity of their cards at these temperatures, as seeing the GTX 480 hitting 94C sustained in a game left us worried. In response NVIDIA told us that they have done significant testing of the cards at high temperatures to validate their longevity, and their models predict a lifetime of years even at temperatures approaching 105C (the throttle point for GF100). Furthermore as they note they have shipped other cards that run roughly this hot such as the GTX 295, and those cards have held up just fine.

At this point we don’t have any reason to doubt NVIDIA’s word on this matter, but with that said this wouldn’t discourage us from taking the appropriate precautions. Heat does impact longevity to some degree – we would strongly consider getting a lifetime warranty for the GTX 480 to hedge our bets.

Wolfenstein
Final Words
IndexMeet the GTX 480 and GTX 470, ContThe GF100 RecapOdds & Ends: ECC & NVIDIA Surround MissingTessellation & PhysXComputeImage Quality & AAThe TestCrysis: WarheadBattleForge: DX10BattleForge: DX11HAWXLeft 4 DeadBattlefield: Bad Company 2STALKER: Call of PripyatDIRT 2Mass Effect 2WolfensteinTemperature, Power, & Noise: Hot and Loud, but Not in the Good WayFinal Words

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Nvidia GeForce GTX 480: Is it Any Good?

© railway fx/Shutterstock.com

Key Points

• The GeForce GTX 480 is a GPU released by NVIDIA in 2010.
• If you are playing mainly older games and trying to stretch your budget, then the GTX 480 is a decent choice.
• If you want a newer option, the GTX 1060-6GB or the GTX 1650 would work. Both cards would provide a substantially more impressive level of performance for a slightly higher price.

With the crazy prices in the graphics card market these days, you might not believe that cheaper options exist. But if you are willing to go back to some of Nvidia’s older offerings, you’ll be surprised at some of the low prices that you can find, especially with the Geforce GTX 480.

On March 26th, 2010, Nvidia released the Geforce GTX 480, and it was a powerful GPU for its time.  Now, over ten years later, we are here to bring you a review with full specs, features, benefits, and more. Although this graphics card has been around for a long time, it still packs some modern features and performance, at least for the budget user.

With so many newer and better graphics cards on the market these days, you may be wondering if the lowly old GTX 480 can still hold a candle to newer GPUs. That’s what we are going to find out in today’s article. We’ll answer the burning question that is on everyone’s mind today: Is the GTX 480 any good, and can it play modern games at all? 

The GTX 480 was designed as a direct replacement for the GTX 285, which came out in 2008.

©Mrs_ya/Shutterstock. com

Nvidia Geforce GTX 480: A Brief History

The GTX 480 was based on the classic “Fermi” architecture, originally announced in 2009. The Fermi, which was the code name for the new 40nm GF100 architecture, was one of Nvidia’s earliest uses of its new “Cuda” technology. The GTX 480 was a predecessor to the legendary GTX 560 which came out about a year later, and it laid the foundation for some of Nvidia’s groundbreaking technology that was to come.

When the GTX 480 was released, gamers at the time were pleased to find upgrades all across the board from the previous generation. Based on a newer and more powerful graphics architecture, the new GTX 480 came with higher video memory capacities, faster boost clock speeds, and more shader cores. Another big improvement was the introduction of GDDR5 video memory, which was significantly faster than the GDDR3 memory used by the previous generation.

In contrast, the closest competitor at the time was the AMD Radeon HD 5870. Both cards had similar specs, with the GTX 480 providing more power for the money. After Nvidia released the GTX 480, AMD responded with a new GPU of their own: the Radeon HD 6950. The competitor from AMD was slightly more powerful in several ways, including faster clock speeds and higher video memory capacity. 

Nvidia Geforce GTX 480: What Are the Specs?

To get a true appreciation for the advancements made with the GTX 480, you have to compare it to the previous generation. The specs have been greatly improved over the older model, and it shows clearly in every category. Have a look at the table below to see how the GTX 480 stacks up against its predecessor, the GTX 285:

	GTX 285	GTX 480
Graphics Processor:	GT200B	GF100
Shader Cores:	240	480
TMUs:	80	60
ROPs:	32	48
Process Size:	55 nm	40 nm
Transistors:	1. 4 billion	3.1 billion
L2 Cache:	256 kb	768 kb
VRAM Type:	GDDR3	GDDR5
VRAM Capacity:	1024 MB	1536 MB
Bus Width:	512 bit	384 bit
Graphics Clock:	648 MHz	701 MHz
Shader Clock:	1476 MHz	1401 MHz
Memory Clock:	1242 MHz	924 MHz
Pixel Rate:	20.74 Gpixels	21.03 Gpixels
Texture Fill Rate:	51.84 GTexel/s	42.06 GTexel/s
FP-32 Performance:	708.5 GFLOPS	1,345 GFLOPS

As you can see, the specs on the newer GTX 480 graphics card show an overall improvement in performance thanks to the newer architecture and process. In contrast, even though the older GTX 285 has more texture mapping units (TMUs) and a larger memory bus width, the GTX 480 leaves it in the dust with a significantly higher transistor count and faster graphics memory. All in all, the GTX 480 is a massive improvement over the older model.

The GeForce GTX 480 is a GPU released by NVIDIA in 2010

Power, Cooling, and Connections

You may be surprised to find out how much power you need to support a card like the GTX 480. Although GPUs have gotten significantly more energy-efficient in recent years, this was not always the case. The GTX 480 has massive power requirements relative to the level of performance it provides. With a TDP rating of 250 watts, you will need to make sure you have at least a 600-watt power supply with one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector to feed this graphics card.

The cooling system on the GTX 480 is very advanced, considering the age of the card. The dual-slot design makes this GPU very thick and allows plenty of room for a large heatsink and fan. The most noticeable element in the design is the large black plastic shroud, which covers the actual heatsink. Five heat pipes direct the thermal energy generated by the chip away from the board and out through the cooling fins. The direct-touch heat pipe design is one of the earliest examples of this cooling technology and was truly innovative at the time.

As for connections, you will be able to plug in a wide variety of gaming monitors thanks to the selection of ports. Although not equipped with the standard HDMI ports found on newer GPUs, you still get two DVI ports and one mini-HDMI. If your monitor is not compatible with these ports, you can always find an adapter that will make it work.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 480: How is the Price?

With an original MSRP of $499 in 2010, you will be pleased to find out that the price has gone down quite a bit in the past ten years. You can now easily find this graphics card for under $200, or even less if you hunt for the best deal on the used market.

One thing to be careful with if you are considering a used card is the degradation of the thermal components. After over a decade of use, the thermal compound between the graphics chip and the heatsink will be dried out and most likely require replacement to ensure continued functionality.

The Ultimate Question: Can The Nvidia Geforce GTX 480 Still Game?

Although you shouldn’t expect the GTX 480 to give you the same level of performance that you can find on a newer graphics card, it can still provide a satisfying gaming experience. When it comes to older games and less competitive titles, this is where the GTX 480 really shines. 

We compiled benchmarks from a wide variety of games, including newer and older titles, to get a feel for how well the GTX 480 plays games, and the results are actually very impressive for a graphics card this old. One issue that you will run into with this card, however, is the memory limitation. 

With only 1.5GB of graphics memory, more demanding games with lots of textures and detailed scenery are going to struggle. Our test system had an Intel Core-i7 8700K CPU, which really helped this card achieve the best performance, but the graphics memory was a painfully obvious bottleneck to the system.

Have a look at the table below to see the level of performance you can expect playing at medium to high settings and at full 1080p HD resolution:

As we can see from the benchmarks, the GTX 480 really shines when it comes to older games like League of Legends and Rocket League. Even newer games like Cyberpunk and Apex Legends are playable, although not ideal.

The Final Verdict

If you are playing mainly older games and trying to stretch your budget, then the GTX 480 is a decent choice. However, with so many newer options, you may be better served by picking a newer GPU, such as the GTX 1060-6GB or the GTX 1650. Both cards would provide a substantially more impressive level of performance for not much more money.

NEXT UP…

• Intel vs AMD: Clash of the CPU Titans!
• The 7 Best Gaming Keyboards Available Today
• The Best Gaming Monitors For 2022 – Reviewed and Ranked

Nvidia GeForce GTX 480: Is it Any Good? FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) 

How much is a GTX 480 worth?

With an MSRP of $499, the GTX 480 is still going for between $150 and $300 new, and significantly less used. If you buy a used card, just be careful of a worn-out cooling system and thermal compound.

How old is the GTX 480?

As of this writing, the GTX 480 is over 12 years old.

Is GeForce GTX still good?

The GTX 480 is still a good card for playing older games like Rocket League and League of Legends, but it will struggle on newer titles, especially if you don’t have a good processor.

How many GB is Nvidia GTX 480?

The GTX 480 has 1.5GB of graphics memory.

When did GTX 480 come out?

The GTX 480 was released on March 26th, 2010.

review and testing of the best budget video card

After the release of high-performance graphics cards of the 10th series for FullHD, 2K and 4K resolutions, NVIDIA took on the budget market, where AMD has already firmly established itself with its Radeon RX 460 and RX 470 , and the release of GeForce GTX 1050 and The GTX 1050 Ti was a matter of time. Like analogues from AMD , the most budget options on the new architecture Pascal is designed for users who are not ready to buy high-performance, but still expensive ultra-high resolution graphics cards, but who also want to play, even if not at « ultra » graphics settings.

The situation with GTX 1050 « Ti » is quite interesting. The regular GTX 1050 is equipped with 2 GB of video memory, while the Ti version of the card already has 4 GB on board, however, the same 1050 Ti is slightly inferior to the regular version GTX 1050 in terms of the frequency of the video core. In fact, this is the whole difference between the two video cards, and it is not entirely clear what exactly will be better: extra 2 GB of video memory or an increased core frequency. On the one hand, 4 GB of memory today is needed for higher quality graphics, for example, « high » and « ultra » settings require at least 4 GB of memory, while 2 GB is only enough for « Medium «. Of course, it all depends on the specific game, but in most cases, these are the requirements. On the other hand, higher clocks on « Medium » settings will give better performance and more stable frame rates for those graphics settings. In any case, everyone should decide for himself what is more important in games — stable FPS or graphics quality. Well, today we will test the new product — « custom » version of GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X manufactured by company MSI .

Packaging, packaging and appearance MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

The video card is packaged in a black-and-red style box familiar to MSI , inside which is the video adapter itself and an envelope with the inscription “ MSI ”, which contains a disk with software and instructions for installing the video card. In general, the equipment is standard — we did not notice anything special or new.

Externally MSI GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X is not much different from, for example, the same GTX 1060 from MSI . In general, the video cards of the company MSI of the “ Gaming X ” series look the same on the same face, there are at least differences, and you need to look for them “ with a magnifying glass ”. The black and red color scheme of the video card is familiar to the MSI . Also, the video card has a backlight of some elements — « blades » along the edges of the video adapter and the «dragon» logo with the inscription « MSI «. The backlight is not RBG, so the color gamut is strictly limited by the manufacturer. » The blades » on the sides of the graphics card are illuminated only in red, while the company logo and « dragon » are exclusively white backlit. The cooling system in the MSI GTX 1050 Ti is installed proprietary, called « TwinFrozr «. The MSI installs this cooling system in all its video cards of the “ Gaming X ” series, but we will touch on the cooling operation a little later.

Specifications MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is based on the same architecture as all 10-series graphics cards — Pascal . As mentioned earlier, the « Ti » versions of the video cards are equipped with 4 GB of video memory in the GDDR5 format. MSI GTX 1050 Ti is no exception. The memory frequency is 7008 MHz, and the base frequency of the video core is 1290 MHz, which automatically increase to 1493 MHz during loads. The bus bandwidth is 128bit. The requirement of the card to the power supply is 300 W, which is not so much by modern standards, however, additional power in the form of a 6-pin connector GTX 1050 Ti still requires. Well, of course, the video card supports all API that are relevant today, including DirectX 12.1 and Open GL 4.5 . As for the cooling system, as we mentioned earlier, this video card has a proprietary cooling called « TwinFrozr » of the sixth version. The cooling system itself consists of two 90-mm fans that work according to the « smart » system — when the video card is not loaded, namely, it does not heat up above 60 degrees, the fans do not work. As soon as the temperature of the video card reaches 60 degrees, the cooling system starts active work. Plus « smart «cooling is that the fans do not work idle and, accordingly, do not wear out.

With frequencies, this model has a particularly interesting situation. The fact is that the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti comes with proprietary software — MSI Gaming App , which already contains several frequency response profiles for the video adapter. The first profile is called » Silent Mode «, turning on which the frequency characteristics will be set to «stock» i.e. core frequency — 1290 MHz, memory frequency — 7008 MHz. The mode is designed for minimal noise from the fans of the video card during the game. The second mode — « OC Mode » — is the most productive of all, because in this mode the frequency characteristics increase to the limit set by the manufacturer: the video core frequency is 1493 MHz, and the memory frequency is 7108 MHz, 100 MHz more than the declared frequency video memory. You will have to pay for performance with increased noise from spinning fans, however, given the excellent cooling system installed in MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti , the noise from the coolers is unlikely to bother you much during games. Well, the third mode is called “ Gaming Mode ”, and it is a kind of “ golden mean ” between “ Silent ” and “ OC ” modes. The core frequency in the «game mode» is 1379 MHz, and the manufacturer decided not to touch the memory frequency — 7008 MHz. The user at any time through the software can switch modes depending on how the video card will be loaded.

Test stand

To conduct a qualitative test of a gaming video card, we assembled an inexpensive but sufficiently powerful PC, where the budget productive processor Intel of the 8th generation Core i3-8100, the cooled ThermalTake Water 3.0 Riing RGB 240 LSS, and the Gigabyte Z370XP motherboard were used as the basis of the system SLI on the new Z370 chipset. The games we tested were run from a high-speed 256 GB Kingston SSDNow KC400 Series solid state drive. And we took the case and power supply Corsair Carbid Series SPEC-ALPHA and Zalman ZM-500XP with a power of 500 W, which are more than enough for such a system.

Testing MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti in games

Game testing was conducted by FPSMonitor on ultra graphics settings in FullHD resolution, and the frames per second (fps) values ​​presented in the test results infographic were calculated using the formula (Max FPS + Min FPS) / 2.

The Geforce GTX 1050 Ti turned out to be a very tolerable video card, even if we do not take into account the custom variation of the video adapter from MSI. Overall, the GTX 1050 Ti performs on par with the mid-budget GTX 9.60 of the previous generation, and this is provided that the price of the novelty is cheaper, but whether to change the GTX 960 to the GTX 1050 Ti is a very controversial issue, because in terms of performance both video cards are at approximately the same level. Still, it is better to replace the budget GTX 960 immediately with the GTX 1060, where the performance increase will be noticeable, but if the video card does not “pull” the latest games at all, then the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X will probably be the best option to join to the world of the gaming industry, because it is not for nothing that the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti were dubbed the best budget graphics cards in the world even before their release!

Fermi vs.

Cypress in DirectX 11 modes GPU test

It’s been a long time since the official announcement of the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 video cards based on Fermi chips, but only now we were able to get samples of these video accelerators for our gaming tests . This time we conducted a special generalized test of these cards together with our direct competitors AMD Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870 in DirectX 11 modes. that support NVIDIA CUDA and PhysX technologies and determine what the purchase of a new generation of video cards will bring to fans of the Californian company. The architecture of these video cards has been described far and wide on many resources, but if you want to refresh your memory, then you can familiarize yourself with it on our website. Below are the comparative architectural features of the new video cards in comparison with their competitors in the face of Cypress and their predecessors in the face of the GeForce GTX 2XX:

IMG_sis_1

Without hiding, let’s say right away that an ordinary cheap case is in no way suitable for the GeForce GTX 480. But if you have money for this dragon, then most likely you will find it for a reputable case. We have at our disposal the Aerocool Zero case, made in the BTX standard, and everything that is in it is located in a mirror form from the ATX format. As a result, the video card is located not at the bottom, but under the top. On the one hand, this is a plus — all the main elements of the PC are not heated — the processor, memory, power supply, which are located at the very bottom of the system unit. On the other hand, the entire thermal shock falls on the video card, which creates some difficulties with cooling. To combat the heat of the video card, we placed two fans next to it — one in front of the video card and the other behind it. One directs a fresh stream of air into the turbine and onto the ribbed top surface of the GeForce GTX 480, while the other draws heated air out of the case.

IMG_sis_2

Both fans are low-speed, and the noise they create is almost inaudible. As a result of this simple maneuver, the heating of the video card at full load in FurMark decreased from 94 to 88 degrees. When the card is overclocked to 835/1670 MHz for the core and up to 3960 MHz for the memory, with the voltage raised to 1.05, the maximum that the GTX 480 warmed up to is 92 degrees. At the same time, the turbine speed was absolutely not regulated and was in automatic mode.

aft_480

At the same time, the video card worked relatively quietly and its noise in games can be compared with the GeForce GTX 285 — the turbine started up gradually and slowly reached the 60% speed level. In this case, only a slight rustle of the turbine was heard. We applied a similar cooling approach to the GTX 470, as a result of which we managed to achieve fast and silent operation at a frequency of 730/1460 MHz in the core and up to 3570 MHz in memory. Undoubtedly, setting the turbine speed to the maximum will help you squeeze out a few more precious megahertz, but your ears are unlikely to like it …

Our red-skinned brethren were also out of work and were subject to moderate overclocking. The Radeon HD 5870 was overclocked to 980/5200 MHz, while the Radeon HD5850 was overclocked to almost the same level, namely 970/5000 MHz. As you can see, Radeon cards overclocked almost to the same level, which cannot be said about GeForce 4XX cards — they run equally well, but the frequency limit for stable and quiet operation of the GTX 480 is much higher (probably a more massive cooling system plays a role). Our «oldies» GeForce GTX 285 and GeForce GTX 275 showed more modest overclocking performance and conquered the milestone of 715/1600/1400(2800) MHz and 710/1558/1335(2670) MHz, respectively. Next, we will move on to the test configuration and directly to the tests themselves.

Therefore, our testing was carried out at our maximum resolution of 1920×1080 with different variations of graphic settings for each game separately. To test the performance of new Fermi video cards in comparison with their competitors in DirectX 11 mode, such games and tests as Stone Giant, Heaven Benchmark v2. 0, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, Dirt 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Metro 2033. Batman Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2 were used to test the performance of the new Fermi graphics cards against their predecessors.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat DirectX 11 test GPU

Call of Pripyat. This game has become the third product in this series and, to be honest, we have not been able to see a special evolution in graphics compared to the original.

xrEngine

A detailed review of the game you can find on this link. Now we would like to remind you that in the process of testing we abandoned the benchmark provided by the developers and carried out internal gaming testing, which is noticeably different from the synthetic one. Anti-aliasing during testing was set to the maximum level for the game 4X, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16X.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R._Call_of_Pripyat__1920

In contrast to the benchmark, GeForce GTX 4XX cards show more frame dominance in the game itself. The GeForce GTX 480 is the undisputed leader, and even without overclocking it overtakes all the «fitted» participants. The GeForce GTX 470, both overclocked and not, shows almost identical performance with the Radeon HD 5870.

Dirt 2 DirectX 11 GPU test

You can also read a detailed review of Dirt 2 on the pages of our website. In it you can find all the comprehensive information on the performance of other video adapters.

dirt2

Dirt 2 was practically the first game to implement DirectX 11 support. Of course, its presence can be called formally conditional, but on the other hand, this formality is a little encouraging. Anti-aliasing during the benchmark was set to the maximum level for Radeon video cards 8X, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16X.

dirt_2_1920

Although the performance of the GeForce GTX 480 remained unattainable, AMD cards still managed to outperform the competitor represented by the GeForce GTX 470 during overclocking and show a formal superiority. ..

Aliens vs. Predator Direct X 11 GPU test

Aliens vs. Predator is another game that was released under the auspices of AMD. If you have not yet read our review, you can safely read it at the following link.

AvP

In general, the game came out not very voracious. But she had a great interest in video memory, and even cards with 1 gigabyte from time to time had to suffer from a lack of it. With the release of new Nvidia cards that have increased video memory, this trend changed for the better and slowdowns caused by lack of memory were not observed. During testing, anti-aliasing was again set to game level 8X, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16X.

AvP_1920_2

This is where overclocking helps the Radeon HD 5870 overtake its non-overclocked competitor in the face of the GeForce GTX 480. But overclocking the latter allows it to remain the leader. As in Dirt 2, the GeForce GTX 470 without overclocking shows performance between the Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870, but with the latter overclocked, it barely catches up with them.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Direct X 11 test GPU

You can learn more about Battlefield Bad Company 2 at this link. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is quite a good and exciting shooter today. And in combination with an unsurpassed network mode and the presence of newfangled technologies, it can appeal to quite a few gamers.

BFBC2Game

The test in Battlefield Bad Company 2 took place as usual in the most resource-intensive place in the game when crossing a waterfall on a boat. Some foreign resources also referred this moment as the most resource-intensive place in the game. Antialiasing during the test was set to 8X, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16X.

Battlefield__1920

In many reviews, you will notice that the Radeon cards are ahead, but this is where the GeForce shows more stable and higher FPS. An unconditional victory for the Fermi generation.

Metro 2033 Direct X 11 GPU test

Here it is, another achievement of our compatriots. No one has yet been able to outdo Crysis in terms of manufacturability and slowness. However, we will not go into details — you can read everything that interests you.

metro2033_2010

Metro 2033 mostly slows down in scenes where many light sources are used. And the activation of DOF adds fuel to the fire and brings all modern video accelerators to their knees. Anti-aliasing was set to AAA during tests, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16X. Let’s go directly to the results themselves…

metro_1920

FPS of all video cards can hardly be called comfortable, but when overclocking the GTX 480, you can feel more or less acceptable playability. I was very pleased with the GTX 470, which, when overclocked, overtook the overclocked duo of Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870. The engine used in Stone Giant is not yet licensed and is under development. As a matter of fact, there is no bench as such, and we had to manually fly and measure frames.

stone_giant

The tasselization level during the test was turned to the maximum and the DOF function was enabled. There are practically no settings in the test and everything was set to the maximum with a single point.

Stone_Giant__1920

Nvidia cards showed amazing performance. Their minimum FPS was higher than the maximum on Radeon cards.

Heaven Benchmark v2.0 Direct X 11 GPU test

Heaven Benchmark is the first and only measure of video cards that support Direct X 11 today. The second version has been slightly changed compared to the first. New tassel modes and objects have been added.

Unigine_2

Tassellation during the test was set to the normal level — we considered the extreme mode somewhat redundant and oversaturated. Anti-aliasing was not enabled during the tests, and anisotropic filtering was set at 4X.

Unigine_2_1920

And again, in synthetics, Nvidia cards are ahead. Overclocking the Radeon HD 5870 allows you to scratch out a victory over the GTX 470, but only at the latter’s native frequencies… Well, we see a slight advantage of the GeForce card in games and a huge one in synthetics, although in the future, with the release of new games for Direct X 11, the situation is quite can change.

Batman Arkham Asylum NVIDIA PhysX GPU test

Now let’s test Fermi cards in applications specially adapted for Nvidia cards. Their prominent representatives are Batman Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2. The first is full of physical effects, and the second allows you to reveal the hidden effects of graphic calculations. Radeon cards did not take part in these tests due to their incompetence.

BmGame

Batman Arkham Asylum according to many resources is one of the best games of the last year. You can find out more about this here. In the Batman Arkham Asylum benchmark, all settings were turned to the maximum, anti-aliasing was set to 16QX, and physics effects were set to high.

Batman__1920

The new generation of video cards performed quite loudly and was able to provide the minimum acceptable FPS of 25 frames. With overclocking, the GTX 285 and GeForce GTX 275 can show a more or less usable result and approach quite normal playability.

Just Cause 2 NVIDIA CUDA test GPU

Just Cause 2 is one of the most beautiful and technological games to date. You can read more about the description of all the technologies used and the quality of the graphic design in this article.

JustCause2

The game was tuned for Nvidia computing power, but at that time even the GTX 2XX series of cards could not provide acceptable performance in this game. With the release of Fermi, the situation should have improved for the better, and the chart below is a good example of this. In Just Cause 2, all settings were turned to maximum, anisotropy and anti-aliasing were turned on at 16X. The Bokeh filter effect and the water surface simulation were properly activated.

Just_Cause_2_1920

The results here are much more interesting than in Batman Arkham Asylum. The GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 delivered unrivaled performance in both non-overclocked and overclocked environments, and are the most optimal cards for this game.

Our review is over, our readers have seen the alignment of forces and will be able to form their own opinion about any tested video card. We can state a striking fact — cards based on Fermi are quite competitive. They demonstrate excellent overclocking potential and confidently compete with their competitors. We were able to roll back one stone from the Nvidia garden, namely, to achieve moderate heating and noise, as a result of which it could become quite comfortable and stopped straining your ears. The only problem is power consumption. For a normal power supply, you will have to stock up on high-quality power supplies with a power of 600 W or more. Now let’s draw conclusions about each card separately. 9The 0021

GeForce GTX 285 and GeForce GTX 275 are a thing of the past and practically pointless to buy if you have no other choice or a minimum of funds (only relevant for the GeForce GTX 285 model, which is almost on par with the GeForce GTX 275).

The Radeon HD 5850 is quite an excellent graphics card. It has excellent performance, and after overclocking it even catches up with the overclocked Radeon HD 5870. Due to its speed characteristics, power consumption and low noise level, the card will become an indispensable purchase for budget-conscious enthusiasts.

The Radeon HD 5870 is AMD’s current single-chip flagship. Buying this video card is quite a controversial decision. AMD itself could not even imagine what a pig it had planted for itself in the face of the Radeon HD 5850 by releasing it to the masses. The difference of $100, which is more than compensated by uncomplicated overclocking, is unjustified.

The GeForce GTX 470 is, in our opinion, the best product to buy. As we see from today’s test, it often outperforms its rivals from the ATI team during overclocking and comes close to its older sister. And although it often costs $400, which is $50 higher than the recommended price, it is more attractive than the Radeon HD 5870.