Hexus review up - GTX480

[michal1980]

I'm looking forward to Anands review.

It looks like Fermi needs a die shrink for the design to shine. Heat and power draw are obviously at their design limits.

I bet these would OC really nice on water.

IDK, @ 101C, these things could boil water.

 

[Fox5]

Heh, with that kind of power consumption, nvidia may as well throw a "SLI certified power supply required" logo on the card. I wouldn't attempt to touch fermi with a power supply rated under 700W.

Performance looks to fit the rumors. With high enough levels of AA/DX11, it crushes the 5870. (it has more memory though right? some of those big wins might just be the 5870 running out of memory)
At more reasonable settings (1680x1050 or 1920x1080), it just barely edges out the 5870. And it looks like nvidia had to really crank up the core speed and voltage to get that.

Interesting to see fermi's performance vary as much from benchmark to benchmark as a dual gpu card. Sometimes its way out ahead, sometimes it's on par. I'd love to see a system with two of these, it should be able to run insane settings.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I'm looking forward to Anands review.

It looks like Fermi needs a die shrink for the design to shine. Heat and power draw are obviously at their design limits.

I bet these would OC really nice on water.

Not if you cant put enough power into them. It already draws more power than a 5970 so give it .15v more and 100MHz and you pretty much hit the power draw limit even if thermals are still good.

 

[nemesismk2]

I'm looking forward to Anands review.

+2 Me too

 

[cbn]

Performance looks to fit the rumors. With high enough levels of AA/DX11, it crushes the 5870. (it has more memory though right? some of those big wins might just be the 5870 running out of memory)
At more reasonable settings (1680x1050 or 1920x1080), it just barely edges out the 5870. And it looks like nvidia had to really crank up the core speed and voltage to get that.

Which begs the question: Why doesn't Nvidia support multi-monitor with one card?

 

[Shilohen]

Which begs the question: Why doesn't Nvidia support multi-monitor with one card?

If we're to believe Anand's article on AMD showing up to the fight, then nVidia might have been caught by surprise by Eyefinity and did not have any spare room/time/budget to add it to its first spin of Fermi. I would not be surprised to see it on the next one however.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

Yes, it's part of the die/architecture.

 

[The-Noid]

This product is BAD for Nvidia. Where the big-N makes money on products like this is selling through the OEM channel in 1000's not to e-tailers. OEM's are going to be hesitant to put either card in because they are going to need solid psu and some long-term study tests with the heat. OEM's don't want to spend a penny more than they have to on a psu and getting all that heat out of a small case is going to be a problem.

Full disclosure: Long AMD, INTC, Short NVDA.

 

[Lonbjerg]

IDK, @ 101C, these things could boil water.

Rename furmark and you can do the same on 4870/4890 @ stock ^_^

 

[OCGuy]

This product is BAD for Nvidia. Where the big-N makes money on products like this is selling through the OEM channel in 1000's not to e-tailers. OEM's are going to be hesitant to put either card in because they are going to need solid psu and some long-term study tests with the heat. OEM's don't want to spend a penny more than they have to on a psu and getting all that heat out of a small case is going to be a problem.

Full disclosure: Long AMD, INTC, Short NVDA.

If you look what % of the market the top-end cards are, you would know this not to be true..

 

[JAG87]

The power consumption is out of this world. Like Yoxxy said, a lot of the HPC market is going to consider this, and it will hurt Quadro and Tesla sales probably more than GeForce sales.

Better make that earth hour an earth day this weekend. Rofl.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

OCGUY
He's not talking about the top-end cards. Or maybe he's, but those wattage/fps numbers will trickle down to the consumer market cards. OEMs certainly won't like that.

 

[sandorski]

The power consumption is out of this world. Like Yoxxy said, a lot of the HPC market is going to consider this, and it will hurt Quadro and Tesla sales probably more than GeForce sales.

Better make that earth hour an earth day this weekend. Rofl.

Headline

"Nvidia disappoints, Earth Hour extended to Earth Day"

 

[Mike_fermington]

Considering I was looking to buy a vapor-x 5870 at $500, the GTX 480 looks to be the better choice.

In every bench I've seen so far the 5870 only came ahead in 1 or 2 games at 1 or 2 fps (including the ATI branded Stalker), while the fermi manages to have quite a significant boost in a few titles. Add in the games w/ phys-x and the advantage it has in heavily tessellated games and it's a no brainer.

I only buy a video card once every few years, so I might as well grab the card that has more features and better speed. Esp. considering I was gonna drop $500 on a 5870 model anyway.

I just hope the card's temperature wont prove to be problematic in the long run.

 

[MagickMan]

Well, first impressions are that it is faster, but we were expecting that. That aside, I'm glad I bought a 5850, even OCed to really high levels it isn't nearly as power hungry or hot as the 470 or 480. There's no way I'd put a 4x0 in my PC, not without some really good water cooling.

 

[Apocalypse23]

The thing is we still don't have any sufficient amount of Dx11 titles...I predict around summer 2011 for things to get more interesting, with more titles out by then...

I'd strongly suggest enthusiasts to put their money on a pair of 5970s and quad crossfire, given a strong overclocked i7 9xx proc, and a x58 board, you can't go wrong.

Now if only we had mass 5970 availability at $600 a piece!

 

[Reincus]

Considering I was looking to buy a vapor-x 5870 at $500, the GTX 480 looks to be the better choice.

In every bench I've seen so far the 5870 only came ahead in 1 or 2 games at 1 or 2 fps (including the ATI branded Stalker), while the fermi manages to have quite a significant boost in a few titles. Add in the games w/ phys-x and the advantage it has in heavily tessellated games and it's a no brainer.

I only buy a video card once every few years, so I might as well grab the card that has more features and better speed. Esp. considering I was gonna drop $500 on a 5870 model anyway.

I just hope the card's temperature wont prove to be problematic in the long run.

Heck, at that price point you may as well cough up the extra $100 and get 2 5850s. Draws about the same power as the GTX 480 and will give you better FPS.

 

[ZipSpeed]

I live in an apartment condo where it's always warm just from the ambient heat from adjacent units and I can't imagine putting a 480 or 470 and expect the thing to run cool. That and I'd probably have to upgrade my "measly" 620W PSU. The 480 is fast, no doubt about it. But nowhere near the run-away success for a product that was supposed to be out last year.

 

[Mike_fermington]

Heck, at that price point you may as well cough up the extra $100 and get 2 5850s. Draws about the same power as the GTX 480 and will give you better FPS.

Yeah, I'd like to pair up cards but my motherboard can only take one. I'd consider the 5970 if it was selling at $600 and actually available though.

 

[MagickMan]

I live in an apartment condo where it's always warm just from the ambient heat from adjacent units and I can't imagine putting a 480 or 470 and expect the thing to run cool.

That and I'd probably have to upgrade my "measly" 620W PSU.

That's a good point. With a 480 I'd be looking at my Corsair HX650 and wondering how it would hold up. On paper it should be fine, and reason would say otherwise, but I'd still get that nagging feeling.

 

[RussianSensation]

From what I can tell, the 5870 gives it a run for its money (in some benches).

Crysis and BF:BC2 weren't so good. Honestly, I expected for it to be faster here.

In everything else, the 5870 got a beating of its life (+20&#37; faster if not more). See Far Cry 2 and Dirt 2 with 8AA GTX480 came pretty close to 5970 in some of these titles. Thing is though, those titles don't stress a 5870 <1920x1200. So we really needed a boost in the heaviest games, where it didnt deliver.

Otherwise, good performance, but horrible power consumption. 150+W more power at load....which is more than 2x the difference in TDP of 188 vs. 250 (other reason why TDP specs are full of cr*p).

 

[SlowSpyder]

Can someone help me out with this one: Are e-tailers going to have any for sale today??

You're not waiting until Fall now?

 

[Lonyo]

That's a good point. With a 480 I'd be looking at my Corsair HX650 and wondering how it would hold up. On paper it should be fine, and reason would say otherwise, but I'd still get that nagging feeling.

You're not an enthusiast with only a 650w PSU.
No one is going to care about the power consumption of the card. It's been discussed already. Power consumption isn't an issue, that's what a certain group of people tried to argue.

 

[nemesismk2]

You're not an enthusiast with only a 650w PSU.
No one is going to care about the power consumption of the card. It's been discussed already. Power consumption isn't an issue, that's what a certain group of people tried to argue.

I agree 100%, with video cards like the GTX 480, 5970 and 5870 owners want performance and don't care about silly things like power consumption.

 

[MagickMan]

You're not an enthusiast with only a 650w PSU.
No one is going to care about the power consumption of the card. It's been discussed already. Power consumption isn't an issue, that's what a certain group of people tried to argue.

I OC to really high levels and buy the best that I can afford on a teacher's salary, and I'm not an enthusiast? A Corsair HX650 is on par with any "mainstream" 850W PSU. Or, do you mean that I can't game or enjoy PCs because I'm not wealthy? Here's a news flash for you, PC lovers are in every salary bracket. Just like not all of us are elitist jerks.

You're likely one of those who was advising people to get a 1000W PSU for GTX 275 SLI, am I right?

Edit: Oops, I totally missed your point.