Product Listing

Fermi Arrives - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480

By Kenny Yeo - 27 Mar 2010

Conclusion

Really Fast, But Not Much Else

Technically, the GeForce GTX 480 is an evolutionary step above the GT200. It adds more hardware and gets a few internal tweaks here and there to make it for suitable for HPC computing purposes and to better handle the latest DirectX 11 games.

Looking at the GeForce GTX 480's performance, the results are certainly positive, as there's no doubting the GeForce GTX 480's ability to crunch graphics. It has reclaimed the title of the world's fastest single GPU card from ATI and by some margin too, seeing that it can be as much as 50% quicker than the Radeon HD 5870 in some tests. In fact, it's so quick that it is enough to even give the Radeon HD 5970 something to think about. The GF100 is nothing less than a monster GPU, but given that it is nearly half a year late to the competition, would you expect anything less?

Blazing performance aside, we are somewhat worried about the exceedingly high TDP ratings for the new GeForce GTX 480. With its rated TDP of 250W, it is considerably more power hungry than compared to the Radeon HD 5870. And although ATI has given its dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 a higher rated TDP of 294W, we found in our tests between the two that it was the GeForce GTX 480 who consistently recorded higher power draw figures. Heat is another issue, seeing that the card recorded a maximum operating temperature of 92 degrees Celsius, which is possibly the highest we've seen yet from any graphics card. Sure, these problems may be rectified by driver revisions, but the chances of it happening is small going by our past experience in this field. As it is, it seems that power efficiency was not one of NVIDIA's design priorities, and we wonder how that will affect the mainstream and budget cards based off the GF100 chip, when it does come.

Speaking of which, apart from the GeForce GTX 470 which was launched along side the GeForce GTX 480, NVIDIA did not explicitly state their plans for future cards that will make up the GTX 400 series. Of course, that is not to say that there won't be any mainstream GTX 400 cards, but we can't help but be reminded of what happened with the GTX 200 series, where NVIDIA was content to just rename older products and pass them off as new mainstream editions. The GTS 250, which was really a GeForce 9800 GTX+, was one such example of NVIDIA's penchant for renaming old products.

Supremely fast, with a price to match. However, its high power requirements and absurd operating temperatures mean it's not for everyone. Strictly hardcores only.

 To end, there's no questioning the sheer graphics horsepower of the card, but performance aside, we don't believe it offers much more than existing Radeon 5800 series cards. The Radeon 5870 may no longer be the fastest single GPU card, but it is more than capable of handling today's games at maximum settings. And 3D Vision Surround, as good as it sounds, is really nothing more than a driver upgrade, seeing that the same can be attained with older GTX 200 cards. 

Therein lies the problem with the GeForce GTX 480. If you had gone out and gotten yourself a Radeon HD 5870 or HD 5850 in the months before, you won't feel any sense of regret, much less the urge or need to upgrade to a GeForce GTX 480. This is even more so when you consider the price. At a launch price of US$499 (S$700), the GeForce GTX 480 costs a whopping US$120 more the Radeon HD 5870.

All things considered, the GeForce GTX 480 is best described as a supremely high-end premium graphics card for those who care for nothing other than getting the highest possible performance off a single GPU.

Those looking for something more accessible and reasonably balanced should stick to the Radeon HD 5000 series or they can turn to the new GeForce GTX 470, a toned down version of the GeForce GTX 480. It packs lesser hardware and slower clock speeds and is priced at a more enticing US$349 (S$490). Stay tuned for our evaluation of it.

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8.0
  • Performance 9.5
  • Features 8.5
  • Value 7
The Good
Untouchable single-GPU performance
3D Gaming
The Bad
Costly to own and run
Power-hungry
Runs incredibly hot
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