Nvidia Launches GeForce GTX 480/470, Plans for 500, 600, and 700 series

[Jmac]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783

To wrap things up, let?s start with the obvious: NVIDIA has reclaimed their crown ? they have the fastest single-GPU card. The GTX 480 is between 10 and 15% faster than the Radeon 5870 depending on the resolution, giving it a comfortable lead over AMD?s best single-GPU card.

...

At $500 the GTX 480 is the world?s fastest single-GPU card, but it?s not a value proposition. The price gap between it and the Radeon 5870 is well above the current performance gap, but this has always been true about the high-end. Bigger than price though is the tradeoff for going with the GTX 480 and its much bigger GPU ? it?s hotter, it?s noisier, and it?s more power hungry, all for 10-15% more performance.

...

Moving on, we have the GTX 470 to discuss. It?s not NVIDIA?s headliner so it?s easy to get lost in the shuffle. With a price right between the 5850 and 5870, it delivers performance right where you?d expect it to be. At 5-10% slower than the 5870 on average, it?s actually a straightforward value proposition: you get 90-95% of the performance for around 87% of the price. It?s not a huge bargain, but it?s competitively priced against the 5870. Against the 5850 this is less true where it?s a mere 2-8% faster, but this isn?t unusual for cards above $300 ? the best values are rarely found there. The 5850 is the bargain hunter?s card, otherwise if you can spend more pick a price and you?ll find your card. Just keep in mind that the GTX 470 is still going to be louder/hotter than any 5800 series card, so there are tradeoffs to make, and we imagine most people would err towards the side of the cooler Radeon cards.

In other news, Nvidia released its plans for the upcoming GeForce 500, 600, and 700 series cards. In a prepared statement, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang proudly spoke, "Today is a triumphant day for Nvidia, but we have to be focused on the future, as well. That's why it's a joy for me to announce the upcoming GeForce 500, 600, and 700 series of cards which will allow us to compete in the future. For the (GeForce) 500 series, we will simply remove the (GeForce) 400 sticker and replace it with a newer, fancier one and, on certain models, increase the clock rate slightly and add a little more memory so it at least looks like we're trying to be competitive.

Of course, Apple will want their own series of cards because they want to look like they're better than PCs, so that's why we're launching the (GeForce) 600 series shortly after. These cards will be identical, but with a plainer look, lower clock speeds, double the price tag, and a higher series number so the general public will assume Apple gets the latest and greatest parts.

With the (GeForce) 700 series, we will no longer be able to rely on our reputation alone to sell cards as the performance and feature differences between us and our competition will have grown to such a substantial amount that people may actually stop buying our products, so we will be utilizing a die shrink and increasing clock speeds on the same architecture that we will have been using for 3 years. We will have to reduce our prices substantially to OEMs and most of our board partners, but we will make up the lost profits by jacking up the retail products, where consumers don't pay attention to what is actually faster, just the name GeForce and the amount of memory. I think consumers will be very happy with our products moving forward."

[tegz]

Weeeelllll, I guess it's time to sell my 5870 and jump ship!

[Bonjour43MA]

maybe i haven't been playing enough high-end, GPU-demanding games lately, but my 2.5-year old GeForce 8800 GT still runs most games like a champ.

[twitchyzero]

Of course, Apple will want their own series of cards because they want to look like they're better than PCs, so that's why we're launching the (GeForce) 600 series shortly after. These cards will be identical, but with a plainer look, lower clock speeds, double the price tag, and a higher series number so the general public will assume Apple gets the latest and greatest parts.

LOL

i hope i can grab the gtx 470/480 at an affordable price this boxing day

[SkinnyPupp]

LOL @ people who go by the advice in Anand's article

Truth is, the 480 is barely faster than a 5870, but at a MUCH higher cost. And the power consumption is ridiculous.

The 470 is about level with a 5850, in some cases faster, in some cases slower. But again it's much more expensive, consumes way more power, and is way louder.

The 400 series is pretty much a flop. Although SLI performance is pretty impressive.

[asian_XL]

Originally Posted by Bonjour43MA

maybe i haven't been play enough high-end, GPU-demanding games lately, but my 2.5-year old GeForce 8800 GT still runs most games like a champ.

+1
I still hope buying a better video card that will run 1920x games much smoother. Can't justify spending more than $250 or more for a video card.

[SkinnyPupp]

Video game consoles have had the effect of holding back graphics for the last 3 years. So even a basic card will be able to run these games. An 8800GT is enough to replicate a PS3 or XBOX 360 when the same settings are used. Both consoles run in low resolutions, and with "medium" settings, so it's not difficult. One advantage they do have is that they scale to high res much better, which is why 720p or 640p looks pretty okay on a 1920p monitor with a console. With a PC, if you run 720p res on a 1920p monitor, it will look like crap.

So if you want to run at full high res with high settings, and make games look WAY better than consoles, you will need to buy a $200 or $300 video card.

[DragonChi]

... I guess you didn't bother to read the whole thing...

[tegz]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

LOL @ people who go by the advice in Anand's article

Truth is, the 480 is barely faster than a 5870, but at a MUCH higher cost. And the power consumption is ridiculous.

The 470 is about level with a 5850, in some cases faster, in some cases slower. But again it's much more expensive, consumes way more power, and is way louder.

The 400 series is pretty much a flop. Although SLI performance is pretty impressive.

So it'd be a good idea to keep the 5870 then? I just heard like from way back that Nvidia's Ferma will destroy the Radeon 5xxx series..

Do you have any idea how the 600/700 Ferma's are going to be in terms of performance?

Edit.. Oh yeah, what about the poor driver support for the 5xxx series... I've heard that Nvidia has much better driver support and is much more compatible (less crashes while gaming, etc) with alot of the games out there.

[SkinnyPupp]

Wow, so you weren't being sarcastic after all

Absolutely keep the 5870. Going from that to a 470 is a 'sideways' switch to begin with, not an upgrade. And on top of that, it's way too expensive and uses way too much power to be worthwhile. You'd probably need to upgrade your PSU as well, which makes it even more expensive.

[Alatar]

And this is why I'm glad I bought my 5850 over 2 months ago.