The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius - Oscar Wilde
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Nvidia finally launches Fermi based cards
MAKER OF GRAPHICS CARDS Nvidia has finally launched its long awaited refresh of its Geforce range based on the Fermi architecture.
Despite being somewhat underpowered, the GTX480 will reclaim the crown as the world's fastest GPU, claims the Green Goblin.
The GTX480 and GTX470 finally add DirectX11 support, as well as tessellation, better stereoscopic 3D, improved SLI scaling, interactive ray tracing and physics processing as well as up to 32x anti-aliasing.
The 10.5-inch GTX480 reference card packs 480 shader cores running at 1401MHz into a 700MHz processor with 1536MB GDDR5 memory clocked at 1848MHz. It needs six-pin and eight-pin power connectors to pull the necessary 275W and supports 3-way SLI.
Meanwhile its 9.5-inch younger brother the GTX470 sports 448 shader cores running at 1215MHz in a 607MHz processor and 1280MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1674MHz. It needs two six-pin connectors for the 215W of power that it draws.
Despite clearly taking some major strides forward the entire presentation smacked of not-so-subtle desperation.
Comparisons to rival ATI where all done against a Radeon 5870, rather than the, admittedly dual-core, 5970, and even those comparisons with its own previous generation were done against a GTX285 and all were graphs normalised, but starting from 0.6 or 0.8 to visually inflate the performance increases.
Similarly, when it came to talking up tessellation, the company opted for comparing models from the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie to a model of a character from Far Cry 2, that top end cutting edge video game launched just 18 months ago. The Nvidia spokesperson went on to comment on how the character in the game was wearing a hat because rendering hair realistically is so difficult, quite blithely skimming over the fact that the character in the second image was also wearing a headpiece.
That said, thanks to the addition of tessellation, Nvidia reckons that we'll see vastly improved effects for complex things like water and hair as well as better depth of field and similar environmental elements when combined with DirectX11.
The two Fermi chips also support Nvidia's 3D Vision, which basically combines stereoscopic 3D with multimonitor support, allowing for 3D over a trio of monitors providing a total resolution of 5670x1080, provided you have at least two such cards in your PC.
There is no doubt that Nvidia has upped its game considerably with this launch, but whether these GPUs are all they're cracked up to be or, more importantly to most consumers, whether they are worth the price tag remains to be seen.
Nvidia's partners' latest Geforce cards will be in the hands of reviewers and the rest of the world very soon, so it won't be long until we see if they back up Nvidia's claims that it has indeed taken back the fastest GPU crown.
The Nvidia Geforce GTX480 and GTX470 graphics cards will retail for about £429 and £299 respectively in the UK and around $499 and $349 or €479 and €349 in the US and Europe. µ
Tags: Nvidia
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Most of us were looking for a more promising increase on the performance of a 5870. Its not. Whilst its no 5800 ultra it certainly gets too hot and consumes far too much power.
A 5970 beats it in most benchmarks for very little more cash although stock is an issue.
Future die shrinks and revisions will improve it, cost versus performance today. One for the fan boys.
Wont be replacing my 280gtx for one of these in a hurry.
This article does seem a bit one sided as have seen other benchmarks where the 5870 beats it in certain games.
Physx and other capabilities are of interest, but suggest limited availability at launch, price , TDP and little in the way of DX11 games do not make it an essential purchase or the fastest card on the planet.
Just because the spec'd TDP is rated at 215 or 275W, it does NOT mean to say that the card's will be pulling that power at all times.
It only pulls what it needs according to the actual task being performed at any given moment,just as a CPU can be going flat out one second & virtually at rest the next.
It's just there,as & when required,normal rendering isn't going to put much load on it,but doing some Ray Tracing or continuous frantic gaming with certain games may,depending on the game & settings you use,otherwise,there's not much difference to any current high end GPU in use today.
iam quite happy to settle for a GTX 470 standard version card,when available.
Obviously, it would have been nicer without having some cores disabled, but unless one waits another year,you take it as it comes,warts & all.
I'm sure that with a couple of NVidia driver updates downstream,they will improve performance & most people would settle for their drivers over ATI's.
I own a GTX 260 and was waiting for Fermi to make my decision. I've read about 3 reviews, and it looks like more expensive steak that requires more power, compared to less expensive steak (ATI) that requires less power and tastes the same.
I don't care about raytracing. Intel left NVidia swinging in the wind with that one by convincing them it would be the next thing - we see what Larrabee amounted to.
Let's hope NVidia gets back on track, reduces the cost and makes this a winner with the refresh. So far, the price just makes me want to replace my GTX 260 with a 5850 and have done with it.
I agree about power, heat and the meagre performance boost over eg 5870 (heck, over GTX295 vapour product too!).
WRT OpenCL, NV has an OpenCL stack, it works well, and FWIW NV had one before ATI did. CUDA, in the NV scheme, underlies OpenCL, just as on ATI either CAL or ATI's OpenGL* underlies OpenCL.
Some people like CUDA because it offers complete control of the GPU, whereas OpenCL kinda does magic behind the scenes.
Fermi is a hybrid product: video card and HPC processor. I don't know if that was the right thing to attempt given the result... but if NV had pulled the trick off on schedule & power budget it would have been a real coup. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?
* Install ATI driver, remove or otherwise disable ATI OpenGL component of the driver: the CAL samples still work but the OpenCL stuff breaks.
Nvidia = Unethical corporate behavior at its best. After all these years of lying, deception, spin after spin, were you expecting anything less from them?
The 480 is operating at a volcanic and chip killing 95c+, draws way over 300W under load, despite Nvidia "claim" of 250W TDP, which is a staggering 120W over 5870 and 55W over the even more powerful 5970!!! With 3 billions+ or twice the transistors and costing 100.00$ more, you end up adding only 5-10% FPS on average over the much more efficient 5870? ARE YOU KIDDING ME Nvidia?
CUDA and Physix are hardly a selling point anymore because the much more appealing and *open standard* OpenCl will take over in the next couple of month.
Way before Nvidia can launch a 512sp version and even much sooner than they can even think of a die shrink, ATI will launch a 5XXX refresh in a couple a weeks and and the new HD6000 series in Q3 2010.
Ramon
nvidia done it in right direction only if it can manage to control heat, power & price in their next versions before amd launches new thingies.
Very true, but graphics cards get a remarkable amount of usage compared to many of the other components, if you purchase one for gaming, etc. For other tasks, buying some $250 Dell Zino HD with one of those dual-core low-power AMD processors will be way more than enough for a person to use. Even a little gaming too. It even comes with a mouse that does multiple levels of DPI, like many gaming mice.
But hey, I don't regret paying $350 for high-mainstream video card in 2007. I'm still using it, it works for the games I play, and it's far better utilized than many other things I've bought, especially over three years. Hopefully the mainstream versions of the Fermis are a suitable replacement for this card when they come out.
Basically charlie was vindicated, it's too hot too noisy too powerhungry, but it IS faster than the HD5870, but unfortunately not by that much though.
So I guess it's time both ATI and nvidia get some new talent in to make some leaps forward, I'd advise them to try to search in israel (and belgium and china maybe).
Graphic card cost = cost of quad core+mobo+4Gb RAM+HD+DVDRW+case+PSU
Hey for $499 you can fry an egg in your computer.
is getting high.
Looked at review sites just now. They are using cards like 5970, 5870, 5850, gtx295, gtx285 to compare to gtx480.
Of the above, only the 5870 & 5850 are actually commonly available for purchase!
Nvidia reportedly plans to launch less powerful -- and inherently more affordable -- DirectX 11 graphics cards over the summer. A few months after the release of its GF100-based GeForce GTX 480 and 470, the company will ship entry-level and mainstream Fermi iterations branded 450, 440 and 430.
Models built with the new GF104 architecture are expected to have less horsepower but with features on par with their higher-end counterparts. Rumored specs include 256 shader cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit memory bus. The graphics core is said to be destined for use in three cards, but no other details are available.
The GTS 450 should be a touch faster than the HD 5830, but its price will probably reflect that edge, and it's expected to cost between €200 and €230. The GTS 400 will supposedly outperform the HD 5770, and cost around €160 to €180. Meanwhile, GTS 430 will carry 192 shader cores, 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and a 192-bit memory bus, should match the HD 5770, and will run between €130 and €150.
Other cards based on GF106 and GF108 cores should follow, with the former selling for €60 to €100, depending on the SKU, and the latter for €30 to €40
theMAN Stated: 1/2,1/4,1/6,1/8.
Ahso, After Cutting Out All Histories in internet histories, deleting entire ati softare & reinstalling ati 10.3 Non Beta from normal amdsite, now 5750 card dosn't make strange gear like sound, like clicking of mouse wheel. on another -=7=- build where DID NOT click trust all ati odwnloads, works in 10.3 beta fine. In BSOD here few hours back, in blue screen stated remove last software installed, so pretty sure that one click box that comes up, amd/ati not actually in love with intenet era, have partners whom are willing to be problematic, if desktop will allow corruption by user fault.ahso, 5750 is single point precision & beta needs double point precision to fully operate. so be warned, always set mechanism back.
Remember in present Nvidia article GF Stands For: GLOBAL FOUNDRIES. sso maybe amd just ain't hip to other things, especially since Open GL Was basis for Vista & nvidia picked up Open GL Soon & made long march with Open Gl, as Vista Made Long March hardware coming to grips with Just NOW. Jens will be Baacccckkkk, if Not as expected, when iA64 Becomes more availble, as ages. Or Maybe Just Getting In NOW.
However, Will AnyOne PAY, $600 To PLAY Gold Miner? BUY Some Dynamite? Person can explode just about anything for dollar, except gaming games. 4290 built in controller is 3.4 on experience, TOPPER cards probably go slightly beyond 7.9 present maximum rating, yet only Slightly twice experience rating
From Black Heart of: STeWie.
According to the reviews, Its not that impressive, Just the name sounds cool and updated.Nvidia fan boys will buy this card just to have GTX480 name power to there rig.For the price I would add a extra 100 dollars to buy a 5970or wait until ati drop prices. Another thing, If this card would of came out the same time as ATI then it would of been amazing, 6 month later. Ati sure has something ready for this card. 5990 or 6870 anyone!.
theMAN, theMAN. Charlie states with slight push 5870 will perform as well. Jens claims fermi will overclock 50%.Hard to believe yet RaceIS On.
One small hdmi port? In End Actual Hz of Game Card Seem only real keeper. More Is Bettter.
Bizz sput, 50% more makes less. In ati 10.3 Dept. DO NOT CHECK BOX, Trust ALL Software from ati. in hour BSOD Appears.
On -=7=- TestBeds Don't be cooncerned you cann't refresh some updates, just wait for SP1 & Burn IT, then Load it. Not activation required or use activated partition or even Buy Disc. or find secondary source to download from.
Sadness that TV tuner card coasts more than Good cpu. Even Sadder is Crummy Game Card costs so much, forget BUYING Expensive Games, Altogether. More Than TOP Main. first Nicumpoopstuff od this & that, then why even bother, just lot of Money to ?Waste.
Try Internal Vision, get cheap l[poloriod camera with plenty of megapixels & make local website. Funny how expensive photoing violations can get, for ?them. Game On, Not dumb stuff games.
For game graphics, the new Nvidia chip is around 15% faster and delivers better quality than the best ATI chip. For physics and double precision computation Nvidia is at least 3 times faster. But this new GPU is not just for gaming, it is a general purpose processor which can speed up many scientific, office and server applications. It has error correcting memory, excellent drivers and software support. ATI can't offer anything of the sort, theirs is a plain graphics card with fickly drivers.
All real applications except gaming, require double precision, ECC memory and good software. ATI either don't have those or what they have is times slower. There is no contest. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has already embraced NVidia, they are building a supercomputer around GF100. Many others are making plans now.
Some people fail to learn from history. Originally everyone thought that people didn't need computers, IBM's Watson got famous by saying that there's a world market for five computers... B Gates thought 640K was enough for anybody... History shows that people go for more computing power whenever they can get it at the right price. On GFLOPS per dollar, Nvidia is now way ahead of everyone else.
TDP Audio Price----- ATI
Performances Compatibility Features --- NVIDIA
also, only fanATIcs can argue dts true hd bit stream as a must-have feature from a Video card ffs.
GTX4xx supports 8 channel LPCM, lossy format DD+ and 6 channel AAC, as if that isn't good enough for most of us.
Nvidia's features are far more interesting.
Temperatures at and TDP are definitely trivial 5870 188w gtx 480 250w its no revolutionary.Product after 1 year and lack of audio performance like dts true hd and others make the amd-ati better product and the fact that yours so called Fermi loose badly from Radeon 5970.Ati reference Radeon HD 5870 keeps up they will soon release new rev. with 2gb and price cut.Nvidia sorry but nothing its new or revolutionary in your so long awaited product.
You dont have better audio or TDP or new features ridiculous disappointing not nvidia am used to.
TDP Audio Price----- ATI
The GPU clock on the GTX 480 is 700mhz. You've got "shader core" and "gpu core" confused.
Another marketing graph that doesn't start at 0 just to show that small numbers look bigger.
Always distrust a sauce that does this.