I have been thinking of upgrading my video card before my gtx 260 degrades too much in value so I was doing some research on the latest video cards on the market atm. The GTX 470 and GTX 480 are the newest DX11 cards being released by nVidia in the middle of next month to compete with the current Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870 cards on the market. All video card feature DX11 support, HDMI out WITH Audio, and use PCI-E 2.0 (some use 2.1). I was kind of leaning towards nVidia because they have phyX, CUDA, and Nvidia Surround Sound via HDMI but I think the review from tomshardware.com and these benchmark pics speak for themselves. Full Review is available at = http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480,2585.html The Conclusion is a good read too http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480,2585-16.html Some of the things I found interesting were:
I'm currently enjoying my ATI 5xxx series ;] On a side note! Go take a look at the benchmark results for metro2033 It beats the shit out of almost everything they throw at it. I don't feel so bad about turning the graphics down on that game anymore ;D.
Well keep in mind that the 480s used are stock direct from nvidia and not OC'ed versions that manufacturer's make that are OC'ed and tweaked for optimal performance. The ATI cards on the other hand are probably OC'ed and tweaked properly. I wouldn't read into those benchmark scores until both have been out for a while and the 480s are properly tweaked/OC'ed etc by BFG/EVGA/PNY/ETC... I will be upgrading my BFG SLI 285 GTX's to SLI 480s whenever BFG comes out with em .
I would note that the results from a single game don't prove much by themselves. Even so, the performance lead the GTX470 and 480 are supposed to have over their Radeon equivalents is pretty marginal.
Unshockingly, the Nvidia cards are better performers than the ATI cards when you turn on Anti-Aliasing.
It is still cool to see some new hardware. By the way I run BC2 on 1680x1050 16xx AA 16XX AF and it is flawless. I have SLI 285s.
From what I understand, the 480s should be maybe a 10-20% increase over ATis 5xxx series cards but cost 200~ dollars more and run hot as hell. If you run dual monitor on the 480 it idles at 90c... Maybe some driver issue, who knows. Its loud, and very power hungry, a single 480 pulled 50w more than a dual gpu 5970 running Unigine Heaven or whatever benchmark... All this stuff I read here. http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33961300 Its an ATi site mainly, but there are people there that switch depending on the top card... This is a discussion on if anyone would upgrade from a 5xxx series to a 470 or 480.
This past Sunday I read a lot of the articles on the new series. I was not impressed with their new line, and I've been pretty loyal to nVidia (disclaimer for rest of post). Like previously stated by others, even if you are just interested in BF:BC2, definitely read the other benchmark portions of the article, they shed a lot of light as well. I read that Tom's Article, guru3d, overclocker's club, and a few others and while, granted, its the fastest GPU (comparatively) on the market, it does not (for me) warrant the price, power consumption, heat, and other factors for a somewhat marginal performance increase from its competitors equivalent product line that's been out for already 6 months. I wouldn't buy a high-end, fresh off the production line card anyway (nor pay 350$+ for one) but it does show a lot about what's going on in the current market, and nVidia has a decent amout of "catching" up to do in the next few months.
the GTX 480, in particular, becomes a very hot card, cresting 160 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface during game play. not that hot tho imo:
I couldn't hear him, too much fan noise /sarcasm. Tom's got it up to something fierce, but they like to push their stuff pretty high. Either way..