NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470: 6 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait?
by Ryan Smith on March 26, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Left 4 Dead
Introduced in 2004, Valve’s Source engine continues to live on in new Valve games. At this point even newer Source games like Left 4 Dead are rarely GPU limited to a significant degree, but we keep it on here due to the fact that we’re expecting at least one more Source game this year in Portal 2.
Breaking from tradition a bit, for L4D we’ve gone ahead and cranked up the AA to 8x. The quality difference is tiny at best, but it was necessary to try to keep the GTX 480 and 5870 from getting more than 100fps at 2560 (and it still wasn’t enough for the 5870). With that said we see a dramatic reversal from HAWX – the GTX 400 series loses its first game. The GTX 480 falls behind by 6-9% while the GTX 470 falls behind by anywhere between 1 and 15%. Interestingly on the GTX 470 in particular, the gap grows with resolution; perhaps we’re seeing the ROP loss come to haunt us?
In any case, if you’re going to lose a game, L4D is not a bad game to lose at. Even the GTX 275 gets over 60fps at 2560, so while it’s a loss on paper there’s little practical difference..
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cmdrdredd - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Get a sound card fr audiomcnabney - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
A sound card that will provide Bitstream HD audio will require another $200+, so that tacks on an even higher net-price for Nvidia.All of AMD's 5XXX cards give you real HD audio for free.
Hauk - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
An excellent article Ryan. I loved seeing Ujesh's response recaptured like that, so fitting for this epic fail. Well crafted review though..just4U - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
I agree an excellent article overall. I wonder if Amd will move and try and get price drops in play on their cards now. Afterall they are still selling far above their suggested sales price.formulav8 - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Man the site is getting hammered.I wonder how many dissapointed compared to happy people there is going to be? :)
Jason
xsilver - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
the site is moving as fast as nvidia is moving cards ;)MrSpadge - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
"Peak 64-bit FP execution rate is now 1/2 of 32-bit FP, it used to be 1/8 (AMD's is 1/5)."AMDs is 2/5, not 1/5. Otherwise.. still reading ;)
MrSpadge - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
It's still there (page 3).MrSpadge - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
It's still there (page 3).MrSpadge - Saturday, March 27, 2010 - link
It's still there (page 3).