NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Review

**Jester** · April 25th, 2010

It's finally here. The much awaited GTX 480 review. This review has been delayed due to driver issues, which have now been fixed.

Next-generation gaming has arrived. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 480 gives your games an adrenaline shot with the world’s fastest performance and futuristic, visually-stunning graphics. Experience heart-pounding, cinematic visuals on your favorite games with the combined power of DirectX 11, CUDA™, and NVIDIA® PhysX® technologies. And expand your visual real estate across three HD displays in jaw-dropping stereoscopic 3D for the ultimate in immersive gaming. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 480: pure adrenaline meets visual bliss.

The GTX 480 and GTX 470 are NVIDIA's latest and greatest video cards. The chipset they're built on, named GF100 (Fermi), is over twice as powerful as the previous GT200 chipset. For my review, I used the GTX 480, NVIDIA's highest end desktop video card. Did it live up to the hype? You'll find out.

Specifications for the GTX 480 are as follows.

Chipset: GF100
Fabrication Process: 40nm
Transistor Count: 3.2 billion
Interface: PCI-Express 2.0 x 16 and below
Memory Type: GDDR5
Memory Size: 1536 MB
Memory Interface: 384 bit
Memory Bandwidth: 177.4 GB/s
CUDA Cores: 480
Texture Units: 60
Raster Operators: 48
Texture Fill Rate: 42 billion/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 33.6 billion/sec
Core Clock: 700 mhz
Shader Clock: 1401 mhz
Memory Clock: 925 mhz (3700 mhz effective data rate)
TDP: 250W
Display Connectors: Two dual-link DVI, one mini HDMI

So we're looking at GDDR5 - a first for NVIDIA cards. A new 40nm fabrication process lowers heat and power consumption, twice as many CUDA cores as GT200, and other huge increases.

NVIDIA did disable a cluster of processing cores and texture units. GF100 is capable of 512 CUDA cores and 64 texture units. They were disabled in order to lower heat.

Enough official crap. Lets see the card. My previous GPU setup included two EVGA GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm video cards. One of which was a SuperClocked edition.

Packaging & Contents

I ordered the EVGA GTX 480 from newegg for $509.99. I had to wait about 2 weeks from the initial release date in order to get one. Supply issues and other customers are to blame for this. The low supply and high demand of the card increased the price by $10 (compared to the original MSRP).

The box doesn't look much different compared to other EVGA GPU boxes.

The box includes the GTX 480, typical DVI cables and what not, and a custom HDMI cable. The mini HDMI output on the card requires this. NVIDIA used a custom HDMI port so that they can fit more exhaust ports on the rear of the card. EVGA also included a T-shirt and a driver/software disk, which I forgot to photograph.

The card in all it's beauty.

The GTX 480 retains the typical 10.5 inch length (26.67 centimeters). This matches my old GTX 260s. The GTX 470 is 9.5 inches long (24.13 centimeters). The GTX 480 requires one 6-pin power connector and one 8-pin power connector, while the GTX 470 only requires two 6-pin connectors.

Also, the fan is smaller than GT200 video cards. The difference is 10-20mm. This means the fan will have to spin faster to cool properly, resulting in increased noise levels.

For those who are wondering, those are not exposed fins on the face of the card. I wish they were, this way we'd be able to zip tie a fan onto there without removing the fan shroud.

The GTX 480 has a decent heat sink. It has a good amount of aluminum fins for a stock cooler, and a nickel plated copper base/heat pipes. Unfortunately, the cooler uses a heat-pipe direct touch design, meaning the five heat pipes are flattened at the base. This is done to reduce costs, a normal flat design is more effective.

The back of the PCB has a gap that allows air to be exhausted to the top of the case. There is also a small silicon lining. DO NOT REMOVE, the card needs it. It helps cool the card.

^ One mini HDMI, two dual-link DVI. You can also use a DVI to VGA adapter if you have an old monitor.

EVGA also includes a CD key for Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. You get the key when registering your card, and you will then be forwarded to a download page. More on the game below.

Installation

It's a dual slot video card. Installation is the same as any other. Stick it in a PCI-E slot, secure it to the expansion slots on the rear of the case.

From bottom to top: EVGA GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SC (with an EVGA GTX 275 backplate), Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1, EVGA GTX 480. The GTX 260 will be used as a dedicated PhysX processor in several tests.

The driver disk includes the 197.41 WHQL drivers, EVGA Precision v1.9.2 (which CANNOT be downloaded from EVGA's website), EVGA OC Scanner (registered EVGA Fermi card required for download), and a few other programs.

This version of EVGA Precision includes a unique GTX 470/480 skin, which removes core overclocking. This is because Fermi is overclocked by increasing the shader clock and memory clock only. The shader clock and core clock are linked - the core clock runs at half the shader clock.

The EVGA OC Scanner is a stress testing and benchmarking program. It has several nice features and can run at different resolutions, including full screen.

Temperature Results

My Cooler Master ATCS 840 has the following airflow setup.

2x 120mm front intake fans
2x 120mm bottom intake fans
3x 120mm intake fans on the back of the drive bays
2x 120mm rear exhaust fans (one of which is in an external air duct positioned over the expansion slots)

My power supply exhausts air from the top of the case. The fans used are Cooler Master R4 series, which are rated at 1800 RPM/69.69 CFM/19 DBA. The rest of the system is as follows.

(XFX) NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI -> 2x PCI-Express 1.1 x 16 slots, 2x PCI slots, 1x PCI-Express 1.1 x 1 slot
Intel Core 2 DUO E8400 @ 3.8 ghz (1900 mhz FSB QDR, 475 x 8)
4 GB RAM (2 x 2 GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 @ 1140 mhz, 5-5-5-18)
Antec TruePower New 750W
Western Digital Caviar 320 GB SATA HDD
Dell ST2310 Monitor -> 1920 x 1080, 60 hz, HDMI or DVI output (HDMI used)

Yes, that's a CPU bottleneck. A slight one given my resolution. Remember that. The PCI-E 1.1 x 16 slot may be a slight bottleneck for a GTX 480, but not noticeable.

The CPU was actually running at 4.0 ghz for every test (2000 mhz FSB QDR, 500 x 8) except for the Crysis and Crysis Warhead tests, where it had the above clocks, which are also my 24/7 clock speeds.

The first thing I did after installing the drivers, was install EVGA Precision 1.9.2 and push the fan speed to 80%. The fan speed remains the same for every test.

Idle: 40-45 degrees Celsius.

Max load -> 30 minutes running the EVGA OC Scanner at 512 x 512, with the "unlock power draw" feature enabled. 82 degrees Celsius. Not nearly as bad as people would expect.

Max load OVERCLOCKED -> 800 mhz core clock, 1600 mhz shader clock, 1000 mhz memory clock (4000 mhz effective data rate). 30 minutes of EVGA OC Scanner at 1024 x 1024 with the "unlock power draw" feature enabled. 93 degrees Celsius.

Again, not bad temperatures.

Benchmarking

Here it is, what everyone has been waiting for. Benchmarks. The card will be tested against my previous GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI setup, and in some tests, a GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SC will be used in tandem with my GTX 480 as a dedicated PhysX card. Clock speeds for the cards will be given, but the PhysX card had the following clock speeds for every test.

Many benchmarks use PhysX technology. PhysX is an advanced physics engine now owned by NVIDIA. It is designed to run on the stream processing cores (now called CUDA cores by NVIDIA) on a video card, since these processing cores can do more than CPUs when it comes to physics processing.

Core Clock: 626 mhz
Shader Clock: 1350 mhz
Memory Clock: 1053 mhz (2106 mhz effective data rate)

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is a benchmarking program developed by Futuremark. It has become the standard for benchmarking. Unfortunately, it supports only up to DirectX 10, and it is known to not scale well with Fermi cards.

PhysX was enabled for all tests. The GTX 260s had the following overclocks.

Core Clock: 720 mhz
Shader Clock: 1530 mhz
Memory Clock: 1188 mhz (2376 mhz effective data rate)

My GTX 480 was running at the following speeds.

Core Clock: 800 mhz
Shader Clock: 1600 mhz
Memory Clock: 1000 mhz (4000 mhz effective data rate)

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm -> P13599

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI -> P22301

GTX 480 -> P24529

Victory for the GTX 480 thanks to the new 257.15 BETA drivers. One thing stood out during the tests -> the GTX 480 was doing 2x-3x as well as the GTX 260 SLI setup in the last few tests. Also notice how the CPU score is noticeably higher.

Heaven 2.0 Performance

Heaven 2.0 is a benchmark made by Unigine. It supports up to DirectX 11, in which it can run with tessellation and other modern features enabled.

Heaven 2.0 Information & Download

Once again, the GTX 260s were running at 720/1530/1188. The GTX 480 was running at 800/1600/1000.

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI @ 720/1530/1188 -> 1920 x 1080, DX10, maxed out, 16x AF, no AA

GTX 480 @ 800/1600/1000 -> 1920 x 1080, DX10, maxed out, 16x AF, no AA

GTX 480 @ 800/1600/1000 -> 1920 x 1080, DX11 (tessellation set to extreme), 16x AF, 8x AA

Two losses for the GTX 480 so far. Let's continue, shall we?

Tropics 1.2 Performance

Tropics 1.2 is another Unigine benchmark. Unfortunately, this one has no DirectX 11 support. It supports up to DirectX 10.1.

Tropics 1.2 Information & Download

The GTX 260s were set to 720/1530/1188 in this test, while the GTX 480 was running at 800/1600/1000. Tropics 1.2 was running at max details in DX10, 1920 x 1080, 16x AF, and 8x AA.

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI

GTX 480

A 10 FPS lead for the GTX 480. Lets move on to some PhysX tests.

FluidMark Performance

FluidMark is a PhysX and OpenGL benchmark, made by Ozone3D and Geeks3D.

FluidMark Information & Download

The GTX 260s were again running at 720/1530/1188 when in SLI. The GTX 480 was running at 800/1600/1000, and when the GTX 260 CORE 216 SC was being used as a dedicated PhysX processor alongside the GTX 480, it was running at 626/1350/1053.

A win for the GTX 480. A bigger win for the GTX 480 with a GTX 260 as a PhysX processor. Here is a closer look at the performance.

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI

GTX 480

GTX 480 w/ GTX 260 as PPU (PhysX Processing Unit)

Cryostasis Tech Demo Performance

Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason is a rather new game that heavily supports PhysX and DirectX 10.

Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason puts you in 1968 at the Arctic Circle, Russian North Pole. The main character, Alexander Nesterov is a meteorologist incidentally caught inside an old nuclear ice-breaker North Wind, frozen in the ice desert for decades. Nesterov’s mission is to investigate the mystery of the ship’s captain death – or, as it may well be, a murder.

Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason official website

The tech demo is a benchmark for the game. It can be run in DX9 or DX10, at low, medium, or high settings with PhysX enabled or disabled.

The demo can be found here.

A small lead for the GTX 480 compared to the GTX 260 SLI setup, and a small lead for the GTX 480 with a PPU compared to the GTX 480 alone. Here are the exact scores.

GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI

Total Time: 189.566 s
Total Frames Count: 9821
Average FPS: 51.8
Minimum FPS: 28.6
Maximum FPS: 129.9

GTX 480

Total Time: 167.711 s
Total Frames Count: 9821
Average FPS: 58.6
Minimum FPS: 27.9
Maximum FPS: 121.8

GTX 480 w/ GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SC for PhysX

Total Time: 153.724 s
Total Frames Count: 9821
Average FPS: 63.9
Minimum FPS: 27.3
Maximum FPS: 109.9

Fermi seems to be better at processing PhysX compared to the previous generation cards.

Crysis Performance

Crysis came out in 2007, and it was one of the first games to support DirectX 10. It is still one of the hardest games to run, and it is one of the most realistic games out there.

From the makers of Far Cry, Crysis offers FPS fans the best-looking, most highly-evolving gameplay, requiring the player to use adaptive tactics and total customization of weapons and armor to survive in dynamic, hostile environments including Zero-G.

Earth, 2019. A team of US scientists makes a frightening discovery on an island in the South China Sea. All contact with the team is lost when the North Korean Government quickly seals off the area. The United States responds by dispatching an elite team of Delta Force Operators to recon the situation. As tension rises between the two nations, a massive alien ship reveals itself in the middle of the island. The ship generates an immense force sphere that freezes a vast portion of the island and drastically alters the global weather system. Now the US and North Korea must join forces to battle the alien menace. With hope rapidly fading, you must fight epic battles through tropical jungle, frozen landscapes, and finally into the heart of the alien ship itself for the ultimate Zero G showdown.

The GTX 260s were running at 720/1530/1188, while the GTX 480 was at stock clocks (700/1401/925).

Ultimate lead for the GTX 480. What is really amazing is the anti-aliasing performance. High settings was used for the AA tests.

Hardly a drop in performance. With no AA, the average FPS was 56 FPS. With 16xQ AA, the average FPS was 49 FPS. Amazing. Lets look at minimum frame rates.

The minimum frame rates on high settings with AA are very impressive with the GTX 480.

All above 30 FPS, except with no AA. Impressive. Lets see what else the GTX 480 is capable of.

Crysis Warhead Performance

Warhead is a stand-alone expansion pack for Crysis. It supposedly runs better than the first game while looking even more realistic. The latter is true due to enhanced time of day settings and several new shaders. The former is false for me, not even just in this benchmark.

Adapt. Engage. Dominate!

Take on the fight as the volatile Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes in a new parallel story taking place during the events of Crysis. Psycho’s secret mission will take him to the other side of the island on a ruthless pursuit of a North Korean general hell-bent on obtaining powerful technology. With the versatile powers of his Nanosuit and an arsenal of fully customizable weapons & vehicles at his disposal, Sykes will do whatever it takes to carry out his top-secret objective.

Action on the other side of the island is more intense, the battles are fierce, and the mission protocol is no longer “Adapt to Survive”. As Sergeant Sykes, now you must adapt to dominate the battle. Twin SMG’s blazing, seizing new vehicles, or going stealth, the action and the victory is on your terms.

o Pulse-racing new installment from 2007’s PC Game of the Year*: Play as Sergeant Sykes and experience a whole new side of the battle. A standard combat mission behind enemy lines becomes critical when you discover your enemies have captured something of vital importance to the ensuing war. It’s down to you to retrieve the cargo, at any cost.
o More explosive and dynamic minute to minute game play: new customizable weapons, new vehicles, new photorealistic locations to explore, and a fully interactive war zone to dominate.
o Enhanced human and alien AI: Intelligent enemies, bigger challenges, and all-new ally squad support.
o Includes Crysis Wars®, an expanded new multiplayer experience with new online modes and 21 maps including seven all-new maps to battle it out against other players.
o Crysis Warhead is a standalone release and does not require ownership of Crysis to play.

Video cards had the same clock speeds as the Crysis tests. The benchmark tool I used had no 64-bit support.

Another GTX 480 victory. Notice how with the GTX 480, my ultra high end graphics mod offers better performance than enthusiast settings. Lets look at AA scaling.

Once again, AA has very little impact on performance. Lets go back to minimum frame rates.

Definite victory for the GTX 480. The GTX 260 SLI setup choked when running my ultra high end graphics mod. Micro stuttering occurred on all settings. Notice how my ultra high end graphics mod had the highest minimum frame rate with the GTX 480. Very nice. Below shows minimum FPS with AA on my GTX 480, running gamer settings.

Once again, the lowest frame rate occurred with no AA. Interesting... and strange.

Warmonger Sentinel Test

Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction is a free multiplayer shooter that uses the Unreal Engine, and features advanced PhysX support. It can be downloaded for free here.

The sentinel test is an unofficial benchmark, but a very simple one. All you have to do is start the tutorial, and turn left until your crosshair is over the "Sentinel" icon. Don't walk around. Then record the frame rate.

The GTX 260s were running at 720/1530/1188. My GTX 480 was running at 800/1600/1000. The GTX 260 PPU was running at 626/1350/1053.

The dedicated PhysX card helped, but not that much. It seems that Fermi is intent on doing a great job at processing PhysX on it's own. It does do a good job, but the GTX 260 still helps.

OVERCLOCK RESULTS

So you know me... I never leave anything stock. Here are some results with my GTX 480 overclocked using the 257.15 BETA drivers. First up is 3DMark Vantage. With my GTX 480 running at 883/1766/1067.5 and 1.138 VGPU, along with my E8400 at 4.016 ghz (502 x 8, 2008 mhz FSB QDR) I beat all of my previous 3DMark Vantage scores and got P24529.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=2226949

My Crysis and Crysis Warhead scores went up a lot as well. The following was done with my E8400 at 3.8 ghz (475 x 8, 1900 mhz FSB QDR) and my GTX 480 at 863/1726/1050 (1.138v).

Crysis on high settings, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 64-bit, 16xQ AA -> 50.575 average FPS, 33.41 FPS minimum.

Crysis on very high settings, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 64-bit, 16xQ AA -> 33.315 average FPS, 18.69 FPS minimum.

Crysis using my high end graphics mod, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 64-bit, 16xQ AA -> 36.39 average FPS, 22.24 FPS minimum.

Crysis using my ultra high end graphics mod, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 64-bit, 16xQ AA -> 32.005 average FPS, 20.92 FPS minimum.

Crysis Warhead on gamer settings, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 32-bit, 16xQ AA -> 48.49 average FPS, 25.67 FPS minimum.

Crysis Warhead on enthusiast settings, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 32-bit, 16xQ AA -> 34.62 FPS average, 22.61 FPS minimum.

Crysis Warhead using my high end graphics mod, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 32-bit, 16xQ AA -> 39.29 FPS average, 24.08 FPS minimum.

Crysis Warhead using my ultra high end graphics mod, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 32-bit, 16xQ AA -> 34.45 FPS average, 22.03 FPS minimum.

I added some more case fans... 2x 120mm front intakes, 2x 120mm bottom intakes, 2x 120mm side intakes, 1x 230mm top exhaust, 2x 120mm rear exhaust fans (one is in the external VGA air duct). It gets hot under stability testing to say the least.

Conclusion

Well, what do I have to say about this card? It outperforms my old GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SLI setup overall, despite my CPU bottleneck. It doesn't run as hot as others say, my PSU has no problems running it with all of these overclocks, and I don't have to suffer from micro stuttering which my old SLI setup gave me.

Ranking: 5 is the highest score I give.

Packaging: Lots of goodies, well protected, no damage... 5/5 here.
Design: Fermi uses a less efficient architecture than ATI, but in the end you get a better performing card at the cost of power consumption and heat. But still, shrinking the fan seems silly to me, now it's noisy once you reach 80%. The heat sink can have a better design. I would love to see a backplate too, but that's not really necessary since all of the VRAM is on the front of the card. No increase in length is good for those who have smaller cases. I'm feeling a... 4/5 here.
Performance: Outperforms my old GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm setup overall, despite my CPU bottleneck. Handles PhysX on it's own very well. Doesn't run too hot considering it's architecture. No micro stutter. Fastest single chip video card on the market overall. 5/5 without a doubt.
Support: Limited driver support but new ones are coming soon. The problems I had made PhysX not work... but the fix was easy. Go to Programs and Features, right click on PhysX and hit repair. 4.5/5.
Overall: 4.625/5

**kaninja** · April 25th, 2010

Awesome review.

**eXile** · April 26th, 2010

Damn massive and very detailed and written review mate. + REP!!!!

Keep it up

**the_man550** · May 19th, 2010

Just bumping in this little video here, might be interesting for GTX480 owners;
http://www.youtube.com/user/Thermalr.../0/XDP9FNpIpC8

**Jester** · May 19th, 2010

Originally Posted by the_man550

Just bumping in this little video here, might be interesting for GTX480 owners;
http://www.youtube.com/user/Thermalr.../0/XDP9FNpIpC8

I was considering the Thermalright Spitfire heat sink, especially since they are developing a separate VRAM cooler for it. However many of us won't be able to use the Spitfire since it might hit large CPU heat sinks. The Prolimatech MK 13 has a bad design - load temperatures can be worse than the stock heat sink unless you tilt your case forward. So it seems that an Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME heat sink will be our best choice, but they're known to raise VRAM temps.

**Jester** · June 4th, 2010

Updated with overclock results, very impressive performance.

OVERCLOCK RESULTS

So you know me... I never leave anything stock. Here are some results with my GTX 480 overclocked using the 257.15 BETA drivers. First up is 3DMark Vantage. With my GTX 480 running at 883/1766/1067.5 and 1.138 VGPU, along with my E8400 at 4.016 ghz (502 x 8, 2008 mhz FSB QDR) I beat all of my previous 3DMark Vantage scores and got P24529.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=2226949

My Crysis and Crysis Warhead scores went up a lot as well. The following was done with my E8400 at 3.8 ghz (475 x 8, 1900 mhz FSB QDR) and my GTX 480 at 863/1726/1050 (1.138v).

Crysis on high settings, DX10, 1920 x 1080, 64-bit, 16xQ AA -> 50.575 average FPS, 33.41 FPS minimum.