1st Fermi review

[rpg]

Thanks for the info kylew. Wow, it doesn't look like I'd be making the best choice if I went for a GTX 480 instead of a 5850 X2 setup.

 

[bhavv]

no one seems too bothered about core i7 920's @ 4ghz ridiculous power consumption, not sure why they're bothered about the gtx 480 load power especially on an enthusiast forum, at idle it seems fine

Because a certain competitor to Nvidia has an alternative product called a 5970 that performs much better with lower power consumption

 

[Strawberry]

HD 5870 beat GTX 480 in 3d mark vantage with physx turned off, even on 10.2.

Lol'd.

 

[bee]

oh well, load power consumption is not an issue for me anyway, idle is sure. roll on 11.01, see if i can find one for a decent price ( i highly doubt it )

 

[Mr Krugga]

They can claim it's not a gaming GPU all they want, the simple fact that they've put a fermi GPU in something they're marketing and selling as a gaming graphics card says otherwise.

I was just stating, as a GPGPU Fermi seems to be the best choice around, although seeing these recent charts and knowing the retail prices in the USA, we can judge their ability to compete on gaming market.

 

[Adrianr]

The performance per watt looks truely diabolically bad.

 

[straxusii]

I really hope ATI lower there prices to really thrash nvidia (however not too much so that they don't go out of business, need them so that ATI keep there prices low lol) but nvidia really do need to learn how to price there cards, more so for there own sake.

They wont need to lower their prices to thrash Nvidia. A 5870 @£300 or a 480@£450, unless you must buy Nvidia there is no competition.

 

[bee]

Probably because firstly, it's overclocked by 50% odd and secondly, even overclocked, they don't use that much power.

 

[bhavv]

^^

That is just in Crysis. I would like to find out if EIST and C1 states reduce power consumption at Idle.

 

[straxusii]

no one seems too bothered about core i7 920's @ 4ghz ridiculous power consumption, not sure why they're bothered about the gtx 480 load power especially on an enthusiast forum, at idle it seems fine

+1, if the 480 put the smack down no one would care what it's power consumption was.

 

[ejr22]

I hope someone will do a comparison of release date performance of the 480/470 vs 5870/5850. Not only do I think it would give a more accurate picture of the raw card performance i.e. excluding 6 months of ATI driver optimisation, but it would also hint at the kind of increases in performance the 480/470 would see.

 

[kylew]

snip

375W at the wall? And you think that's much? Bare in mind that they didn't overclock the other CPUs by much either, so yeah.

Look at the stock power draw, it's barely any difference from the other CPUs.

375 at the wall is what? 320w that the PSU is putting out, prime 95 load in addition.

My point still stands, an overclocked 920 doesn't use THAT much power even when you do use it in situations that aren't representative of realworld usage.

save

 

[straxusii]

Guys to be fair the 480 is the fastest single GPU solution and that rightly commands a premium, personally I think it will be premium way too high

 

[kylew]

^^

That is just in Crysis. I would like to find out if EIST and C1 states reduce power consumption at Idle.

It's actually prime95, so the CPU is loaded 100% in a way that doesn't happen through normal usage.

 

[straxusii]

I hope someone will do a comparison of release date performance of the 480/470 vs 5870/5850. Not only do I think it would give a more accurate picture of the raw card performance i.e. excluding 6 months of ATI driver optimisation, but it would also hint at the kind of increases in performance the 480/470 would see.

No way, Nvidia is late to the party and quite rightly will be compared to the 5870 with today's drivers, get real!

 

[kylew]

Guys to be fair the 480 is the fastest single GPU solution and that rightly commands a premium, personally I think it will be premium way too high

Arguably, it trades blows with the 5870. It wins some, it loses some, that's not enough to be able to claim "fastest GPU" same way any 5870 wins doesn't mean you can claim the 5870 has the fastest GPU.

 

[Mr Krugga]

There's no such a thing as a "raw performance"/ If there was, we should have excluded the fact that Fermi comes up 6 months after Radeon 58** release and that it will always be 6 months behind them in terms of driver optimisation. And we should turn off PhysX to see the real performance as well...

 

[kylew]

I hope someone will do a comparison of release date performance of the 480/470 vs 5870/5850. Not only do I think it would give a more accurate picture of the raw card performance i.e. excluding 6 months of ATI driver optimisation, but it would also hint at the kind of increases in performance the 480/470 would see.

That would be so flawed that it'd be invalid.

They are both different companies with different driver teams, just because one team/company can bring performance gains driverwise doesn't mean that the other company will do just as well.

In addition to that, what about all the people who complain about ATi's drivers being rubbish anyway? Surely that'd arguably mean that their release drivers couldn't be indicative of "raw performance".

 

[Adrianr]

No way, Nvidia is late to the party and quite rightly will be compared to the 5870 with today's drivers, get real!

Wouldn't hurt to do a comparison, surely? Interesting for nothing more than to see how ATI's improved with all the driver releases in 6 months if nothing else.

 

[straxusii]

Arguably, it trades blows with the 5870. It wins some, it loses some, that's not enough to be able to claim "fastest GPU" same way any 5870 wins doesn't mean you can claim the 5870 has the fastest GPU.

From the figures I've seen, and fair play not official yet, on average it's faster.