Log in

View Full Version : Nvidia's $500 Graphics Behemoth: The GTX 480 and GTX 470 Demoed at PAX East 2010


Adam Krebs
03-28-2010, 12:44 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_480_us.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nvidia.com/object/produc...gtx_480_us.html</a><br /><br /></div><p>"<em>Let's get the hard data out of the way first: 480 CUDA cores, 700 MHz graphics and 1,401MHz processor clock speeds, plus 1.5GB of onboard GDDR5 memory running at 1,848MHz (for a 3.7GHz effective data rate). Those are the specs upon which Fermi is built, and those are the numbers that will seek to justify a $499 price tag and a spectacular 250W TDP. We attended a presentation by NVIDIA this afternoon, where the above GTX 480 and its lite version, the GTX 470, were detailed. The latter card will come with a humbler 1.2GB of memory plus 607MHz, 1,215MHz and 1,674MHz clocks, while dinging your wallet for $349 and straining your case's cooling with 215W of hotness.</em>"</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1269674416.usr495.jpg" style="border: 0;" width="500" /></p><p>Like the Engadget guys, I was in the audience for this presentation and I can tell you first-hand the card has some serious firepower. It's&nbsp;almost enough to excuse the&nbsp;forehead smack-inducing "Crank that S#!t Up" tagline&mdash;almost. Nvidia's Drew Henry showed off the new card's ability to run games in 3D just about as smoothly as their 2D counterparts. And he showed them on 3 humungous screens in the main auditorium. Henry stated that the general direction of the entertainment industry was heading towards 3D as evidenced by the recent popularity of <em>Avatar</em>, and he said he wanted Nvidia to lead the PC graphics industry down this path. He also showed off the&nbsp;GTX 480's&nbsp;ability to do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_(graphics)" target="_blank">ray tracing</a> in near-real time. I say near-real time, because the card couldn't always keep up with the gloss it was asked to render. In the included application, Design Garage, the user is given a number of&nbsp;cars to customize and explore in a&nbsp;variety&nbsp;of&nbsp;lighting conditions using ray&nbsp;tracing.&nbsp;But setting the bloom to full and the details to high or, ahem, cranking that s#!t up, produced amazing photo-realistic results after a short re-render. <MORE /></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1269675697.usr495.jpg" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #d2d2bb 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #d2d2bb 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #d2d2bb 1px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #d2d2bb 1px solid" /></p><p>They showed off titles from big-name game publishers with 3D turned on, all of&nbsp;which looked pretty incredible on the big screens. EA's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was probably the best looking of the bunch, which included Need for Speed and its companion app Design Garage, THQ's upcoming Metro 2033, and even a surprise public&nbsp;appearance by&nbsp;World of Warcraft. Henry pitched that the chip, which has 3 billion transistors, rivals four Intel quad core i7 chips in transistors alone. In one of the cooler demos, Supersonic Sled, a test pilot on a rocket-strapped train sled barrels down a line of rickety old track, tearing up the scenery as it speeds along. Nvidia's Henry paused over a particularly interesting part, a bridge exploding under the sled's speed and weight, and instructed his technician to "crank that s#!t up" (are you getting the pattern?). Turning the number of particles on the bridge from 10,000 to an astounding 1,000,000 created a dazzling explosion that looked even better in 3D.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1269675764.usr495.jpg" style="border: #d2d2bb 1px solid;" /></p><p>But, as Engadget points out, the card runs hot and it runs expensive. The GTX 480 will set you back $499 when it comes out in two weeks. Its "little brother," the GTX 470, is also out in two weeks and will retail for $349.</p>

Lee Yuan Sheng
03-28-2010, 05:50 PM
So it's expensive, hot, power-sucking, and not much faster for the time-being. Methinks nVidia got a bit over-ambitious here...

Felix Torres
03-28-2010, 07:21 PM
So, essentially we're talking, what? Two card generations away from practical real-time ray-tracing? (RTRT or RT2?)
And maybe three before it starts to be affordable...
(Assuming the software keeps up with the new paradigm.)

That sounds like two more years.

Adam Krebs
03-29-2010, 04:20 PM
So it's expensive, hot, power-sucking, and not much faster for the time-being. Methinks nVidia got a bit over-ambitious here...

Well that's sort of the M.O. of a big reveal at a gaming convention. This isn't something you're going to see in most Media Center PCs

Adam Krebs
03-29-2010, 04:23 PM
So, essentially we're talking, what? Two card generations away from practical real-time ray-tracing? (RTRT or RT2?)
...
That sounds like two more years.

I'd say that sounds about right. The tech looked amazing, but stuttered a bit when using the lowest settings. When higher bloom and better lighting came in, it got "the fuzzies" all over the image before rendering more correctly (and looking damn good, I should add.)

There was also a good deal of image (texture?) pop-in when zooming in on finer details, leading me to believe that the level of recursion wasn't particularly deep.

Lee Yuan Sheng
03-30-2010, 02:42 AM
Well that's sort of the M.O. of a big reveal at a gaming convention. This isn't something you're going to see in most Media Center PCs

I'm comparing the GTX 400s against the ATI 5800 series. Who said anything about Media Center PCs? If you read the few benchmarks, it's exactly as what I said. Hotter, more power-demanding, and not a lot faster. nVidia is betting heavily on rendering techniques that are not common in most games in the near-future.

Currently I'm running a MSI GTX 275. The Twin Frozr cooler is effective but noisy while in a game. Not that I mind noise (I'm not like Jason), but if there's better in the market, nVidia is not coming off too well here.

Adam Krebs
03-30-2010, 03:57 AM
I'm comparing the GTX 400s against the ATI 5800 series. Who said anything about Media Center PCs?

Yes, you're totally right. And yes, Nvidia betting the farm on ray tracing that works passibly well at best was probably a stupid decision. But 3D gaming is definitely coming. Personally I don't see a huge need for it (the inability to discern object depth by shifting my gaze is a disappointment for me), but the demos they showed all proved how well the technology works. I see solo users being a lot more willing to wear silly glasses to play games in 3D than an entire family donning the shades from the couch.

I'm a little new to the DHT side of things, so you'll have to forgive my comparative lack of knowledge on the subject :)

Lee Yuan Sheng
03-30-2010, 08:24 AM
I'm not that keen on the 3D bit myself. Partly because I have a fairly new 30" (thus I don't want to change it) and partly because the quality of the image isn't that great. I'd greatly prefer a good head-tracking implementation.