Well Fermi is here and... dissapointment at [H]ardOCP!

[Phil Manhart]

Not to burst anyone's bubble, but here's the link to [H]ardOCP's review of Fermi, with average results... 

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/26/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/1

A couple of excerpts from the Conclusion:

We are seeing some trades back and forth; in some games the GTX 480 is slightly faster, in other games the HD 5870 is slightly faster. There wasn’t anything that really stood out, other than Metro 2033. Once again, we have to factor in cost, power, and heat. The GeForce GTX 480 consumes more power than the HD 5870, produces more heat, and costs more money (which might also include the cost of a new PSU). It doesn’t seem like the best value with all this factored in. The only thing that "blew us away" was the heat coming out of the video card and the sound of the fan. If you have not taken a look and a listen to the videos on the previous page, you should.

Overall, GF100 hasn’t exactly delivered. I think we were all hoping it would provide a substantial gameplay improvement over the Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850. Competition is good, and we would like to see it. Unfortunately, our experiences weren’t as positive as we had wanted. When you break it all down to cost, power and performance, the GTX 480 and GTX 470 don’t measure up. The only saving grace is the awesomeness of GTX 480 SLI, but it comes at some high costs.

I wonder how it will do in FSX compared to the current FSX king, the GTX 285?

I would consider getting one if it performs atleast 15-20% better than the 285... 

Phil

[Ian Routley]

The GTX2xx cards were disappointing when they were released ... took a few driver cycles to come right.

The peril of the early adopter ...

remember that for FSX you want the fastest SINGLE chip card you can get ... and SLI is useless to you.

waiting .....

[))i7((SLI-Fire]

Some more reviews for you to read.

Guru3D

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/

AnandTech

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783

[Phil Manhart]

It sounds like its going to be a couple of weeks until they are even shipped... so hopefully someone can get their hands on one and give us some results (unbiased I hope, no nVidia or ATi fanboys please) with FSX!

Phil

[SBaker]

Today NVIDIA is launching two cards: the GeForce GTX 480, and the GeForce GTX 470. Both of them are based on GF100, the first and largest member of the Fermi family. Right off the bat, we can tell you that neither card is a complete GF100 chip. We know from NVIDIA’s earlier announcements that a complete GF100 is a 512 SP/core part organized in a 4x16x32 fashion, but these first parts will not have all of GF100’s functional units activated. Instead we’ll be getting a 480 core part for the GTX 480, and a 448 core part for the GTX 470. Ultimately we will not be seeing the full power of GF100 right away, but you can be sure that somewhere down the line we’ll see a GTX 485 or GTX 490 with all of GF100’s functional units enabled.

Wait for the GTX 485, it will blow everything away.

[Guest J van E]

Doesn't sound too good... Too hot, too noisy, takes too much power... And as far as I can tell it won't do much for FSX. Pity.

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Well, I made a different choice. After waiting to read the reviews on Fermi, I ordered a Gigabyte HG5870 to replace my present card. The new drivers everyone is raving about indicates that it will bring FSX to an even higher level. This is the first time in nearly a decade with umpteen rebuilds, Nvidia will be left behind. The GTX 275 is great, a masterpiece, but it is now the bottleneck for me.

Stephen

[drumsonly2002]

No big ticker tape parade for Nvidia this time around.  Seems like Nvidia focused on Tessellation. They are looking towards  future games, but for the millions playing older titles, it's all about speed, not new technology. ATI's technicians can stay on vacation while Nvidia re-thinks a better mousetrap. Maybe Nvidia will ramp up with better drivers for the card and make greater headway. 3d, Tessellation is nice, but the wow factor is building a card for the now factor. Though it's future proofing it's products,  old school FSX'ers care less about tessellation.

  My guess is the gear heads in Nvidia's back room got their slide rulers doing the over time shimmy since they are late releasing the product. Plus, it isn't a bag of chips and dip. and to add insult to injury,  ATI's fan boy club is growing faster than zits on a teenager eating  sugar dipped in fryer fat.

  I guess my hopes for an FSX dream card is just that... Maybe next year they will hit the nail on the head instead of their thumb.

The good: "May" be faster, "better' smoothness regardless of FPS. Keeps ATI's prices in check. Nvidia<-->ATI = Speed contest

The bad: More power and heat.

The ugly: Not free.

[Phil Manhart]

No big ticker tape parade for Nvidia this time around.  Seems like Nvidia focused on Tessellation. They are looking towards  future games, but for the millions playing older titles, it's all about speed, not new technology. ATI's technicians can stay on vacation while Nvidia re-thinks a better mousetrap. Maybe Nvidia will ramp up with better drivers for the card and make greater headway. 3d, Tessellation is nice, but the wow factor is building a card for the now factor. Though it's future proofing it's products,  old school FSX'ers care less about tessellation.

  My guess is the gear heads in Nvidia's back room got their slide rulers doing the over time shimmy since they are late releasing the product. Plus, it isn't a bag of chips and dip. and to add insult to injury,  ATI's fan boy club is growing faster than zits on a teenager eating  sugar dipped in fryer fat.

  I guess my hopes for an FSX dream card is just that... Maybe next year they will hit the nail on the head instead of their thumb.

The good: May be faster, "better' smoothness regardless of FPS. Keeps ATI's prices in check. Nvidia<-->ATI = Speed contest

The bad: More power and heat.

The ugly: Not free.

From what I've read they used what was supposed to be a commercial grade graphics design chip as their base, that's why it's so heavy on the Tessellation rendering.

And considering that it's not much faster than the ATis ATM, AND more expensive not cheaper, I doubt we'll see a price drop in the ATi cards because ATi has the ball for price vs performance. 

[Phil Manhart]

Well, I made a different choice. After waiting to read the reviews on Fermi, I ordered a Gigabyte HG5870 to replace my present card. The new drivers everyone is raving about indicates that it will bring FSX to an even higher level. This is the first time in nearly a decade with umpteen rebuilds, Nvidia will be left behind. The GTX 275 is great, a masterpiece, but it is now the bottleneck for me.

Stephen

Let us know the performance differences please! I'm thinking of jumping on a 5870 before the price rises (a possibility).

[gheeD]

Well, I made a different choice. After waiting to read the reviews on Fermi, I ordered a Gigabyte HG5870 to replace my present card. The new drivers everyone is raving about indicates that it will bring FSX to an even higher level. This is the first time in nearly a decade with umpteen rebuilds, Nvidia will be left behind. The GTX 275 is great, a masterpiece, but it is now the bottleneck for me.

Stephen

Let us know the performance differences please! I'm thinking of jumping on a 5870 before the price rises (a possibility).

Knowing ATi/AMD, the price will probably drop, not raise which is great! I love ATi cards. Just hopin' their drivers would get better. (like the good improvement with 10.3 drivers)

[shape of grey]

We shall see if later iteration of drivers will show some improvement, but for now...she's too hot and too power hungry.

Lads over at Xtreme-Systems got it pretty close:

[NaveenB]

The thing that I like is that it has 3 video outs, so it could run a triple-head display without any addon TH2Go.

Thus negating the advantage of Eyefinity, unless you want to get a 6 display system.

[shape of grey]

The thing that I like is that it has 3 video outs, so it could run a triple-head display without any addon TH2Go.

Thus negating the advantage of Eyefinity, unless you want to get a 6 display system.

No, unfortunately, its not that simple. In order to use 3 monitors you need two Fermi's in SLI. A single card can only drive two monitors. So you're looking at between $600-1000 to drive 3 monitors...or ~$360 for an ATI solution. Even including $75-100 for a Displayport --> HDMI adapter, its still cheaper than NVidia solution.

So in short, Eyefinity blows the pants off NVidia in this case.

[NaveenB]

Ugh, then I am screwed, Eyefinity does not work with Win XP and Fermi does not run 3 monitors, I guess I am stuck with the ole' GTX 285 for a while.

[Phil Manhart]

Ugh, then I am screwed, Eyefinity does not work with Win XP and Fermi does not run 3 monitors, I guess I am stuck with the ole' GTX 285 for a while.

Why not spend $160 on W7...?

It's great. I hated Vista, loved XP (AFTER Service Pack 2, before then it was crap)... but W7 is the way to go. It's Vista without the fat and bloat.

In fact I'd say that W7 is the best OS out of MS straight out of the box since... forever.

[Phil Manhart]

We shall see if later iteration of drivers will show some improvement, but for now...she's too hot and too power hungry.

Lads over at Xtreme-Systems got it pretty close:

LOL! 

[NaveenB]

@Pmanhart, that's a valid question

the Bufferpools=0 tweak runs beautifully on WinXP without any of the other things needed to make the tweak work.  It's a gamechanger easily doubling my FPS across the Sim.

In Vists and Win 7 I got horrible immersion-breaking artifacts.  I was on Win 7 when I First heard of the tweak and went back to WinXP and now I can't go back.  I had to get more copies of XP from Ebay and send all my PCs back to WinXP.

[drumsonly2002]

Will XP-32 bit work well, or shall I get XP-64 bit? Thanks for posting good info NaveenB.

[NaveenB]

I use XP-64 as I have more than 3gb of ram in my computers.

[Phil Manhart]

@Pmanhart, that's a valid question

the Bufferpools=0 tweak runs beautifully on WinXP without any of the other things needed to make the tweak work.  It's a gamechanger easily doubling my FPS across the Sim.

In Vists and Win 7 I got horrible immersion-breaking artifacts.  I was on Win 7 when I First heard of the tweak and went back to WinXP and now I can't go back.  I had to get more copies of XP from Ebay and send all my PCs back to WinXP.

I had the artifact problem as well until I set TBM to 120.

[NaveenB]

I tried all different TBM settings and whatnot and couldn't get a truly stable tweak, in all weather and flight conditions.  That is until I got the bright idea to use xp64, I am not a computer guy so I don't know why it works, but NickN uses xp64 that was good enough for me to try it and voila'

I still have a few areas with Texture spike, but those are heavily forested spots.  Take a flight from SBCC over the Amazon Rain Forest and see how you do.

[))i7((SLI-Fire]

EVGA GeForce GTX 480 1536MB  ETA 14 April $749.00 AU

[Heiko Glatthorn]

They compare 8x nvidia AA to 4x AMD AA at 2560 res... No comment 

[drumsonly2002]

With all this being said, with the 1.5gb memory, dispite the heat and power issues, the 480 may be "interesting" to look at for FSX. Bufferpool 0 anyone? So, who here will buy one, bench it using FSX, and ... uh... let us know what you think. That way I don't have to buy one to try... errr.. I mean .. Think of it this way, the glory of being the first here to own one! Yea.. that's it.. and I'll share the glory by buying one after it's benched if it is a bag of chips and dip.    The good news is more benches will appear and Fermi will stand or fall on it's own merits. Let the benchmarks war begin!

[drumsonly2002]

Some interesting quotes from http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/35 

"In the end though, the GeForce GTX 480 is a graphics card that kicks ass, it is without doubt the fastest single GPU based graphics card on the block. The performance is grand and impressive and well, it's just a sick card to play all modern games with at any resolution or image quality preference."

And ...

"Alright, let me wrap up this conclusion. When we look purely at the image quality and brute game performance, that's where the GTX 470 ($349) and 480 ($499) shine, they are imposing, impressive and most definitely cards that will deliver a massive amount of performance. Brute force is what you'll receive with these products. We had a blast for sure testing them and drivers wise just did not run into any issues. Price vs performance wise we feel the GTX 480 is priced a notch too high though. And with a 150 USD difference that makes the winner of them both the GTX 470. The generic consensus has to be that the GeForce GTX 480 is definitely faster than the currently leading single GPU flagship from team red, the Radeon HD 5870. As such the GeForce GTX is more than convincing enough and makes a very strong impression. NVIDIA regains the performance crown and is back in the saddle like a cowboy after a harsh shootout, riding its horse into the sunset. Never ever has the graphics card arena been this close when it comes to sheer competition, and you know what ... we just love it." 

I love the word "Brute Force" With that being said, they actually overclocked the unit and got more performance. So..if heat, power or expense is not a big deal, the card may be worth taking a look at. 

This just in from http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3783&p=20

"Final Words

To wrap things up, let’s start with the obvious: NVIDIA has reclaimed their crown – they have the fastest single-GPU card. The GTX 480 is between 10 and 15% faster than the Radeon 5870 depending on the resolution, giving it a comfortable lead over AMD’s best single-GPU card.

Looking better as time unfolds.

[gheeD]

I think that EVGA gets it Water cooled Fermi FTW edition

Hehe. I just have to say... Fermi's are total fail in every aspect. I read they were like 70c on idle with the triple monitor setup. Or was it with 3D technology. But still, too damn hot for idle temp.

[Guest J van E]

The performance is grand and impressive and well, it's just a sick card to play all modern games with at any resolution or image quality preference."

Pity FSX isn't a modern game...

[shape of grey]

The performance is grand and impressive and well, it's just a sick card to play all modern games with at any resolution or image quality preference."

Pity FSX isn't a modern game...

Still, I can't wait for someone here to pick up one of these puppies and run some FSX benches on it, just to satisfy my curiosity. For now its looking like the 285 is still king as far as FSX goes (with ATI + 10.3's close behind).

If only ATI could fix the vsync.....

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Hot Tempertures, cold feet and wringing hands,

I just sent off a cancelation notice on my purchase of the Gigabyte HD5870 made Friday evening because I thought the prices on ATI may hit the ceiling because of the negative GTX480 reviews. Since the order never processed on my credit card yet I think (hope) I might have caught it on time. I just could not determine to my satisfaction that the HD5870 could be made entirely compatible with FSX without verticle sync and AA issues. I am usually not this compulsive or indecisive, but obviously I had not thought this all out well enough. On the other hand, if they don't cancel the order and ship it, I will live by it and keep it, for my word is my word is my word, and I will live with the consequences. In any case, the GTX275 overclocked as high as I have it works very well indeed.

A new 5870 based 2g ATI card may be announced next week and Nvidia and its partners will react strongly in a positive way to all the negative reactions to 470-480 launch specs so we will see where Nvidia and ATI go with all this.

Stephen

[drumsonly2002]

The high temps, extra power and ATI's relentless hammering out new improved products is a big thorn in Nvidia's paw. I smell a price war. Nvidia has to compete, and has lot of stuff to move. ATI has gained the high ground. ATI's counter attack will force prices to drop I expect. Going to be a of buying and selling of high end graphics cards during the next 4-6 months. Round 1 goes to ATI. NVidia has to come out swinging with a good counter attack. The heat and power issue with Fermi can be countered with better deals on Fermi. that's my take. What is happening is going to be good for the consumer. Nvidia has to come out with a better card to request better money.

[Spirit Flyer_old]

Dan,

I think you are right. One of the biggest reasons I cancelled the order for the HD5870 is that I want to stay in the market. The longer I take to weigh the pros and cons of what is coming in the next few months, the better my replacement video card will be. If the marketplace functions as it should, things will get really interesting, as you say. Meanwhile I have nothing to complain about with the GTX275, which may not have been the case with the other. 

Stephen

[NaveenB]

The question I have is whether a 2010 videocard is going to really improve a 2005 simulator.  I think we are getting into bigtime dimishing returns here for money invested.

The big advantage to these newer cards is when you are looking at mulltiple displays and more complex setups.  I think dogma of "Nvidia only for FSX" has basically been disproven with the new 5xxx series.

As for the new Nvidia offerings, I am going to cool out until 1) the 2GB/1GPU cards come out and 2) the first refresh of the Fermi cards come out i.e. GTX 485, then maybe I'll pull the trigger again.

I put my 5970 on Ebay and it sold in 2 hours for 50 bucks more than I paid for it..LOL

[Phil Manhart]

Hot Tempertures, cold feet and wringing hands,

I just sent off a cancelation notice on my purchase of the Gigabyte HD5870 made Friday evening because I thought the prices on ATI may hit the ceiling because of the negative GTX480 reviews. Since the order never processed on my credit card yet I think (hope) I might have caught it on time. I just could not determine to my satisfaction that the HD5870 could be made entirely compatible with FSX without verticle sync and AA issues. I am usually not this compulsive or indecisive, but obviously I had not thought this all out well enough. On the other hand, if they don't cancel the order and ship it, I will live by it and keep it, for my word is my word is my word, and I will live with the consequences. In any case, the GTX275 overclocked as high as I have it works very well indeed.

A new 5870 based 2g ATI card may be announced next week and Nvidia and its partners will react strongly in a positive way to all the negative reactions to 470-480 launch specs so we will see where Nvidia and ATI go with all this.

Stephen

We all L$VE competition! 

[gheeD]

The fermi's aren't even good to cook some eggs, total dissapointment! 

[shape of grey]

Lol, I remember a similar video from some years ago where a guy cooked an egg on a naked Intel chip. Priceless.

[gheeD]

Lol, I remember a similar video from some years ago where a guy cooked an egg on a naked Intel chip. Priceless.

Too bad this vid the egg didn't cook. But they should have overclocked, and used Furmark GPU benchmark, that gives alot more heat Dunno where the temps were in this vid to, since he was only showing the heat on the gpu's fan, which isn't the same as shown for example, in software.

[Spirit Flyer_old]

MacCrash (or something like that) over at AVSIM has ordered a GTX480 to match his 980X, so we will have some numbers before too long.

Stephen