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Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,
1680 x 1050
1920 x 1200
2560 x 1600
NVIDIA has endlessly described the GF100’s advantage when it comes to tessellation performance and these results definitely seem to back up their claims. The GTX 470 runs neck and neck with the HD 5870 when tessellation is disabled but pulls ahead when it is turned on.
One of NVIDIA boldest claims about the GF100 architecture is that it takes a much less severe hit when enabling tessellation than the competing ATI architecture. In this short section we will be taking the results from the Heaven benchmark tests on the last page and plotting them on a comparative graph.
There should be a number of things which are immediately evident from this graph. First of all, it seems like ATI’s cards do indeed take a harder performance impact than the GF100-based cards when tessellation is enabled but not by a significant amount. However, NVIDIA’s high end card once again seems to choke a bit at high resolutions. ATI’s HD 5870 stays even when going from 1920 + tessellation to 2560 + no tessellation but the GTX 480 on the other hand looses nearly 20% of its performance.
While the charts on the last page show the relatively small impact tessellation has on the NVIDIA cards, this chart shows this result in much better contrast. The simple fact is that the GTX 470 really comes into its own when tessellation is enabled.
In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.
BattleField: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
Note that 8x MSAA is enabled via the game’s config file for the NVIDIA cards since it is not a selectable option within the game menu
At about 5% faster than the HD 5850, the GTX 470 isn’t setting any records in game performance here and you will probably not see any significant difference between it and the HD 5850 at 8xAA in this game.
DIRT 2 (DX11)
Considering the size of its frame buffer and the supposed benefits of the GF100 architecture, we were hoping for a much better result from the GTX 470 here. Unfortunately, that hope didn’t materialize into reality.
Dragon Age: Origins (DX9)
More 2560 x 1600 disappointment reared its ugly head in Dragon Age as the GTX 470 failed to perform up to the level of the HD 5850 with 8x AA enabled.
In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.
Far Cry 2 (DX10)
The impressive performance in Far Cry 2 continues for this card as it is able to stay ahead of the HD 5870, particularly in the minimum framerate department.
Left 4 Dead 2 (DX9)
Average framerates here are nearly identical to the HD 5850 but the GTX 470 once again pulls pretty far ahead in the minimum framerate department.
To some of you this section may seem to be a bit redundant and it may be just that. However, what we are trying to accomplish here is to give you a quick and easy visual representation of performance across multiple settings without using dozens of charts. In addition, these following graphs can give a user clearer insight about a product’s AA and resolution scaling with just a quick glance. Trust us; there are several interesting and eye-opening charts here that you will want to see.
Aliens Versus Predator
ATI cards seem to have an issue in this game with AA and tessellation enabled and the GTX 470 takes advantage of this by almost equalling the performance of a HD 5870 in some situations. Meanwhile, without AA enabled it falls behind the HD 5850.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
The GTX 470 once again shows reasonably good scaling in this game at anything but 2560 x 1600 resolution where it’s performance drops like a stone. Luckily, things are somewhat brought back in line by virtue of its AA performance but in our opinion, it should be looking far better than this.
As we already mentioned, NVIDIA is aware of this problem, have replicated it and have chalked it up to something they will fix in an upcoming driver revision. Let’s hope this happens sooner rather than later.
DIRT 2
Performance here is extremely impressive with the GTX 470 consistently matching or beating the HD 5870….until 2560 x 1600. When it reaches that resolution, it struggles to overcome the HD 5850 and is soundly beaten by ATI’s flagship single GPU card.
This race is literally too close to call but it is nonetheless interesting to see the HD 5870 and GTX 480 switching places between AA and non-AA tests. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, the GTX 480 ultimately falls behind ATI’s flagship single GPU card in the final high IQ test.
Far Cry 2
This architecture loves Far Cry 2….or at least the drivers do. Here we see performance from the GTX 470 which literally matches that of the HD 5870.
The chart here should make it abundantly evident that NVIDIA’s new cards are having some problems with some games at 2560 x 1600. In Left 4 Dead we see another roll reversal where the GTX 470 starts off by competing directly with the HD 5870 but then falls a bit when gaming at extreme resolutions.
Metro 2033
Unfortunately, there really isn’t much to show here since none of the cards listed here were able to play the game with 4x MSAA enabled at high detail settings and the ATI cards refused to do anything at 2560. So, what you see is what you get.
To calculate performance per dollar (or dollar per FPS in this case) we took things one step further than in the wattage calculations and broke things down into DX9 / DX10 and DX11 graphs with and without AA enabled. To determine framerates we once again averaged out the average scores within the games (no Unigine results were included). This number was then divided by the price to result in a price (in USD) per 1 FPS. In order to decrease any abnormalities, the highest and lowest score attained by each card was eliminated.
The prices we used were the MSRP for the NVIDIA cards and the average price of 12 in-stock listings for the ATI cards at Newegg.com, Amazon.com and Zipzoomfly.com. The prices for the ATI cards were based off of actual retail prices before rebates or instant savings. All prices are as follows:
GTX 480: $499
GTX 470: $349
HD 5870: $425
HD 5850: $325
This is one absolutely critical area in which the GTX 470 makes itself look extremely tempting for customers who want the most amount of performance for their money. As expected, the gap between the two cards actually increases when AA is enabled.
There is however one huge unknown: this is a fluid market and retailers can increase or decrease prices any number of ways so you should just take the charts above as a guide instead of God’s Own truth.
For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.
For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.
This is one hot running card but things don’t get to the level seen by the GTX 480. Nonetheless, 92°C makes the GTX 470 one of the hottest running cards we have seen in a very long time. In our tests, thermal throttling usually set in at around 105°C on the GF100 cards while complete thermal shutdown happens around 112-125°C but temperatures never got past the 92°C mark even after hours of benchmarking.
One of the reasons for these high temperatures is the fact that NVIDIA’s fan on this card doesn’t operate at all that high RPMs. When at idle, it is blissfully silent and never increases its speed past 64% when the card is at full load which also results in relatively quiet gaming performance.
System Power Consumption
For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.
Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.
At 215W of maximum board power, this card is anything but efficient but let’s put this into perspective. Naturally, load situations vary depending on the application and settings but in this test in particular, our GTX 470 actually consumed less power than the outgoing GTX 285. Unfortunately, when compared to the current crop of ATI cards the situations isn’t nearly as rosy.
In order to calculate overall performance per watt, we took every single game benchmark we ran (Unigine was not included), averaged out the average framerates at all resolutions and then divided that by the Max Board power as supplied by both NVIDIA and ATI. The results are thus calculated in watts / average frames per second. In order to decrease any abnormalities, the highest and lowest score attained by each card was eliminated.
Wattages are as follows:
GTX 480: 250W
GTX 470: 215W
HD 5870: 188W
HD 5850: 151W
Unfortunately, due to its max power being approximately 64W (30%) higher than the HD 5850 and also 27W more than the much higher performing HD 5870, the GTX 470 just can’t compete in this category. It even polls behind the GTX 480.
