Nvidia Launches The GeForce GTX480 and GeForce GTX470 Graphics Cards
Nvidia today launched the highly anticipated GeForce GTX480 and GeForce GTX470 graphics cards, the company's first DirectX11 graphics solutions for desktop.
Based on NVIDIA's Fermi GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 offer support for 3D content, 32x anti-aliasing and will be the "faster performance GPU on the market", according to Nvidia.
The GeForce GTX 480 and the GTX 470 are based on the Fermi-architecture GPU (codename: GF100), which promises to offer stunning realism thanks to NVIDIA PhysX & CUDA parallel computing engines implanted into gaming graphics. The DirectX11 graphics cards are adopting Hollywood-grade rendering techniques ? tessellation & ray-tracing, to generate geometric realism, pumping level of detail up to film-like Extreme High-Definition (XHD) image quality.
The GeForce GTX 470 shares exactly the same PolyMorph engine with its big brother 480 CUDA cores GeForce GTX 480 masking few processors down to 448 CUDA cores, however with more affordable pricing.The card is equally impressive for its 32x Anti-Aliasing, real time PhysX, dynamic cinematic effects with tessellation and ray-tracing.
The GF100 GPUs are based on scalable array of Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) and memory controllers. GTX 480 implements six 64bit GDDR5 memory controllers (384bit in total) to facilitate high bandwidth access to the framebuffer, with 480 CUDA cores, organized at 15 SMs of 32 cores each. Each core is a unified processor that executes vertex, pixel, geometry and compute kernels.
The new cards support up to 3-way NVIDIA SLI technology, DirectX 11 technology and NVIDIA CUDA architecture as well as Nvidia's PolyMorph Engine, a geometry processing engine built from the ground up for DirectX 11 tessellation. With the PolyMorph Engine, GTX 480/470 implements the world?s first scalable geometry pipelinewith up to 15 (14 for GTX 470) individual tessellation engines on a single GPU.
The new graphics cards enable interactive ray tracing for more photo-realistic scenes, support NVIDIA's PhysX technology offering 2 times the PhysX performance over prior generation GPUs as well as an NVIDIA GigaThread scheduler, which allows 10 times faster switching between graphics and physics processing, enabling more complex effects to be rendered in real time.
The new cards also introduce NVIDIA's 3D Vision Surround technology, which allows users to play in three monitors in full stereoscopic 3D. Specifically, the GeForce GTX 480 provides maximum graphics horsepower for triple screen 1080p 3D Vision gaming (5760x1080 in total). NVIDIA's Surround technology also supports 2D gaming across three non-stereo displays at resolutions up to 2560x1600. In addition, GTX200 graphics cards in SLI configurations will be able to offer the full 3D Vision Surround experience using Nvidia's 3D Vision displays & glasses and an upcoming graphics driver release, Nvidia said.
The cards also support next generation CUDA architecture, which promises to offer twice the CUDA cores over prior generation GPUs and an innovative memory architecture for greater performance in GPGPU applications. The next generation CUDA architecture also accelerates advanced gaming effects for crisper, more realistic visuals. Effects like motion blur, soft shadows, transparency, and depth of field are performed faster speed through full Microsoft DirectCompute support and atomic operations that execute up to 20 times faster than prior generation GPUs.
Performance gains
Nvidia claims that the new GTX 470 offes 1.5x~3.5x the performance of a GTX285 and it is also up to 8x faster in geomerty performance. Performance gains include 1.5x~2x in DirectX 9/10 games, up to 2.5X in PhysX and up to 3.5x in ray tracing . Compared to AMD's HD5870 graphics card, the GTX480 is almost two times faster, according to Nvidia.
A GTX 480 in SLI configuration offers almost 90% high DirecX11 performance that a single GTX480, Nvidia says.
Nvidia also compared the perormance of the GTX 480 Vs the HD 5870 under the Unigine DirecX11 tessellation performance benchmark. The GTX 480 offered more than 30 FPS no matter the complexity of the tessellation, while AMD's solution failled to keep the FPS above the 30FPS in some cases, according to Nvidia.
Both the new GTX 480 and GTX 470 are exepcted to retail next month for €479 and €349, respectively.
The GeForce GTX 480 and the GTX 470 are based on the Fermi-architecture GPU (codename: GF100), which promises to offer stunning realism thanks to NVIDIA PhysX & CUDA parallel computing engines implanted into gaming graphics. The DirectX11 graphics cards are adopting Hollywood-grade rendering techniques ? tessellation & ray-tracing, to generate geometric realism, pumping level of detail up to film-like Extreme High-Definition (XHD) image quality.
The GeForce GTX 470 shares exactly the same PolyMorph engine with its big brother 480 CUDA cores GeForce GTX 480 masking few processors down to 448 CUDA cores, however with more affordable pricing.The card is equally impressive for its 32x Anti-Aliasing, real time PhysX, dynamic cinematic effects with tessellation and ray-tracing.
The GF100 GPUs are based on scalable array of Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) and memory controllers. GTX 480 implements six 64bit GDDR5 memory controllers (384bit in total) to facilitate high bandwidth access to the framebuffer, with 480 CUDA cores, organized at 15 SMs of 32 cores each. Each core is a unified processor that executes vertex, pixel, geometry and compute kernels.
The new cards support up to 3-way NVIDIA SLI technology, DirectX 11 technology and NVIDIA CUDA architecture as well as Nvidia's PolyMorph Engine, a geometry processing engine built from the ground up for DirectX 11 tessellation. With the PolyMorph Engine, GTX 480/470 implements the world?s first scalable geometry pipelinewith up to 15 (14 for GTX 470) individual tessellation engines on a single GPU.
The new graphics cards enable interactive ray tracing for more photo-realistic scenes, support NVIDIA's PhysX technology offering 2 times the PhysX performance over prior generation GPUs as well as an NVIDIA GigaThread scheduler, which allows 10 times faster switching between graphics and physics processing, enabling more complex effects to be rendered in real time.
The new cards also introduce NVIDIA's 3D Vision Surround technology, which allows users to play in three monitors in full stereoscopic 3D. Specifically, the GeForce GTX 480 provides maximum graphics horsepower for triple screen 1080p 3D Vision gaming (5760x1080 in total). NVIDIA's Surround technology also supports 2D gaming across three non-stereo displays at resolutions up to 2560x1600. In addition, GTX200 graphics cards in SLI configurations will be able to offer the full 3D Vision Surround experience using Nvidia's 3D Vision displays & glasses and an upcoming graphics driver release, Nvidia said.
The cards also support next generation CUDA architecture, which promises to offer twice the CUDA cores over prior generation GPUs and an innovative memory architecture for greater performance in GPGPU applications. The next generation CUDA architecture also accelerates advanced gaming effects for crisper, more realistic visuals. Effects like motion blur, soft shadows, transparency, and depth of field are performed faster speed through full Microsoft DirectCompute support and atomic operations that execute up to 20 times faster than prior generation GPUs.
Performance gains
Nvidia claims that the new GTX 470 offes 1.5x~3.5x the performance of a GTX285 and it is also up to 8x faster in geomerty performance. Performance gains include 1.5x~2x in DirectX 9/10 games, up to 2.5X in PhysX and up to 3.5x in ray tracing . Compared to AMD's HD5870 graphics card, the GTX480 is almost two times faster, according to Nvidia.
A GTX 480 in SLI configuration offers almost 90% high DirecX11 performance that a single GTX480, Nvidia says.
Nvidia also compared the perormance of the GTX 480 Vs the HD 5870 under the Unigine DirecX11 tessellation performance benchmark. The GTX 480 offered more than 30 FPS no matter the complexity of the tessellation, while AMD's solution failled to keep the FPS above the 30FPS in some cases, according to Nvidia.
Both the new GTX 480 and GTX 470 are exepcted to retail next month for €479 and €349, respectively.
