gtx485 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:26:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png gtx485 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 nVidia prepares to launch GTX475 & GTX485 with full Fermi feature set https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/nvidia-prepares-to-launch-gtx475-gtx485-with-full-fermi-feature-set/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/nvidia-prepares-to-launch-gtx475-gtx485-with-full-fermi-feature-set/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:08:56 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=11643 Since launch, behind closed doors, nVidia has been briefing press and customers alike with the message, “If you think Fermis is good now, wait until we unlock its full potential by revealing the full Fermi featureset”. Looks like that time has come. Rumours coming out of the Far East point to a full spec Fermi …

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Since launch, behind closed doors, nVidia has been briefing press and customers alike with the message, “If you think Fermis is good now, wait until we unlock its full potential by revealing the full Fermi featureset”. Looks like that time has come.

Rumours coming out of the Far East point to a full spec Fermi being with us very soon. nVidia needs to prepare against the imminent threat of the AMD revamp with Northern/Southern (select the one you prefer) Islands update to the 5000 series.

KitGuru laid down its prediction for Radeon HD 6870 performance back towards the start of July. Sure, the dual processor GTX490 will be able to beat the Radeon HD 6870 by some margin, but the 2 GPUs Vs 1 GPU argument is hard to make when there's a massive price difference.

If Jen Hsun can overcome the trinity with his GTX485, significant Q4 sales will surely follow. But will it be enough. Moving targets in this business.

The market will become much more interesting if nVidia can pull off a special trinity (are we the only ones who get dodgy mental images of Carrie Ann-Moss when we read that?) :-

  1. Increase the Full Fat Fermi Flow to 512 stream processors
  2. See real world benefits from improvements in TSMC's chip production processes, like lower core temperatures and better heat dissipation
  3. Crank the cores just a little bit more than nVidia has been able to

How would the killer Fermi spec read for the GTX485?

  • Operating temperature, under load, reduced from over 91 degrees to just 85 for the standard shipping card with a much improved reference cooler. Sounds too ambitious?  Remember that Asus was able to increase air flow over 600% with the ARES cooler design
  • Noise level under load dropped from over 63 dBA to just 57 dBA – again not impossible when the ARES design dropped dBA by 18%
  • 5% performance boost from the additional stream processors available
  • Additional 5% boost from increased clocks/improved timings
  • Lastly, a 5-10% improvement from a major driver update that includes a whole bunch of clever optimisations that Jen Hsun has been working on – but decided not to release until the second generation Fermi product range was ready for launch (being the cheeky chappy he is, we wouldn't put this past him)

So, is KitGuru confident enough to plant yet another in our series of revolutionary ‘Flags of our Predictions' ?

Naturally, cos we is 100% hardcore!

Comparing the existing GTX480 (using the drive available when it launched) against the GTX485 and the new driver, we think you'll see up to a 20% boost. This is a LAUNCH TO LAUNCH prediction!

After the series of serious price cuts that KitGuru predicted, the basic GTX480 now starts as low as £365. That movement of more than £80 from typical launch pricing has left a nice gap for GTX485 to launch into.

The upper price point cap has now been dictated to nVidia by the drop in Radeon HD 5970 pricing. This card sits around £450. If we were Jay Puri and had to launch a graphics card between the GTX480 at £365 and the Radeon HD 5970 at £450, what price would we choose?  Almost certainly, the UK launch price will be around £400. Some will go a little higher, catering to the desire of nVidia fan boys for the latest and greatest Santa Clara design. So we predict an upper limit of £419 inc vat.

Also, under the heading “We stand on the shoulders of giants”, we should thank Thinq for flagging the Expreview story that indicated early testing was being done by nVidia and others on the new chip.

Naturally, there will be a GTX475 as well. Launch price will average around £320 with the more competitive (think ‘smaller') brands nudging under £290 before the end of Christmas.

KitGuru says: We told you when the GTX470 and GTX480 price drops would happen and warned KitGuru readers to wait a couple of weeks to see the outcome. Those who were wise and listened, saved up to £50. Again, we challenge your wisdom. GTX475 and GTX485 will launch very soon, with improved performance, heat and noise. We'd advise you to wait for the first review on KitGuru before you try to buy. But that's just us.

Chatter below, to bellow use the KitGuru forums.

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KitGuru’s predicted GTX480 price drops starts to kick in https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/kitgurus-predicted-gtx480-price-drops-starts-to-kick-in/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/kitgurus-predicted-gtx480-price-drops-starts-to-kick-in/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:01:16 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=5330 KitGuru has big ears and we keep them close to the ground. As a result, we hear a lot of juicy stuff and, naturally, feed it to our readers first. So what's happening with the GTX480 pricing? Read on… Over a week ago, KitGuru heard from channel sauces that nVidia was slashing prices on the …

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KitGuru has big ears and we keep them close to the ground. As a result, we hear a lot of juicy stuff and, naturally, feed it to our readers first. So what's happening with the GTX480 pricing? Read on…

Over a week ago, KitGuru heard from channel sauces that nVidia was slashing prices on the GTX480.

We then heard that nVidia was preparing a 720MHz GTX485 with an improved design and, possibly, the result of a new tape out.

We've just heard that British Telecom's online store, DABS (from David Atherton Business Systems) has slashed £50 off the Asus GTX480 card.

£50 off now... more if you wait?

.
As the GTX480 price moves closer to £350, we'd expect that to leave a nice space for the GTX485 at just over £400.

KitGuru says: Any GTX480 buyers who listented to KitGuru's advice and put off buying that GTX480 will have been quids in now that the price cut is starting to bite.

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GTX485 Launch: Less hot and noisy in the sack? https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/gtx485-less-hot-and-noisy-in-the-sack/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/gtx485-less-hot-and-noisy-in-the-sack/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:08:47 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=4861 While we all like the idea of hot lovers, GPU hotspots are a killer. Each generation of chip gets more and more complicated, creating unwanted ‘electrical friction’ – with billions of microscopic components interacting in unpredictable ways to generate current loss and heat. However, give an engineer time and he will find ways to distress …

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While we all like the idea of hot lovers, GPU hotspots are a killer. Each generation of chip gets more and more complicated, creating unwanted ‘electrical friction’ – with billions of microscopic components interacting in unpredictable ways to generate current loss and heat. However, give an engineer time and he will find ways to distress the GPU design with the expert touch of a Swedish Masseuse. Will nVidia’s GTX485 be able to woo the undecideds?

If you have a production line with one person, and that person works a little harder, then you get a little more product at the end of the day.

Pack the line with 480 people, and even a relatively small increase in productivity can deliver clearly measurable results.

Now spend time moving the production lines around and installing better air conditioning, then you might find that they produce more and in a nicer, cooler environment.

KitGuru has heard that nVidia's been through the first iteration of the GTX480 with a fine tooth comb, to create a GTX485 product that can run at least 20MHz more on the core clock, with improved cooling and performance. It’s also worked through some neat driver improvements that will also help. Nice.

How has this improvement been made possible and why has it taken so long?

Bill Dally is a smart cookie. One that spent 10 years at MIT creating massive, experimental, parallel processing systems. He’s used to increasing the smoothness of a machine's operation by reducing the effort needed to synchronize disparate components. Useful, now that he has Fermi to tame.

nVidia's Bill Dally wants Fermi cooler and quieter
Bill Dally: Proud father ready to kill off GTX480 with a cooler/quieter/faster Fermi?

So what is the GeForce GTX 485?

Simply put, it’s what Fermi should have been at launch.

A little quicker. A little cooler. A little easier to make.

With the earlier price move announced exclusively by KitGuru, we’re now expecting the GTX485 to come in around $20 higher into distribution than the launch price of the GTX480. It will also overclock easier, because more of the pesky electrons will be going where they are supposed to go. Nice.

nVidia GTX 485 launch price drop
Will GTX 485 offer bigger holes for your enjoyment?

KitGuru says: Interesting move by nVidia. VERY unusual for the company with the single fastest chip to beat their own product within a few weeks of launching. We guess that Northern Islands (the revamped Radeon 5000 chip) must be very close to launching and nVidia wants to push every soldier it has into battle now. Good news for nVidia fanbois who have been holding off on GTX480 because they were not sure about all that heat and noise. What does that mean to the street pricing? We expect the £395 GTX480 to come down to £375 and the GTX 485 will launch at £419.

Discuss in our forums or just leave a quick comment below.

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