Thursday, March 18th 2010
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Reference Design Card Final Design Pictured
Many would be familiar with these pictures of a generic graphics card based on NVIDIA's GF100 GPU which was spotted at this year's CES. A company slide sourced by DonanimHaber reveals the final iteration of NVIDIA's reference design GeForce GTX 480 graphics accelerator, and what it looks like from the outside. A set of slightly more recent pictures showed its cooling assembly from inside. The protruding heat pipes intrigued us as they were inconsistent with the cooling assembly on the card NVIDIA showed off at CES, which we then believed to be the top-end GTX 480 part. The company slide confirms what the cooling assembly looks like when it's all put together.
The cooler is highly ventilated, with vents all over the cooler's shroud. There are vents on the top, on the sides, apart from the usual obverse fan air intake. To increase its intake, the PCB is further cut to help draw air from the reverse-side of the PCB. The cooler's four large (we reckon 8 mm thick) heat pipes protrude about a centimeter out of the card's periphery, increasing its height by that much. The cooler itself respects the 2-slot thickness limit which is most conventional. A table in the slide also confirms some details we already know: the card has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide interface. It has a TDP of under 300W, which a recent report reveals to be a hairbreadth under 300W, at 296W. Power is drawn in from an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. The card is 10.5 inches long, the same length as its reference-design GeForce GTX 280. The card supports 3-way SLI. It will be unveiled on the 26th of March.
Source:
DonanimHaber
The cooler is highly ventilated, with vents all over the cooler's shroud. There are vents on the top, on the sides, apart from the usual obverse fan air intake. To increase its intake, the PCB is further cut to help draw air from the reverse-side of the PCB. The cooler's four large (we reckon 8 mm thick) heat pipes protrude about a centimeter out of the card's periphery, increasing its height by that much. The cooler itself respects the 2-slot thickness limit which is most conventional. A table in the slide also confirms some details we already know: the card has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide interface. It has a TDP of under 300W, which a recent report reveals to be a hairbreadth under 300W, at 296W. Power is drawn in from an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. The card is 10.5 inches long, the same length as its reference-design GeForce GTX 280. The card supports 3-way SLI. It will be unveiled on the 26th of March.
137 Comments on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Reference Design Card Final Design Pictured
Both nVidia and ATi rate their TDP by typical use, not "power virus" draw. ;)
Unless the only thing you do is looking at the furry dounut the whole day, this is the graph to look for:
Take a look at the GTX 295 for example. According to tpu it draws a max of 320W while its tdp is 289.
So, either all the TDPs are false or it has not been measured accurately.
Doh, Zubasa beat me 8(
Actually, don't Nvidia and ATI use Futuremark for their TDP?
_____________________________
You can dress up a turd all you want, but at the end of the day it's still a turd.
I can almost hear it "With occupying 3 slots instead of the standard two, we can deliver exceptional cooling capabilities to keep the temperatures down and prolong the lifespan of the GTX480"
GTX480 = ~300W TDP and price of £450*
HD5870 = max 212W TDP and price of £310+
Thats about >40% increase on both counts.
(* based on Fudzilla's quoted 450 euros which will translate to 450 british quid.)
So, performance aside (because we dont know what it really is) why is everyone comparing these two cards? They are not in the same ballpark. It's like comparing a 2 litre engine car to a 1.4.
If this card, the cream of NV is to be classed as the best perfoming single GPU, it's performance needs to be classified towards the HD5970 end. And for those saying Dual GTX 480, what planets do you live on? It has TREMENDOUSLY bad power issues (512 cut to 480 cores) and an NV - not custom - cooling solution straight out the blocks.
This will beat the 5870 but the margins need to be justified. Can we not start being realistic and bring in more logistical arguments like
yo mommas gonna kick yo ass when she sees her power bill, assuming the house hasnt been burned down.
From a working technological position, ATI have won this round. Now if drivers were put aside many more NV folk would switch.
And remember, before i get called an ATI fanboi, I went to red because i foresaw Fermi being delayed way back in September, going on all those rumours. So NV lost my custom.
Also, i bought my hd5870 in October :) epic card for the past 6 months! now fermi got kicked in the head by ridiculous power consumption! I don't want an easy bake oven with built in hairdryer. I want a gaming machine where i can still hear the game over the fan!
5970 is faster....
Nvidia fan boys are tired of waiting.
Their drivers isnt as good as they were, ati's drivers are improving at a rapid rate.
Ati is getting more acceptance by the open source community.
Ati is getting more out to the community, and developers.
Nvidia is:
Holding their prioritary standards close.
Delaying.
Showing off wood.
renaming.
With fusion comming, intel with their "igp" on die and so on, nvidia's chipset business AND low low end graphics solutions is obsolute, core 2 duo generation is dead very very soon.
Nvidia's chipset business started failing already at 6 series.
Nvidia's tegra is doing great.
Their tesla is doing great.
yeah...
I can only see intel buying nvidia when its stocks falling.
and this should be as fast as a GTX 295, so....Nvidia is justified to do so?
but really. that much power, and that much heat, and that much possible price, why is nvidia even bothering with it?
So where does that leave us? Where we started, knowing nothing about the actual power consumption of the GTX480.
The new and improved DUST BUSTER!!! :laugh:
This will be interesting to see the real card and real specs..
(lol, ok now il stop)
The only other way that they can put the decimal point is to the right, and that will make it an 18.0A fan. :p
I am sure we humans will not hear the fan itself anymore. The noise is most likely ultrasound :nutkick:
Edit: fixed.
I'll stick w/ my 5850 toxic though. I lovez it :toast: