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One of the staff at TweakTown sent me over a link to the Hardware Secrets blog in regards to how NVIDIA had black listed the site due to a negative review. The first thing I have to say is, it’s not so much that I don’t like NVIDIA but more so what NVIDIA do. Outside of the politics between review websites and manufactures it’s things like not giving ATI users the ability to install a NVIDIA card next to that ATI one to use PhysX.

For me not doing this is just a failure in marketing, hello! has anyone seen the Mafia II video. How shit hot does PhysX look in that game. People won’t ditch the HD 5850, HD 5870 or HD 5970 for a GTX 470 or GTX 480 to get this experience. They would however buy a GTX 465 which is the new mid range card due soon to have the experience on their machine. I haven’t done a marketing course but I’m pretty sure that 1 sale of a lower end / mid range card is better than 0 sale of a high end one.

This post isn’t about that though; to be honest I understand why NVIDIA have done what they’ve done if it’s true they’ve been cut off for the reason Gabriel at HS is giving:

This time we have NVIDIA blacklisting us. After we published a review – without any support from them, N.B. – they complained that we didn’t talk about CUDA or PhysX. I replied saying that we weren’t going to talk about these subjects because we thought they were not relevant to the average user, and we usually don’t re-write reviews.

Video cards are my business; I took over as the dedicated writer to TweakTown on this subject a few years ago. Since the launch of PhysX and CUDA we’ve implemented the testing of these programs into our review, CUDA via Badaboom and PhysX via a couple of games.

It’s not my job to tell you what is relevant too you, it’s my job to lay everything on the table. Sure I add the score at the end of each review to give you a general idea of how the product lines up against others and that but really I offer you all the information possible so that you can make an informed decision.

I didn’t score the GTX 470 at launch because I didn’t have a GTX 480, this is a whole new issue but again not the place now. Really though it was hard to place the GTX 470 properly without having the GTX 480. Since launch we’ve reviewed the GTX 480, scored it and reviewed other GTX 470s and scored them.

I don’t hate the world and try to find good in everything and most the time it’s not hard, not if you really want to give an honest opinion. Sometimes reviewers have to look outside the elitist attitude that they sometimes have (This is not related to HS, I don’t know anyone there and to be honest I read very few Tech Sites outside of TweakTown) and realize that every product has a different market.

The fact that we don’t pay for our samples means that we don’t have to try and justify why we spent our hard earned dollars on it. The GTX 400 series has flaws, they’re being worked out but people who have bought the model are so defensive because they spent money on the product that they just choose to ignore clear flaws. The thing is these flaws only effect some people, the GTX 400 series run very warm, are very loud and draw large amounts of power. None of those issues might bother you, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist though.

Does the fact that HS chose to ignore CUDA and PhysX testing mean they deserve to be black listed? You know what I don’t really know and I don’t really care, it’s NVIDIAs decision and I’m sure they don’t just make it with haste since talking to all their partners about it takes time.

ATI ignored us for a long time as NVIDIA has at points, Galaxy cut us off at one point and threatened to sue TweakTown because we broke an NDA which we hadn’t signed or been given and PowerColor chucked a hissy fit and cut us off when I gave one of their graphics cards that used the disaster that was the old ThermalTake water cooling unit on a model a bad score.

No company is perfect. Some are just a bigger pain in the ass then others though.

If you find yourself wanting to get into the GTX 400 series fun but disappointed with the high price tag of the current top two models good news is just around the corner. Well to be more precise good news is in the paragraph below but owning one is just around the corner.

The GTX 465 which some people thought would be known as the GTX 460 is due to come out on the 1st of June. Details on the model are a bit sketchy at the moment with very little known. What I can tell you thought is that stock doesn’t look like it’s going to be an issue.

With the model still weeks away we’ve been told by multiple manufacteres that they already have stock and samples will be ready to ship this week.

What this means is that we’ll probably start seeing leaked results show up in the next week but please remember with so long before the official launch date a new driver helping performance shouldn’t be far off. I know once I get mine it won’t be slid into the testbed till closer to launch just to make sure we’re using the most up to date driver.

Recently talking to a few companies we’re getting word that midyear we’ll begin to see companies really mix it up when it comes to the design of GTX 480s. At the moment we’ve been told that NVIDIA are just shipping reference cards; if a company wants to change the cooler they can swap it out; as for overclocking they can throw a new bios on it.

What the design kits will do is give companies the chance to build cards from the ground up; something similar to the way we’ve seen Gigabyte do with the HD 5870 SOC and MSI with the Lightning series.

It will be interesting what happens when companies really take the time to dive into the kit and see what kind of potential is possible.

When we hear more about particular models we’ll let you know; for now though it looks like the fastest single GPU video card will only be getting faster in the coming months.

We figure that most companies are going to want to have something on display at Computex so no doubt that will be an interesting time as always.

Last week MSI released a new version of its highly popular Afterburner software that gave us the ability to adjust the voltage of the core on the GTX 480. If you missed it there’s an article on TweakTown I did here of just how the whole process went and the performance boost we achieved.

Today it’s time for the current baby GTX 400 series to get the same treatment.

If you’re the owner of the GTX 470 and you want to get your voltage groove on you can head on over to the MSI website and download the latest version of Afterburner here. There version is 1.6.0 Beta 5.

MSI have told us today that you can set the voltage to MAX. I love that word; MAX!

Anyway the GTX 470 is sitting nicely in the testbed now; Afterburner 1.6.0 Beta 5 is installed and it’s time to see if we can make some magic happen.

Again you can download the latest version here; and this also gives you the ability to adjust the Voltage on the GTX 480.

Voltage Adjustment thanks to MSI has become such an “in” thing. Overclockers all over the world love it; and with so many companies moving away from reference coolers the ability to adjust voltages is pretty safe these days. Within reason that is.

Anyway if you’ve got yourself a GTX 480 you’ll probably want to grab the latest Afterburner software, 1.6.1 Beta4. It can be had from the MSI website HERE.

Once installed you’ll have to pull out your mad hacking skillz; and by that I mean edit the MSIAfterburner.cfg file in notepad.

1. Edit MSIAfterburner.cfg
2. Change AllowCaptureVoltageDefaults from 0 to 1

You should find this under Program Files/Afterburner.

Once that’s done fire up Afterburner, go to settings and down the bottom under safety *yawn boring* tick the first two boxes. You don’t need to tick the third; I’ve been told that this option will actually be gone soon as something changed on NVIDIAs end when making the card and it’s no longer needed.

On stock cooler we’ve been told that it’s safe to go to 1100 from 937. We’ve been told that it’s .937v to 1.1v but we’re not 100% on it so don’t hold me to that.

I’ve only tested this on the GTX 480 at the moment and all is good; keep an eye on TweakTown for an article. It’s going to be a late night!

GTX 400 series has started arriving at manufactures; no doubt in the next day or two they’ll begin to ship out to wholesalers around the world. It’s become clear though that partners aren’t happy with the stock they received with one saying to me:

“the shipment should be arrived by today… just a few …not enough to sell”

While we’ve got a GTX 480 sample on its way now we’re not sure how the retail market is going to go with supply. No doubt majority of the stock will be spread across Asia, America and Europe it’ll be interesting to see how many come down under in Australia.

I hope you’re not in too much of a rush to pick up a GTX 400 series card; no doubt the decision for some companies to increase the price on high end Radeon models was smart as they’re making more money than ever.

Chasing up retail samples of the GTX 400 series is continuing to be a pain with word being that manufactures aren’t expecting their stock till after Easter now which would make retail supply of the model fall back even further then the second week of April.

As for actual supply of the model no one really knows anything because stock hasn’t arrived to the manufactures yet; one would hope that the delay is due to NVIDIA getting more stock together so supply isn’t an issue.

The cut back in the amount of CUDA cores was also designed to help combat the amount of available stock at launch with NVIDIA saying they would be in a better position than there competitor. The real question on everyone’s mind is how much better though; will it be slightly better than the HD 5870 and HD 5970 or will it be significantly better.

Hopefully we’ll know more after Easter as stock arrives.

MMT or Multimedia Technology is an Australian distributor; while they do a lot of products the one we’ll be looking at today is the GTX 400 series. They’ve made a few points in an email; let’s diagnose it and help some of their customers really understand.

BOLD Statments are from the email.

Please find confirmed specs and pricing on New GTX480 and GTX470

Thanks; let’s look.

Here is where they are positioned.

Ok let’s find out.

It’s a mixed bag today and maybe driver related but in real world gaming:

I know it’s quite the mixed bag; and it’s not driver related. NVIDIA did have six months. It’s ok now you know though.

GTX470 is a little quicker than HD5850,

Arghhhhhhhhhhh – I hate to say it but it’s not all the time!

while at higher resolutions with 8AA or better, it even out performs HD5970.

Yeah; nah not really! At 2560 x 1600 we do see the HD 5850 pretty much win out every time. Maybe you should’ve focused on the lower resolution performance. The GTX 470 really wins out there. As for it beating the HD 5970 with 8x AA. The best game the GTX 470 performed in with AA for me personally was Far Cry 2 and while the MINIMUM matched the HD 5970 it’s average was a fair bit down compared to the model.

In my eyes its HD5850/HD5870 equivalent. Time will tell what consumers want.

Equivalent how? It’s better at some things and worse in others when compared to the HD 5850. Even NVIDIA say the model sit’s BETWEEN the HD 5850 and HD 5870. If it’s equivalent to anything it would be a HD 5850 OC. You’re right though time will tell what consumers want.

GTX480 overall is slightly less than HD5970, while clearly taking the fastest single GPU crown. At times it exceeds HD5970 well. However the price on GTX480 is much less.

Hate to break it to you champ but even NVIDIA haven’t compared the GTX 480 to the HD 5970 for a reason. The word slightly has been used a bit too loosely there. I haven’t had the pleasure of testing the GTX 480 myself though so I won’t say much else.

Stock will not be available for 2-3 weeks, pricing is likely to change (downward). Use the below pricing to help secure back orders and deposits from your customers.

Ouch! another 2 – 3 weeks for stock. Still not really a surprise. That’s for letting us know that price could be cheaper though.

When stock arrives you can either make more profit or pass on the saving if the price decreases.

That’s helpful – nice to know someone took Sales 101.

GTX480 and GTX470 will be in shortage, as are HD5870 and HD5970 from selected brands today. Shortage meaning if you order 500 pcs, you cant get 500 pcs.

Does NVIDIA know you’re using the word Shortage? I thought we have 480 CUDA cores now so we don’t have a shortage. NVIDIA even told me launch will be good; much better then there competitor. As for HD 5870 and HD 5970; stocks getting better every week, I understand you sell ATI products as well but maybe you make more from EVGA? Who knows.

Also what if we order 50pcs? or 5pcs? Will customers get that?

EVGA will release Reference Clocks, Superclock (SC), FTW (For The Win) and Waterblock editions of these cards within the next 2-3 weeks.

W00t!

Please do not discount heavily, these items will be shortage, you can make good money on shortage products. I have listed a guestimate for RRP, but this will also decrease as stock becomes readily available. As EVGA was first with pricing into Australia, the price you list will be a benchmark.

Roger that! Price Gauge. We’ve got it.

So what are the “Guestimate” prices?

Suggested RRP: around $859-879 or higher???

Suggested RRP: $589 inc or higher?

No problems; if we can price gouge enough we’ll go higher.

I’ve just got a couple of questions about the GTX 470. Since this is the more “Mainstream” model of the two this is probably what will be the most popular.

I heard that the card runs hot, loud and draws lots of power? You seemed to miss these in your little email. It’s ok I’ll answer them for you.

I get my temperature reading from the back of the card directly where the GPU fits. The temperature is grabbed during 3DMark Vantage. The GTX 470 came in at 76.1c; the HD 5850 came in at 59.2c and the HD 5870 63.1c. The heat will bother some but not others.

On the bright side the card mustn’t be very loud since it’s that warm; well I suppose that depends if 73.6dB at load is loud compared to 61.1dB and 62.6dB on the HD 5850 and HD 5870. From my review I made this note.

At between 55dB to 65dB you can’t tell a whole lot of difference between a card. When you get into the 70dB zone, though, you can clearly hear it over other things like ambient noise.

As for power; yes the GTX 470 sucks some juice. It draws about as much power as the HD 5970 which is a Dual GPU card from ATI. on our testbed which only uses the bare minimum that put’s the number at 397 Watt. You need to look out for spikes and other stuff like that though.

What I hate so much about this email though is the person behind it seems like an uneducated noob. And he’s the “Group Product Manager”

There’s so many good things about the GTX 470 and GTX 480 like CUDA Support; PhysX, Ray Tracing and more. There’s no mention of SLI performance, nothing about Surround Gaming or 3D Vision apart from in some of the “features” information where the GTX 470 and GTX 480 is described. Come on though; explain the tech a bit better, get people excited about it.

The reason the people in these computer stores know so little when it comes to the products they’re selling is because the people selling the product to them don’t know what they’re talking about. Please note I don’t mean all people in computers shops; I have a number of mates in stores that really know what they’re talking about.

Video Cards are full on; the trend changes a lot and there’s a huge range of models available so knowing all the models is on its own a very busy job.

Maybe next time a wholesaler might like me to do the email information out; sure I understand that you’re not going to show the negative things but come on. Some of this stuff is just pure fabrications, why is the performance @ 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 completely ignored?

Feel free to drop us a line MMT or any other wholesaler for that matter; I’m sure I can help sales with just simple newsletters that have information that’ll get people excited about the product.

For those interested my GTX 470 review can be found here; and if you want to know some behind the scene stuff there’s a great article I did here. Yes I called my own article great!

While word is that NVIDIA have dropped the amount of cores to 480 to help increase the amount of stock that is going to be available, talking to a couple of NVIDIA partners it’s become clear that many are still waiting on stock to arrive.

Unfortunately for NVIDIA stock is only one issue and if NVIDIA wants to have sold more GTX 400 series cards then the HD 5800 series and HD 5900 series combined by the end of summer they’ll need to have an awesome card on hand.

GTX 400 series boards are no doubt in the hands of reviewers and being tested all over the world at the moment. Currently I’ve got a GTX 470 with me and while I hope that a GTX 480 would arrive before NDA it seems without manufactures getting stock it won’t happen.

Of course we’ll get one soon after the NDA is lifted and have a review up ASAP; for now though we’ll have a review of the GTX 470 go live as soon as the NDA is lifted.

I absolutely love that the GTX 400 series is around the corner; and if you have no intension of buying one as you enjoy the high end ATI setup you already have; you should as well since ATI have held nothing back in the driver department lately.

The latest area to get shown love by the Catalyst Driver Team is the new Cross Profiles which will have their first update Monday.

Below is a list of what will be improved when you install the profile:

Heaven – Crossfire profile
Dark Void – Crossfire profile
Singularity – Crossfire profile
Unigine Heaven Demo – Crossfire profile
Just Cause 2 -> Single GPU and Crossfire profile
Battlefield Bad Company 2 -> Crossfire profile
AvP -> Single GPU and Crossfire profile

Ouch! I feel bad for NVIDIA who have chosen to send only one GTX 400 sample to myself and the decision to make it the slower one of the two new models. I think it’s going to look pretty unattractive against a sea of red.