470GTX review - July mag

[StarBound]

I looked at the comments and saw it says it beats the radeon 5870. BEATS THE 5870? Looked at the benchmarks and it shows that it does beat the games used for the benchmark. So my question has to be is this review legit? It isnt bias in anyway and selectively picked the games that run better on nvidia cards whiles the 5870 does indeed blow the card out of the water? Because it wasnt a month or 2 ago at the release of the new nvidia cards that the 470GTX was barely beating the 5850.

So whats the new found source of the 470gtx improved performace? Overclocking or improved drivers?

[KALSTER]

Sponsorship scandal!

[IcePick88]

I point you HERE

Could also not believe that the 470 beats the 5870 when I read it...
At best the 470GTX competes with the HD5850 IMHO.

[Nab]

Howdy y'all

I responded to a reader query about this issue just yesterday and will paste my response. The notion that the review is sponsored is obviously preposterous for so many legitimate reasons not to mention a complete lack of any commercial presence by NVIDIA in PCF globally let alone South Africa where they don't even have an office. Since the review was from purchased UK content we can't replicate it exactly. What we can do is put our 470gtx up against a 5870 with the same games and see if they made a booboo (which I sincerely doubt). Response to follow.


Thanks for the heads up and you definitely don’t need to apologise for challenging us, we expect it and hope for it!

There are many sites to back you up on this one but please allow me some explanation for the disparity.

First and foremost, our review is based on the actual results we achieved (or in this case our UK team). I will consent that the reviewer placed a strong emphasis on tessellation, a technology that has been touted with changing the way games are rendered and something that the 470 is physically better equipped to do. Before DirectX11 tessellation was done by the CPU and as you may have noticed all the games we used where very new whereas many of the online reviews revert back to older titles such as Crysis which can’t take full advantage of the 470. I also suspect many of the online reviewers were using the beta Fermi drivers which were notoriously slow.

That said, ATi also take there sweet time in tweaking their software and the 5870 may just rise up again – we can only make a call based on our benchmarks. I think what is fair to say is that the cards are very close in most regards with the 470 having an advantage in newer titles while the 5870’s brute force is better for everything else. If you are up in JHB I would love to have you visit with your 5870 and we can do another battery of benchmarks with the new drivers. (the guy had a 5870)

That's the end of my response but I would just like to emphasize one point. While I intend to verify the UK's results; I have no doubts that Dave based his review on the results he achieved, we can hardly change our outcomes based on other media sources and even if we are the only title on the planet saying the 470 is faster (albeit on DX11), if its the truth it stays!

Thanks for the patience in all this and for being so informed and proactive - you guys do me proud; if we get different results I will be sure to print a retraction and if any of you would like be part of the testing let me know and I can set-up a date.

[RuadRauFlessa]

Oooh oooh..... I would like to be part of the testing... Sponsor me a couple of GPU's and I'd be at your offices in a blink of an eye

[KALSTER]

The notion that the review is sponsored is obviously preposterous

Just to be clear, I was joking.

[KillerByte]

Oooh oooh..... I would like to be part of the testing... Sponsor me a couple of GPU's and I'd be at your offices in a blink of an eye

GPUs very rarely stay put at the office. The suppliers usually ask for them back

*I hit edit instead of quote how embarrassing

[RuadRauFlessa]

Oooh oooh..... I would like to be part of the testing... Sponsor me a couple of GPU's and I'd be at your offices in a blink of an eye

GPUs very rarely stay put at the office. The suppliers usually ask for them back

*I hit edit instead of quote how embarrassing

Now that sux...Oh that is why you are not biased. IF the cards were to stay put you would be more inclined towards the manufacturer/supplier.....makes since now. But you could leave the card with me. Seeing as I am not the one writing the review.... I can be biased all I want

[Nab]

The notion that the review is sponsored is obviously preposterous

Just to be clear, I was joking.

Obviously

[KALSTER]

The notion that the review is sponsored is obviously preposterous

Just to be clear, I was joking.

Obviously

....but still...

I'd still go for the Ati cards though due to the favourable price/performance ratio. I am just a tad worried about tessellation performance when future games start to employ it more extensively.

[SykomantiS]

<snip>
That said, ATi also take there sweet time in tweaking their software and the 5870 may just rise up again
</snip>

tsk tsk, PCF Ed?

My minute contribution to the mag (If you haven't already gone to print)

/nazi

On topic.
If all titles used in the test were newer titles making use of tessellation, chances are the results are sound. It will be interesting to see the verification results though.

[Nab]

Eeek on the spelling; despite her lack of involvement, I will flog my sub-editor with the latest hard-cover issue of Mein Spelling Nazi. To be honest its worse than just the spelling, companies are only entitled to singular pronouns anyway - its a forum, watchagonnado ?

Moving on, I just chatted to Dave and he has confirmed that drivers were indeed a factor. He says the catalysts at the time where slow and as new benchmarks can attest, the ATi is generally faster when it comes to brute force computing and at higher resolutions - although several tasks still favour the 470. I will be printing a revised review based on new benchmarks and a new score in the August issue but I wouldn't bank on the shift being dramatic to the extent that the 5870 advocates might hope. The 470 still contends with the 5870 in our books and not the 5850 with the benchmark scores sitting at 8:0 - 470 beats 5850 and 5:4 - 5870 beats beats 470.

Massive disclaimer for the above: we have yet to do our own benchmarking and things could still swing either way. We will update you the second we have the cards and benchmark results!

[StarBound]

Thanks. I couldn't find any online sources claiming the 470GTX victory over the 5870. The only article I saw was that the new geforce drivers increases the 470/480 by 4-25% and no benchmarks has yet backed it up. All others shows the 5970 > 480 > 5870 > 470 > 5850. But if that is the case with the 470GTX beating the 5870 then what is the 480GTX doing to the 5970 with the new drivers?

Maybe you could entitle the August mag as "DRIVERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE!". The SA PFC cover can have 2 taxi's, one red and one green, racing each other

[alliesmeister]

...Maybe you could entitle the August mag as "DRIVERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE!". The SA PFC cover can have 2 taxi's, one red and one green, racing each other

Brilliant!

[StarBound]

I tried the odd thing and looked at specs. All those benchmarks were run at 2500x1900 (that rez up there) so I figured that the memory bit size might have made a difference at higher resolutions but I still couldnt find anything concrete saying the 470gtx is faster than the 5870.

[ryanrich]

Terrible review... Gah.