EVGA NVIDIA GTX 480 Review

Introduction:

This is the EVGA Nvidia GTX 480 video card.  After deciding to get back into gaming, I wanted the best performance to price on a video card with a budget of $250.  This card performs around the same as the ATI 6950 ($250-$270) and the newer Nvidia GTX 570 ($300+)  I picked up this card for $220 at Newegg.  Even being a top performer, there are a few things you may want to consider before picking this video card up.  

Specs:

• 700mhz core clock
• 1401mhz shader clock
• 480 Processor cores
• 3696 Mhz effective memory clock
• 384 Memory bit
• GDDR5
• 1536MB
• PCI Express 2.0 x16 Interface
• 2-DVI 1-Mini HDMI Ports

Power Consumption:

This card is FAST, but with a powerful card comes power consumption.  This video card has one of the highest power consumption and requirements that is out today.  The minimum requirements call for a 600w PSU with 12v+ rails pushing 40a.  I am running the card with no problems with an Antec EarthWatts EA-650w PSU.

Also note that this card requires an 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-E connection from your PSU.

Heat:

If you are going to get a card in this range, you usually have the power.  Heat for this video card is a big con for most people.  Several people report temperatures ranging 80-100c which is very hot for a video card!  Even at 100c this card is made to withstand the punishment.  In my Xion Stacker PC case which is strictly air cooling with two front 120mm intake, bottom side 120mm exhaust, top 80mm intake, rear 120mm exhaust, and my PSU 120mm pulling air out of the case, my card rarely goes over 70c under full load at 70% fan speed.  I must stress if you have this card you MUST set fan profiles using EVGA PRECISION or MSI AFTERBURNER.  I started off using EVGA Precision but after having problems in some games with the unreal engine I have lately switched to MSI Afterburner.  So all in all, if you are thinking about getting this card make sure you have good case airflow.

Noise:

Managing the fan speed with one of the above applications is a good way to keep this video card from sounding like a jet.  At 50% this video card is probably as loud as most video cards running 100% fan speed.  Of course while in games you will need your fan control to increase speeds as the temperature rises, and it only gets louder.  If you are more worried about performance and price than noise, I say this card will be fine for you.  If not I would look towards the ATI 9650 or Nvidia GTX 570.

Performance:

This video card can run the toughest games that is out today with mostly max settings.  I can not give good legit benchmarks because my CPU and memory bottleneck this video card, but I will tell you what I average in the games that I have tested.  If you want to see my PC specs just look at the about me.  Most of these games I run AA and AF application controlled with nvidia control panel set to Quality.  All games are ran at 1680x1050 resolution.

FPS:

• The Witcher 2:  50-60
• The Darkness 2: 100+
• Fear 3: 100+
• LA Noire: 55+
• AVP: 100+
• Americas Army 3:  80+
• Metro 2033:  40-50

Other Thoughts:

This video card is long!  Make sure you have enough room if you are thinking of getting this card. It is 10.5" long.  The PCI-E connections are on the side so that it does not waste extra length.  

Conclusion:

I am not going to rate pros and cons for this video card since most of the cons are of opinion.  For the price to performance, if you can get this video card for $250 or under it is a steal.  If the heat, noise, power consumption and video card length does not turn you away this video card will allow top performance at a happy price.

You can find this card at the link below for $210 (ending tomorrow) but there will probably be more deals like that.  I got mine for $220 from this same site.

Newegg