Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC SLI Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC SLI Review - <span class='atma-no-link'>Galaxy's new GeForce GTX 470 GC video card offers a unique solution to a common problem for hardware enthusiasts. There are new features such as higher clock speeds, a custom PCB design, and something called a detachable flip fan you will want to see. We compare single and SLI gameplay performance against AMD.</span>

After checking out the review, make sure you see Galaxy's contest in this thread.

You can buy the Galaxy GTX 470 GC HERE.
 
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Good card, good review. Despite all the negatives of the Fermi cards, there is one positive. The 470 / 480 are a lot more available for sale than the 5850 / 5870 / 5970.

470
480
5850
5870
5970
 
Well, let me correct you there. Currently there are NOT more Fermi cards in stock than 5800s. That is not possible. I know how many have been built and how many sold. Still there have been good stocks on GTX 480 for a week or so now and solid stocks on GTX 470 for a couple of weeks. Please use our links below to check stocks.

GeForce GTX 480 Stock Check<img src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​

Radeon HD 5970 Stock Check<img src="http://www.lduhtrp.net/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​

Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Stock Check<img src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​


Radeon HD 5870 Stock Check<img src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​



GeForce GTX 470 Stock Check<img src="http://www.awltovhc.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​


Radeon HD 5850 Stock Check<img src="http://www.lduhtrp.net/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​

Radeon 5770 Stock Check<img src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​

Radeon HD 5750 Stock Check<img src="http://www.ftjcfx.com/image-3891137-10446076" width="1" height="1" border="0"/>​

But please, let's stay on topic. This thread is about the Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC. :)
 
I really enjoyed reading this review. Thanks a lot for all your hard work, Brent and Kyle. :)


Good to see the performance on the 470, and I must say I quite like this Galaxy card. Very enjoyable and good review. Thanks again. :)
 
Great review as usual, guys. The flip-up fan implementation is pretty ingenious, but it doesn't look like Galaxy has taken any steps to reduce fan vibration. Maybe in the next model?

At any rate, I'm leaning towards a GTX 470 but damn, so hot and noisy. I've already had a hard time stomaching a 2nd generation 8800GT (with the larger blower) under load.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
Gotta love that flip fan feature! I wish more cards would come with such. :D
Click to expand...

The first time they showed me this a while back I thought, damn, how stupid could we have all been for so long. Such a simple idea very well executed. These Fermi cards are going to get friggin hotter and louder as those fins start collecting dust. Being able to get the canned air nozzle in there and clean easily is a blessing I don't think is truly valued just yet. :)

Mr. Bluntman said:
<snip> it doesn't look like Galaxy has taken any steps to reduce fan vibration. Maybe in the next model?
Click to expand...

Also I meant to add in the review, the fan did not rattle or vibrate under higher RPMs. It locks in very solid and I don't see a downside to the unit.
 
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Cool fan design hopefully others will take note. I've never had much of a dust problem. The office gets vacuumed every day and I clean out my rigs once a month, that REALLY cuts down on dust accumulation, I was amazed how clean my 280s were after 2 years when I sold them.
 
kinda hoping AMD gives a good $50 price drop on its 5870 5850 cards get these summer deals rolling!
 
The two year warranty kills it for me. Give me lifetime and I would be in.
 
Nice review! Galaxy seems to be shaping up to be a fairly good option in the GPU market, really impressed with the heatsink / fan setup, though the colours could have been better =)

Typo fixed (again), thanks for the extra eyes. - Kyle
 
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LeninGHOLA said:
No kidding. Nice fan design but a bit ugly card
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Its that military style which everyone uses these days.

I named the fan design "Chambermaid" (though Galaxy Chambermaid would have been cooler). Heck, its the only card that comes with a maid. We all know how dusty things can get in a PC! :D

Edit: Galaxy class Chambermaid would have been even better with some reference to Startrek. :p Can't win anyway, since they only ship in US, so perhaps I should edit?

I seriously wish it would become a standard. Cleaning fans is something I hate doing and this is much easier.
 
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LeninGHOLA said:
No kidding. Nice fan design but a bit ugly card
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing at first, but I think the fact that it is SO much different from what we are used is part of the initial shock value. After having them around me for a few days, they are finally looking "right" and starting to grow on me.
 
Great review! I like how you guys edited the video in the noise comparison section. Cutting between the stock card and the Galaxy when they were at idle and load was easier to determine the sound differences. Please continue to do this whether possible! It's very helpful!
 
Galaxy should be given major props for this card for three reasons: (1) the fan (2) the non-reference design (3) no monsters on the card or box.
 
I think the color of the cards fits in well with the Gigabyte mobo Kyle is using.

Great review as always, nice to see highest settings actually playing the game it must take a while to compile all of that :)

I think i'm gonna go for the red team this time though, i do prefer nvidia myself but the prices aren't good at all.
 
nice review, great to see Galaxy moving along.
the company is run by some good people from a time when, by gamers for gamers meant something!
 
you guys should have thrown a 5870 in the mix.

it seems like it would be on par with it in terms of performance while being a bit cheaper and requiring a lot more power.
 
Kyle, thank you very much for this review. Galaxy's warranty is void if you overclock the card (per the warranty terms I read.) Luckily, looking at your overclocking results I'm not losing anything from not OC'ing.


Thanks again.

Grabbing the new drivers right now.
 
Fermi will only get faster as time goes by with new drivers. AMD IMO is maxed out already. I am so on board when the refresh hits.
 
I'm really pleased to read this review, glad to see Galaxy have up their game.

I've own two Galaxy cards in the past. The GF 6800 was great, it came with the Glacier cooler. Had to RMA the card, and it was easy. Received a new card which still works till today. My experience with Galaxy's GF 9800GTX+ left me with a little disappointment though, Their 9800gtx custom cooler was more of a budget cooler, smaller and cooling performance was not that good.

I'm glad to see they've started making cards that have advantages over a generic one, rather than a budget version. Really like its custom cooler this time, better performance and very innovative, love the easy to clean feature

ps: If they have a rep reading this, I'd like to see Galaxy continues to produce quality cards with great cooler design (rather than some budget card with sub par features)
 
Transparency AA dosen't work in Bad Company 2, the only method is the ingame AA, setting Transparency AA through the CP or CCC will not effect performance or increase IQ. As far as I know not on ATI that is, so the claims of AD MSAA on the ATI card is false in the tests. Reading other forums its the same for Nvidia as well. The only Transparency AA supported in DX10/11 in Bad Company 2 is the ingame method. The other problem is AA is not even 100% in Bad Company 2, only part of the image recieves AA properly, the other part does not.

This is from my testing and from what everyone has seen so far, leaving the CCC default at MSAA or changing to AAA or SSAA does nothing what so ever. Tested using 10.4a Hot Fix and the 10.5 beta also using latest Catalyst Profiles. As far as I am aware its the same issue for Nvidia, but I have no cards to test with.
 
Hornet said:
I'm really pleased to read this review, glad to see Galaxy have up their game.

I've own two Galaxy cards in the past. The GF 6800 was great, it came with the Glacier cooler. Had to RMA the card, and it was easy. Received a new card which still works till today. My experience with Galaxy's GF 9800GTX+ left me with a little disappointment though, Their 9800gtx custom cooler was more of a budget cooler, smaller and cooling performance was not that good.

I'm glad to see they've started making cards that have advantages over a generic one, rather than a budget version. Really like its custom cooler this time, better performance and very innovative, love the easy to clean feature

ps: If they have a rep reading this, I'd like to see Galaxy continues to produce quality cards with great cooler design (rather than some budget card with sub par features)
Click to expand...
Reading and noted :)
 
martinmsj said:
Kyle, thank you very much for this review. Galaxy's warranty is void if you overclock the card (per the warranty terms I read.) Luckily, looking at your overclocking results I'm not losing anything from not OC'ing.


Thanks again.

Grabbing the new drivers right now.
Click to expand...

OCing significantly helps with framerates using the 470s, but not an anemic OC that comes stock with the Galaxy cards. You need to play with voltages and shaders yourself to see. If you can get it up to 1500 on the shader clock, you'll see about a 15% performance increase.
 
Thanks for the review Kyle , I was curious about this design when I saw the news on Galaxy ditching the stock setup for a custom one. Pretty good results for the SLI/Crossfire battle .. looks like they are nearly a dead heat.

Now that I have 2 GTX 480 Asus cards running in my comp I'm trying to look into a watercooling solution as there really isn't any aftermarket coolers for the 400 series cards.
 
Kyle, are you sure that tiny overclock was responsible for 35 watts more draw under load? Sounds more like a less efficient PCB design. If you could underclock it to reference speeds, would that shine some light on this?
 
No3DaleFan said:
Kyle, are you sure that tiny overclock was responsible for 35 watts more draw under load? Sounds more like a less efficient PCB design. If you could underclock it to reference speeds, would that shine some light on this?
Click to expand...

Its not unheard of. According to [H]'s review, the Powercolor 5870 PCS+, which has a custom PCB and fan with slight overclock, drew 84W more on load:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/14/powercolor_pcs_hd5870_hd5850_video_card_review/7

Edit: Still struggling with my choice of name for this fan system, though i can't win. Chambermaid is my first choice, this being a cleaning solution for fan and chamber, but Galaxy class Chambermaid sounds a bit fancier and since this is all a fan made name, Fanmaid might be the solution. :p
 
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Brent, Kyle, et.al.,

Any chance you could post a screenshot of the bare PCB with the Heatpipe/sink removed for this and/or future video card reviews (especially for non-reference cards)?

I like to be able to see the components used, especially the voltage regulation. A good screenshot will tell me whether there are a lot of capacitors and coils that may cause a lot of "squeal" and "whine" and necessitate extra work for me to apply "goop" to quiet them down later on.
 
The only problem I can see with this particular card design is having the power inputs on the rear of the card rather than the side, like usual. If you have a small-ish case where the length of the card could be an issue, this could cause problems that are not present when having the power connectors on the side of the card.
 
Still too expensive, still too much heat and still not the price/performance proposition that the 200 series cards were which IMHO was a very good deal so long as you weren't one of those bleeding edge guys.

I'm also noticing lots of gimmicks from both the AMD and NVIDIA camps to influence game performance using proprietary tricks. Personally I think any special hardware enabled perks should be left out of the equation.
Who cares if a game runs better on one or the other because of some code that only activates with
a specific vendor.

It's like this, I can go by a bone stock Camaro SS or a Mustang GT but if I go and slap an aftermarket supercharger on one or the other and then claim one manufacturer made a better car because of it you end up with an invalid comparison.

It almost reminds me of the waning days of Voodoo when ATI was still "raging" and Nvidia was just starting its "Riva-ing"

It'd also have been cool to see a video review and listen to the fan noise from those 470's in SLI.

:D
 
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Thanks for the link Beakerman, hopefully the [H] will be able to include similar pictures in their reviews (assuming they are allowed to do so)
 
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