Galaxy’s GTX 480 SuperOverclock – The World’s fastest single GPU video card!

Price to Performance

It is pretty clear from our 21 games and two synthetic tests that the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC is a potent GPU to put against AMD’s HD 5870.   It definitely has the clear distinction of being the fastest video card in its class and at a suggested retail price of $489, sets it just above the average price of most reference GTX 480s and overclocked HD 5870.  Considering the awesome, cool and quiet cooler and the much better performance, it is a no-brainer to go for Galaxy’s solution if you are considering buying a GTX 480.  We also expect that some of its success will depend on market pricing and what AMD does with their HD 5870 pricing.  But if you want the fastest single GPU with an awesome cool and quiet VGA cooler, the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC gives you your cake and allows you to eat it also.

Clearly AMD is confident in its own mature product with HD 5870 and HD 5890 and they are apparently going to counter Nvidia with discounted pricing and it is also clear that they are leaving their partners to use their own judgment. Will this strategy work? How will Nvidia respond? There are rumors of AMD’s new HD 6000 series that may well be introduced this year. Until then –  and right now – it is an excellent time to upgrade as there is price competition again, something we have not seen for a long time until recently.  The Galaxy GTX 480 SuperOverclock is actually priced below Nvidia’s own suggested retail price for the reference GTX 480.

Conclusion

This has been quite an enjoyable – if physically exhausting – four days, hand’s on experience for us in comparing our two GTX 480s versus our two HD 5870s. We used all “fresh” testing with the very latest drivers for all of these video cards and we wish that we had more than the 3 days that we were allowed to benchmark the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC to give you our first impressions.  Fortunately, we have been gaming for months with both the reference GTX 480 and with our HD 5870s separately and in CrossFire, so that we can provide you with a reliable comparison.  During that same week, we also had to set up and benchmark two differently clocked HD 5870s. However, it was certainly worth it and we feel priviliged to bring you our very first benchmarks and performance testing of Galaxy’s amazing GTX 480 SOC.

We like the Galaxy GTS 480 SOC a lot and we plan to follow up with this editor’s special areas of interest – multi-GPU scaling and multi-display’s Eyefinity versus (2D) Surround. We were amazed by the supeb scaling of SLI in newer games when we tested GTX 450 SLI last week. So, expect an ongoing series which will include evaluating GTX 480 SLI. We also expect GF108 from Nvidia soon to take on HD 5500/5400 series.

In the meantime, feel free to comment below, ask questions or have a detailed discussion in our ABT forum. If you have any requests on what you would like for us to focus on for further testing or for any other information, please join our ABT forum or leave a comment.

Galaxy GTX 480 SOC

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Galaxy GTX 480 is much faster than its competition, HD 5870 and solidly faster than overclocked HD 5870 performance although only priced about $40 higher.
• There is further room for overclocking and the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC is already solidly faster than the reference GTX 480.
• New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.
• DX11 and great support for tessellation, PhysX and CUDA, 3D gaming, and 2D/3D Surround (with SLI) bring realism to gaming
• Galaxy’s 3 Arctic-Cooling VGA fans are great for achieving and keeping your OC by keeping your GPU cool.  It is one awesome cooler that tames GTX 480’s thermals very quietly
• Galaxy’s GTS 480 SOC sports 4ns memory – the fastest on the market – a 6+2 PWM digital power supply, a MOSFET heatsink and solid components
• Two year warranty and a toll-free number for support!
• If you are considering SLI (for performance, 3D or Suround), 2 x GTX 480 is a very potent performance solution and you may be able to use the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC 3-slot cooler paired with a reference GTX 480; in that case, you are unlikely to need a further dedicated PhysX card.

Cons:

• Three slot cooler.  Which is not really a con by any stretch – except for very specific situations.  Measure your case to make sure it fits!

That’s it. For about the same price or slightly more than a reference GTX 480 or overclocked HD 5870, you get all the features that Nvidia video cards have to offer in an overclocked and very solidly-built, cool and quiet-running GTX 480; something this editor never imagined outside of watercooling.  Add to this all the benefits of a premium card such as a two year warranty, the Galaxy’s amazing Arctic-Cooling VGA cooler and solid components,  we feel that Galaxy has a real winner in their GTX 480 SOC to offer us and we are pleased to award them our ABT Editor’s Choice and Kick-Ass awards!

On top of these accolades, we would like to add the Great Value award.  Until this editor learned the MSRP a little over an hour before publishing this article, he believed it to be well over $500.  We do not know what the future will bring, but this amazing card brings a great value to the Galaxy GTX 480 lineup.  Look for it at an etailer this week.

This editor believes that Nvidia, although late, does bring a very remarkable full-featured DX11 GPU lineup to the market that will find good acceptance among customers and their fans alike. Fermi architecture is impressive and flexible and it does translate to performance in gaming – although with a bit of a price premium. We have also seen Nvidia’s drivers improve and their multi-GPU SLI scaling for newer games is very impressive. We also like the direction they are heading in with their simplified installations of the GeForce 260 drivers.

If you currently game on a HD 4870, 8800 GTX, 8800 GTS, or 9800 GT class of card on up to HD 4870-X2, GTX 280, GTX 285 and even GTX 295, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a Galaxy GTS 480 SuperOverclock will give you better visuals on the DX11 pathway and you are no doubt thinking of GTX 480 SLI if you want to get even higher performance or want to use Suround’s three-panel display (which we are going to explore in a future article versus Eyefinity).

If the many exclusive features of the new GTX 480 appeal to you and you are gaming at 1920×1080 or above, you cannot go wrong with a Galaxy GTX 480 SOC.  In this editor’s experience, it is a great choice if you are considering overclocking further. The competition is hot as the prices on HD 5870 have softened and they offer their own set of features including a cheaper way to experience 3-panel multi-display with Eyefinity. Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT.

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