NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480: specs and benchmarks
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 480 sales 7 December 2010 at a recommended price of $499. This is Fermi architecture desktop card based on 40 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.85 GHz are supplied, and together with 384 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 177.4 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is dual-slot card attached via PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 10.5" (267 mm) (26.7 cm). 6-pin & 8-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 250 Watt.
It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 15.41 percent of a leader's which is AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT.
General info
Of GeForce GTX 480's architecture, market type and release date.
Technical specs
GeForce GTX 480's general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 480's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on GeForce GTX 480's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 480: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don't have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 480. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
API support
APIs supported by GeForce GTX 480, sometimes including their particular versions.
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 480. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
Overall score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic enough graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
Passmark
This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
Octane Render OctaneBench
This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.
Mining hashrates
Cryptocurrency mining performance of GeForce GTX 480. Usually measured in megahashes per second.
Game benchmarks
Let's see how good GeForce GTX 480 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
This video card matches 92% minimum and 79% recommended requirements of all games known to us.
Relative perfomance
Overall GeForce GTX 480 performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.
AMD equivalent
The nearest GeForce GTX 480's AMD equivalent is Radeon RX 460, which is faster by 1% and higher by 2 positions in our rating.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 480:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
