Notebookcheck Logo

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470M SLI

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470M SLI

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470M SLI is a high-end graphics solution for laptops based on two GeForce GTX 470M graphic cards in SLI mode. Each card usually renders a single frame in an alternating manner. Therefore, it may suffer from micro stuttering in low fps ranges of 30fps. This happens because of different timespans between two frames (e.g. Irregular delays between sequential frames). Each single GTX 470M is based on the GF104 core and therefore supports DirectX1 11 and OpenGL 4.0.

GF104 architecture

The GF104 core of the GTX 470M is related to the GF100 core of the GeFore GTX 480M that offers 384 shaders and a 256 Bit memory bus for GDDR5. The GTX 470M, however, offers only 288 cores of the 384 and a 192 Bit memory bus. The architecture of the GF104 is not comparable to the old GT215 (e.g., GeForce GTS 350M) or G92b (e.g., GeForce GTX 285M) cores.  

Unlike the GF100, the smaller GF104, GF106, and GF108 cores were shortened and considerably modified. In contrast to the GF100, which was designed for professional applications, these chips target the consumer market. They feature more shaders (3x16 instead of 2x16), more texture units (8 instead of 4) and SFUs per streaming multi-processor (SM). As there are still only 2 warp schedulers (versus 3 shader groups), Nvidia now uses superscalar execution to use the higher amount of shaders per SM more efficiently. In theory, the shaders can therefore be utilized more efficiently and the performance per core is improved. 

However, in worst case scenarios the performance can also be worse than that of the GF100 (and its predecessors). The ECC memory protection, which is important for professional applications, was completely omitted and the FP64 hardware was shortened (only 1/3 of the shader are FP64-capable and therefore only 1/12 of the performance of the FP32). Because of these cutbacks, the size of the SM  grew only by 25% despite the higher number of shaders and larger warp schedulers with superscalar dispatch capabilities. Due to the different shader architectures and the higher clock rate of the shader domain, the core count can not be directly compared to AMD cores of the Radeon 5000 series (e.g. HD 5850).

Detailed information on the GF104 architecture (and by extension also the GF106 and GF108) can be found in the desktop GTX 460 article by Anandtech.

Performance

The performance of the GTX 470M SLI combination should be similar to the GTX 480M SLI due to the high-clocked GTX470M cards. Generally, the SLI gain depends on the used application/game and the driver support. Currently, the SLI driver support from Nvidia is better than the Crossfire support from AMD, leading to higher gains. About 30% more performance is gained on average compared to a single GTX 470M (in high resolutions and with Anti-Aliasing). Therefore, all games from 2010 except Metro 2033 should be playable in the highest detail settings. Metro 2033 only ran with 23 fps in our tests with a GTX 480M SLI system and should therefore score similar on the GTX 470M SLI combination.

Features

A novelty of the GF104/106/108 chips is the support of Bitstream HD Audio (Blu-Ray) output via HDMI. Similar to the Radeon HD 5850, the GTX 470M can transfer Dolby True HD and DTS-HD bitstream without quality loss to a HiFi receiver.

The GTX470M offers the PureVideo HD technology for video decoding. The included Video Processor 4 (VP4) supports feature set C and therefore the GPU is able to fully decode MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (MPEG-4 ASP - e.g., DivX or Xvid), VC-1/WMV9, and H.264 (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation, and Deblocking). The X500 tester was able to decode the VC-1 encoded Elephants Dream video with about 3-6% CPU load (according to the task manager). The H.264-encoded Big Buck Bunny video was played back with 1-3% CPU load (both 1080p videos).

Furthermore, the GPU is able to decode two 1080p streams simultaneously (e.g. for Blu-Ray Picture-in-Picture).

Through CUDA, OpenCL and DirectCompute 2.1 support, the GeForce GTX 470M can assist in general calculations. For example, the stream processor can  encode videos considerably faster than certain high-end CPUs. Furthermore, physics calculations can be done by the GPU using PhysX (e.g. supported by Mafia 2 or Metro 2033). SLI systems can also dedicate a single card for PhysX calculations.

According to Nvidia, support for 3D Vision on the GTX graphics cards is also new. It enables the laptop to send 3D contents (3D games, 3D Web Streaming, 3D photos, 3D Blu-Rays) to a built-in 3D enabled screen or an external 3D TV (only if supported by the laptop manufacturer).

Unofficially, the power consumption of the GeForce GTX 470M should be about 75 Watt (TDP including the MXM board and memory), which is about the level of the Mobility Radeon HD 5870. Therefore, the SLI system needs 2x75 Watt and therefore a lot less than the GTX 480M SLI with 2x100W. Without load, the chip is clocked at 50/100 MHz (chip/shader) in 2D respectively 200/400 in 3D mode to save power.

Compared to desktop graphics cards, the GTX 470M SLI combination is most similar in performance to a GTS 450 SLI combo, as the desktop GTX 470 is significantly faster.

GeForce GTX 400M Series

GeForce GTX 485M SLI compare 768 @ 0.58 GHz256 Bit @ 1500 MHz
GeForce GTX 470M SLI 576 @ 0.54 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 480M SLI compare 704 @ 0.43 GHz256 Bit @ 1200 MHz
GeForce GTX 460M SLI compare 384 @ 0.68 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 485M compare 384 @ 0.58 GHz256 Bit @ 1500 MHz
GeForce GTX 470M compare 288 @ 0.54 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 480M compare 352 @ 0.43 GHz256 Bit @ 1200 MHz
GeForce GTX 460M compare 192 @ 0.68 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
CodenameN11E-GT
ArchitectureFermi
Pipelines576 - unified
Core Speed535 MHz
Shader Speed1070 MHz
Memory Speed1250 MHz
Memory Bus Width192 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Shared Memoryno
APIDirectX 11, Shader 5.0
technology40 nm
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement01.11.2010

Benchmarks

3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +
3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +
3DMark Vantage - 3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX
min: 16161     avg: 16234     median: 16233.5 (9%)     max: 16306 Points
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +
3DMark 06
min: 19368     avg: 20608     median: 20607.5 (27%)     max: 21847 Points
SPECviewperf 11
specvp11 snx-01 +
specvp11 tcvis-02 +
specvp11 sw-02 +
specvp11 proe-05 +
specvp11 maya-03 +
specvp11 lightwave-01 +
specvp11 ensight-04 +
specvp11 catia-03 +
Cinebench R10 Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit) +
Cinebench R11.5 Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit +
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

low 800x600
med. 1024x768
high 1360x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Fifa 11

Fifa 11

2010
low 800x600
539  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
336  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
242  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
151.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Mafia 2

Mafia 2

2010
low 800x600
124.4  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
114  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
103.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
76.6  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
low 1024x768
med. 1360x768
high 1360x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
low 800x600
med. 1360x768
high 1600x900
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
low 1024x768
med. 1366x768
high 1366x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
low 800x600
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Risen

Risen

2009
low 800x600
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

2009
low 800x600
155.3  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
113.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
104.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Need for Speed Shift

Need for Speed Shift

2009
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Colin McRae: DIRT 2

Colin McRae: DIRT 2

2009
low 800x600
176.4  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
164.5  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
148.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
93  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Anno 1404

Anno 1404

2009
F.E.A.R. 2

F.E.A.R. 2

2009
low 800x600
224.9  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
149  fps    + Compare
high 1280x1024
145.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
110.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead

2008
low 640x480
234.4  fps    + Compare
high 1024x768
195.9  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

2008
low 640x480
193.5  fps    + Compare
high 1024x768
133.6  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
94.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

2007
low 800x600
350.9  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
237  fps    + Compare
high 1280x1024
193.4  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - GPU Benchmark

Crysis - GPU Benchmark

2007
low 1024x768
138.2  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
87.8  fps    + Compare
high 1024x768
73.5  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
31.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark

Crysis - CPU Benchmark

2007
low 1024x768
182.1  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
92.4  fps    + Compare
high 1024x768
76.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
30.4  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Call of Juarez Benchmark

Call of Juarez Benchmark

2006
high 1024x768
154.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

2005
high 1024x768
244.1  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
lowmed.highultraQHD4K
Call of Duty: Black Ops83.577.377.361.4
Fifa 11539336242151.2
Mafia 2124.4114103.976.6
StarCraft 228083.373.950.3
Metro 2033136108.165.523
Battlefield: Bad Company 2152.5134.5114.969.2
CoD Modern Warfare 2276.5163.9150.2104.4
Risen154127.9114.781.8
Resident Evil 5155.3113.8104.8
Need for Speed Shift114.2111.1102.7
Colin McRae: DIRT 2176.4164.5148.993
Anno 1404181.3109
F.E.A.R. 2224.9149145.4110.8
Left 4 Dead234.4195.9
Far Cry 2193.5133.694.7
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare350.9237193.4
Crysis - GPU Benchmark138.287.873.531.7
Crysis - CPU Benchmark182.192.476.830.4
Call of Juarez Benchmark154.8
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark244.1
< 30 fps
< 60 fps
< 120 fps
≥ 120 fps


1
16


7
7


10
9
1
3
11
1






For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List

Add one or more devices and compare

In the following list you can select (and also search for) devices that should be added to the comparison. You can select more than one device.

restrict list:

show all (including archived), 2024, 2023
v1.26
log 15. 04:24:22

#0 no ids found in url (should be separated by "_") +0s ... 0s

#1 not redirecting to Ajax server +0s ... 0s

#2 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Wed, 13 Mar 2024 05:40:26 +0100 +0.001s ... 0.001s

#3 composed specs +0.055s ... 0.056s

#4 did output specs +0s ... 0.056s

#5 start showIntegratedCPUs +0s ... 0.056s

#6 getting avg benchmarks for device 2104 +0.014s ... 0.069s

#7 got single benchmarks 2104 +0.008s ... 0.078s

#8 got avg benchmarks for devices +0s ... 0.078s

#9 min, max, avg, median took s +0.376s ... 0.454s

#10 before gaming benchmark output +0s ... 0.454s

#11 Got 66 rows for game benchmarks. +0.006s ... 0.46s

#12 composed SQL query for gamebenchmarks +0s ... 0.46s

#13 got data and put it in $dataArray +0.012s ... 0.472s

#14 benchmarks composed for output. +0.643s ... 1.115s

#15 return log +0.042s ... 1.156s

Please share our article, every link counts!

» Comparison of GPUs
Detailed list of all laptop GPUs sorted by class and performance.

» Benchmark List
Sort and restrict laptop GPUs based on performance in synthetic benchmarks.

» Notebook Gaming List
Playable games for each graphics card and their average FPS results.

Class 0

Arc A380

Class 1

Class 2

Radeon PRO W6600M *

Class 3

UHD Graphics 32EUs
UHD Graphics 750

Class 4

Class 5

* Approximate position of the graphics adapter