Conclusion

Point of View’s GTX 470 is without a doubt an excellent graphics card and it will set you back about €325. This is the first “more affordable” Nvidia’s DirectX 11 gaming card. Point of View GTX 470 runs at reference clocks and comes with reference cooling which is quiet in desktop operation, but can get loud during gaming.

AMD’s HD 5870 on the other hand is priced some €20 higher, and while our testing does prove it’s slightly faster, the GTX 470 often stages a comeback and wins. Basically it is often all down to particular titles and user preferences. This has been especially true in antialiasing tests, but it does fare well in DirectX 11 performance tests as well. If you like PhysX, CUDA or 3DVision, then GTX 470 might be what you’re looking for.

Consumption is not much higher than on AMD’s HD 5870, but note that GTX 470 runs hotter. As far as noise goes, both cards have a tendency to be quiet in idle and get a bit loud in 3D. The GTX 480, on the other hand, is much louder. Oddly enough, HD 5870 prices have increased over the past couple of weeks, thanks to the weak euro. Meanwhile prices of Nvidia's recently introduced DirectX 11 cards have dropped and they are now widely available.

Choosing between the two is not as straightforward as it used to be. They are very closely matched both in terms of performance and price, so you won't go wrong with either of them. The HD 5870 is somewhat cooler and needs less juice, while the GTX 470 supports several interesting technology and it is a bit more future proof, hence we'll give it a slight advantage over the good old HD 5870.

You can find the card listed here.