When NVIDIA launched the first wave of GF100-based graphics cards in late march, the initial GeForce GTX 400 series line-up consisted of only two cards, the flagship GeForce GTX 480 (reviewed here) and its somewhat less powerful counterpart, the GeForce GTX 470. Since then, NVIDIA has augmented the GeForce GTX 400 series line-up with the more affordable GeForce GTX 465 as well, which we took a look at here.

Unfortunately, at launch, we did not have access to a GeForce GTX 470 and couldn't provide our normal performance analysis. But good things come to those to who wait though. And since the initial launch we have gotten our hands on a full retail-ready GeForce GTX 470 by way of long time player in the PC space PNY. NVIDIA has also released a brand new set of drivers, i.e. Release 256, that unlocks additional performance from their latest GPU.

On the pages ahead, we'll evaluate the PNY GeForce GTX 470 using NVIDIA's latest drivers to see just how much performance the GTX 470 has to offer gamers today...