Help me choose.

[hawkin90]

Okey I thought I had finished my build and was ready for buying, but then my mate comes to me and says I should get a nvidia 480 SLI build, and I found one and saved about 500$ from the radeon 5970 build.
So what should I choose?

I've seen reviews of the 480 SLI being very noisy..and I don't want my system to sound like a car

But they also perform way better than a single 5970 in action, and they are cheaper. So what would you have done?


I still want a Radeon build, cause the cards are more stabil and don't make so much sound. And I mean, who would really need more than a 5970? So if someone doesn't make a good argument for why I should choose nvidia I will go for the radeon build

 

[bobkn]

Why not read the reviews? Here's one:

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470: 6 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The comparison does not include quad Crossfire (two 5970s).

When tested with Furmark, the total system power with a 5970 was 465W; with a single 480, 479W. With two 480s in SLI, that went to 851W. Sacre merde! that suggests tha a fully-loaded 480 eats 282W. (The spec limit for power through the PCI-E slot, 6 pin PCI-E power connector, and 8 pin PCI-E power connector is 300W.)

My single 480's fan gets loud when it's fully loaded with Furmark. From the above review, it should be about as loud as a single 5970.

 

[hawkin90]

Hmm yes. They eat a lot of power. It's hard to choose.

Okey. Have now chosen the 5970. Topic can be closed.

 

[Davidxtux]

If you browse around a common issue with the 5970 is the gpu "throttling back" (also know this first hand as I attempted to solve this issue on a close friends build)... ATI claims it is a heat issue to protect the cards.. but I've seen it done in low temps. After you receive your card run a benchmark test and if the GPU's start to throttle back have it RMA'd for a new one.

On a side note: Happens most often when the GPU hits 90%.. it'll drop to 70% then back to 90%.. and the chain will keep going.

 

[hawkin90]

Dude u'r scaring me
I would actually prefer a 480 SLI setup, but they are so noisy and power consuming..
The PSU with the SLI 480 is a 1200w Chieftec super series. Is this a good enough psu to run them?

 

[fseal]

Hmm my 480 isn't noisey at all. But can confirm that they run very warm and do need power.

I always wondered if SLIed 470s wouldn't actually be quite a bit better than a single 480. Maybe a decent alternative to SLIed 480s power wise (and cost wise!)

 

[Rhammstein]

Since you haven't mentioned anything specific to extreme power requirements, I'll assume you're not a hardcore enthusiast looking only to score the highest in benchmarks, but rather a mainstream to enthusiast gamer.

Be that the case, a 5970 is more than enough, in most cases it's overkill. It's a great card, and far more reasonable than two 480's in SLI, which IMO is ridiculous unless you absolutely must have multiple display's -and- Cuda/Physx.

I have a XFX 5970BE in my other rig and it's more than enough for 3 displays and any game on the market, I would go with the 5970 in your case. Also the electricity wasted over time with two 480's would make even the most wasteful person feel guilty..

Do you need multiple displays? If not and you want a great ATI build I would even consider a 5870, they're plenty powerful, cheaper, and aren't so bad on the environment (power).

 

[hawkin90]

And again people have different opinions about the cards. Man, this is going to be a pain.
Some people say the 5970 has bad drivers and that they are bottlenecked and all that stuff and some people bless them higher than the sky.

Just theoreticly: Will the chieftain 1200w be enough for a SLI 480 setup?

 

[fseal]

Heh should be, but just check that it has multiple 12V rails (you should have one for each card) and that the amp rating of each rail is enough for the 480. The PSU specs will say all that.

 

[hawkin90]

Here is the PSU specs:

4 x +12V Rails is included

• Model: CFT-1200G-DF
• PSU Type: ATX 12V 2.3/EPS 12V 2.91
• Maximum Power 1200W
• 2 x Fans
• PFC: Active
• Connectors:
  • 1 x 24Pin
  • 4 x +12V Rails
  • PCI-E Connectors: 2 x 6 Pin, 2 x 8 Pin
• SLI / Crossfire Ready
• Modular: Yes
• Efficiency: > 80%
• Energy-Efficient: 80 PLUS Certified
• Over Voltage Protection: Yes
• Input Voltage: 100 - 240 V
• Input Frequency Range: 50/60 Hz
• Input Current: 15A/7A
• Output: +3.3V@30A,+5V@30A,+12V1@20A,+12V2@20A, +12V3@25A,+12V4@25A,[email protected],[email protected]
• Approvals: cUL, FCC, CE, CB

 

[fseal]

Actually that PSU would just barly cover it.

The 480 requires a minimum of 42 amps of 12v. So you would have to connect one of the 20A rails and one of the 25 A rails to each card.

 

[hawkin90]

Hmmm. Man this is annoying.

 

[hawkin90]

Well. What if I choose a SLI 470 setup? Would that be any better for the PSU?

 

[fseal]

470 card appears to be 38 amps each.

 

[hawkin90]

Hard to choose. Will go for 470 or 480 SLI

 

[fseal]

Try checking around to see if anyone has done a compare of that vs 1 480.

My gut feel is that it would do really well on benchmarks, but for games it may vary. But I wouldn;t put money down till you saw some numbers first

 

[hawkin90]

Keep in mind that I'm not building my system myself, and the company I'm buying from does testing of the gpu/cpu and everything before shipping it. So if my setup doesn't work or something is wrong they will contact me. They also say that the chieftec 1200w does great in SLI gaming and they haven't had any problems with any of their customers with my setup so far.

 

[bobkn]

nVidia maintains a list of certified PSUs:

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

The Chieftec isn't on it, but that probably means that nVidia hasn't tested it. It's probably OK.

Just to confuse things further, this one is certified for three GTX480s:

http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=MTc1Nw==

The non-OC edition is available in the US (www.newegg.com) for $260 + 6 S&H. Cheap for such a bruiser.

 

[hawkin90]

Well, as you said, they probably haven't tested it, cause I'm 99% sure the chieftec works.
If not, they will probably offer me another PSU in the build that does.

But thanks for the links

EDIT: From the site: To run this powermonster we chose a chieftec 1200w PSU which has proven to be a great power supply, even for a 2x GTX 480 SLI Build.

 

[bobkn]

Actually that PSU would just barly cover it.

The 480 requires a minimum of 42 amps of 12v. So you would have to connect one of the 20A rails and one of the 25 A rails to each card.

That's a system recommendation, not for just the card.

The GTX480 has one 8 pin PCI-E power connector (150W max, or 12.5A at 12V) and one 6 pin (75W, 6.25A at 12V). The total power use of the card must be less than 300W (25A), if it meets the total specs for the connectors plus the PCI-E slot (another 75W). Looks like the card actually uses over 280W when it's maxed out.

If the 480 uses 24A, the 18A left out of the 42A (above) would be marginal for an overclocked CPU, in my opinion.