Just got my GTX 480

[XGUNTHERC]

Exactly.. overvolted, and overclocked more than 100 Mhz to 810 Core clock and running Vantage on EXTREME with highest settings and my highest temp was 85c. thats nothing.. and very normal for high end graphics card. Not to mention in SLI on my 750i the cards are very close together, so when I sell the Gigabyte the temps will drop on the top card.

Also, I'm now able to run my new eVGA GTX 480 Stable as can be overclocked to
860/1720/2000. Thats a pretty high overclock and makes this a blazing fast card

 

[MadMaxData]

Honestly? Outside of benchmarking - it's an absolute waste of time.

And an absolute waste of money to boot. Most so-called "performance gains" are in the users head, or some frivilous benchmark that means squat to any actual visual improvement. I can't believe the amount of teenagers who get sucked into the GFX card hype. It's a riot though....LMAO

 

[smarteyeball]

Honestly? Outside of benchmarking - it's an absolute waste of time.

And an absolute waste of money to boot. Most so-called "performance gains" are in the users head, or some frivilous benchmark that means squat to any actual visual improvement. I can't believe the amount of teenagers who get sucked into the GFX card hype. It's a riot though....LMAO

Dual cards do show a definite advantage on a lot of titles, whether it's a single PCB with dual GPU's (5970, GTX 295 etc) or two single GPUS in crossfire/SLI.

Dual GPU's are the current sweet spot for 'actual' performance advantages.

But after that, the scalability and utilisation for 98% of games is simply not there which does indeed equate to money wasted. Especially with 2x 5970's in quadfire.

As it stands, you can't even use tri/quadfire+eyefinity where it would actually be beneficial.

It can be enabled, but it's a slidehow. Some say it's driver based, others say the crossfire cable itself was not designed to handle a bandwidth higher than 2560x1600.

Even if it did function correctly, current highly clocked CPU's just don't have enough grunt to use the cards to their full potential. Either way, it's useless.

Ask anybody who has that setup just how useful 5970 quadfire actually is in games will tell you - not at all.

(that's if they admit the truth and don't BS to make up for what they know to be is a silly mistake )

BTW, it's not just teenagers

 

[peck1234]

congrats on the purchase? what kinda frame rates are you getting in crysis??

 

[chev65]

Dual cards is about a big of waste of money as going to i7 when you already have a good overclocked Quad core. The advantage using i7 with a single card is next to nothing IMO. I've talked to very knowledgable overclockers who have done it and they insisted it was a huge waste of money. Only useful for benching with more than one card.

Frame rates is another thing which is way over hyped for real world performance gains, a few more frames from a second card isn't something your going to notice. Dual cards are for benching and will probably cause more problems for you in the end.

Now Dx11 and the new Crysis2 game, that may actually be worth upgrading for. The eye candy improvments can be dramatic, going from my old 8800GT to the GTX280 was night and day difference.

So if I'm forced to purchase the GTX480 it will be all your guys fault, especially you Xguntherc!

 

[smarteyeball]

Frame rates is another thing which is way over hyped for real world performance gains, a few more frames from a second card isn't something your going to notice.

It depends on the card. I certainly noticed the frame rate difference when one of my 4890's died and I went back to a single 4890

 

[MadMaxData]

So if I'm forced to purchase the GTX480 it will be all your guys fault, especially you Xguntherc!

:roflmao:

I run an NVIDIA 8800 GT as well. I think I paid like $75.00 for it. Too much money in my book, but it does exactly what I wanted in a GFX card. Paying anything over 2 hundred bucks for a card is just plain insane if you ask me. I've seen some GFX cards at TigerDirect going for around 15 hundred bucks. You have to be a special kind of stupid to spend that. I could build one kick-ass complete rig for that kind of loot.

 

[Everlong]

Dual cards is about a big of waste of money as going to i7 when you already have a good overclocked Quad core. The advantage using i7 with a single card is next to nothing IMO. I've talked to very knowledgable overclockers who have done it and they insisted it was a huge waste of money. Only useful for benching with more than one card.

Frame rates is another thing which is way over hyped for real world performance gains, a few more frames from a second card isn't something your going to notice. Dual cards are for benching and will probably cause more problems for you in the end.

Now Dx11 and the new Crysis2 game, that may actually be worth upgrading for. The eye candy improvments can be dramatic, going from my old 8800GT to the GTX280 was night and day difference.

So if I'm forced to purchase the GTX480 it will be all your guys fault, especially you Xguntherc!

Getting a second 8800GTS 512 certainly kept my performance up and saved me the money from upgrading to something like a GTX260 or 280 when they were released, hence I missed out the GTX200 series and upgraded to a 470. I agree with the i7 though. Like I have seen it perform better in several games, though my 9550 is fine and won't probably do a CPU upgrade for another year or so.

 

[XGUNTHERC]

I've seen many benchmarks in the last few days where i7's at 4.2 Ghz and GTX 480's running Vantage on Xtreme settings and then my Q9650 at 4.0 Ghz and the 480 I barely lost. I actually beat a few guys because I had my 480 higher than them. So in that situation i7 didn't help.

and what is and isn't a waste of money is different for everyone. So bashing people or calling them silly kids is just not needed.

I didn't spend all that. I actually only wanted and planned to get a single 480. I didn't get eVGA so I snagged a Gigabyte. then the eVGA came in stock and I got one. and I sold my Gigabyte tonight and I'm back to a single GTX 480. it's still sweet and I'm happy I got it. It's going under my water-block tuesday

 

[XGUNTHERC]

UPDATE:

Ok guys, I finally got my loop drained, and I'm currently in the middle of re-doing my water-cooling loop. This will be a beast when I'm done.. I took a few quick nothing special shots of my DD Water-block, I figured I'd post em for everyone..

Here's a good one


Not sure why, but this is one of my favorite shots


I like the 2 different metals instead of just copper or just Nickel


K, so those were taken a few days ago and I was just messing around. Today I've been busy working on a few PC's and doing my water loop. I finally tore apart my GTX 480 and installed that block. I'm tired and it's 1 AM so I'm to lazy to go get the DSLR camera, so I took a few ghetto quick shots with my phone.. Check it out on the card.

Thoughts?

 

[XGUNTHERC]

oh and I figured I'd also post this just for a few of you guys here that were wondering. while removing the stock fan and heatsink I found that Nvidia at stock just LOADS these cards with Thermal Paste. There was really tons of it. So much that it was gooping over the sides of the core n getting everywhere. I'm pretty positive if you removed it and used some MX-3, AS Ceramique, or some Shin Etsu x23 thermal paste and redid it, the temps would be a good 7c better. possibly more on load.

Sorry photo sucks, it was my cell phone.

 

[Everlong]

It's not Nvidia who put it on. That's EVGA, because my ASUS one had hardly any thermal compound on it.

 

[XGUNTHERC]

Update: eVGA GTX 480 WATERCOOLED!​

Hey everyone, After several delays, waiting for parts DD forgot in the package (missing O-Ring) and waiting for barbs I have finally finished my little project. And ohhh am I exited.

I tore down, and redid my Watercooling loop and added the GTX 480 into my loop. I'm running the 480 and my Q9650 (4.0 Ghz) all on a Feser TFC 360 Radiator. I switched out the Yate Loon fans for Scythe GT 1850's and used the Yate's for Shrouds.(I killed the Yate's, Tore out the motors) Now at idle I'm actually getting LOWER temps than before with just the CPU, weather it's a better CPU block seating, or the Scythe Gentle Typhoon Fan upgrade and the use of shrouds i don't know. but my CPU temps are a little lower, and my GTX 480 idles at 33c and oh is it excellent!


So, I'll go ahead and throw up a screeny for everyone, then a photo of the system will follow in a minute..
GTX 480 idling at 33c and Q9650 (4.0 Ghz) idling around 30-33c with a Ambient temp of 26c (78F) in the house.

:cheers:

 

[XGUNTHERC]

Oh and I must say... to all the Haters. Fermi Rocks & Loves Water.

my GTX 480 under water is just amazing. it idles at 33c and the HIGHEST temp I have seen Period is 51c. and that came while running Metro 2033 in DX11 at 1920x1200 with Physx, AO, AAA, and AF all turned to the MAX. that game is the new Crysis and it gives a beating to these cards. Crysis I was seeing LOAD temps of 49c.. and trust me. I was a happy camper!

 

[Zen00]

Congrates on the cooling system.

 

[XGUNTHERC]

Thanks, I'll be sure to get the real camera out and take some better photo's later.

 

[Zen00]

How hard is a water cooling system to maintain?

 

[XGUNTHERC]

Not hard at all if done right.. When you use things like coolants and green and blue colors in there. then it's best to drain, clean, rinse and redo every 5-6 months. but the safest and best bet to have clean tubing and not have to worry about tubes getting foggy and such is to just use Distilled water, regular water will NOT work.

My first loop I put together and I used Distilled Water, and something Called a Silver Killcoil. Silver is what marine and some fish tanks use to keep algae out of the water and everything clean. I had a silver killcoil thats 99.9% silver in my reservoir (in there now just cant see it). and it protects the water. My first loop I ran daily for over a year and 2 months without a SINGLE problem. I never drained it or anything. it could have gone longer also.

technically it's good to clean out and add new water, but there's not really any maintenance over a standard system if it's done right. and if I only have to mess with it once a year thats fine as I'm adding new GPU's or parts sooner than every year so it's really no problem at all. It's becoming a bigger part of PC cooler as the years go on.

To start easy and simple I'd recommend the Corsair H50. it's a good product. Check newegg.com it's got around 500 reviews.

 

[Techymike]

I also just set up a few new parts for the PC along with a new Galaxy GTX 480. The new ASUS P6TX58 Premium and an Intel i7 940. I found that with the GTX 480 I had to decrease the settings from 1920x1080P to 1834x1024 to fit on the Plasma TV as that is my monitor. I do like the 384 bit over the 256 bit. I found my card idles at 44 degrees.

 

[Everlong]

Looking good, but you've still got air bubbles in your loop. You should have really jump-started the watercooling to get it flowing for a while first.