Official "I just got a Geforce GTX 5xx thread"

[Maverick123w]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Its barely 65F in my room... its 62F outside and the window is open.

Like I said, the 470's fan is a good 2 inches further back than the fan on my 260, so its partially behind my sound card. That's why my temps are higher than normal.

I just put a 60mm fan near the card and my temps top out around 92C in the Cryostasis benchmark, so that brought them down a couple degrees at least. I don't know if I can make this a permanent solution or if I can do any more (I have more fans).

If I had a PCI-E sound card I think I'd be in a better situation, but sadly I don't see myself spending another $90 on a Xonar DX right now just to keep my $330 graphics card running cool. I wish they'd just moved the fan back a bit. Why'd they have to go and make this card so small?

BTW, I'm using the latest 197.75 beta drivers and I have a single monitor.

EDIT: Card is idling at 48C right now with the 60mm fan pointing at it (pulling air through my empty 3.5" bay) and the filter removed from my front 120mm fan to improve air flow.

Its at 725\1450\1800 at 1.025v (one notch above normal voltage... it crashed in Cryostasis bench at 1.012) and the fan is running at 39%.

My guess is it's because of your case. I owned it prior to my antec 902 and now my cm690II... easily the worst case I've ever owned. Ariflow is god awful.

Edit* God awful for airflow that is. Very quiet case though.

[CaptNKILL]

Meh... I'm hitting 100C while playing the actual Cryostasis game, the fan is ridiculously loud and my frame rates are still in the 20s-30s half the time with no AA or AF and some settings turned off at 1920x1200.

And this is with a GTS 250 doing all of the Physx processing...

I'm not too impressed with this card right now.

[CaptNKILL]

Just played some BFBC2.

Temps aren't as bad. They topped out at around 81C with the same overclock as before. Fan was still pretty loud.

Performance was good, but honestly I didn't seem any better than with my 260. It still fluctuated between the high 40s and the mid 70s (vsync off). Its probably running in DX11 mode now, but I didn't notice any visual difference.

[Muppet]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Just played some BFBC2.

Temps aren't as bad. They topped out at around 81C with the same overclock as before. Fan was still pretty loud.

Performance was good, but honestly I didn't seem any better than with my 260. It still fluctuated between the high 40s and the mid 70s (vsync off). Its probably running in DX11 mode now, but I didn't notice any visual difference.

I have heard there is little difference between DX10 and 11 in that game. Metro 2033 runs very nice using these new series cards. Big improvement over my 280's and i'm able to do DX11.

[CaptNKILL]

Just played another round of BFBC2 and again, the performance isn't much different than my last card, though it didn't seem slow at all. I think the lack of performance improvement is due to the improved shadows and lighting in DX11. I noticed it more on the map I just played.

Still... for $330 plus overclocking I was hoping for a large performance improvement.

I'm not really sure what to do here. I bought the card on a whim because of the low price... but with the heat and noise issues I'm having, and the lack of a noticeable improvement over my last card... meh... I'm actually considering just selling this thing. I could probably make a few bucks or break even.

Alternatively, I could spend another $200 buying a new case and a new sound card to make this card comfy...

[mailman2]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Just played another round of BFBC2 and again, the performance isn't much different than my last card, though it didn't seem slow at all. I think its due to the improved shadows and lighting in DX11. I noticed it more on the map I just played.

Still... for $330 plus overclocking I was hoping for a large performance improvement.

I'm not really sure what to do here. I bought the card on whim because of the low price... but with the heat and noise issues I'm having, and the lack of a noticeable improvement over my last card... meh... I'm actually considering just selling this thing. I could probably make a few bucks or break even.

Alternatively, I could spend another $200 buying a new case and a new sound card to make this card comfy...

Well go into my documents\BFBC2\settings.ini and for DirectX version set it to 10. Should be on AUTO now, change that to =10. Run the game and see if thats faster. Between DX10 and 11 I notice a large performance hit with GTX 480. Unlike my HD5807 which ran DX11 great the GTX 480 doesn't.

Try it in DX10 and let us know if that seems / benchmarks / feels faster. At least even the playing field with your last card.

[CaptNKILL]

Originally Posted by mailman2

Well go into my documents\BFBC2\settings.ini and for DirectX version set it to 10. Should be on AUTO now, change that to =10. Run the game and see if thats faster. Between DX10 and 11 I notice a large performance hit with GTX 480. Unlike my HD5807 which ran DX11 great the GTX 480 doesn't.

Try it in DX10 and let us know if that seems / benchmarks / feels faster. At least even the playing field with your last card.

Yeah, it does run a little better in DX10, but its still not a whole lot different than my 260. At least the load times are better than in DX11 though. I wonder if they'll ever fix that bug.

Meh... I'm still on the fence.

I think if I was totally happy with at least one aspect of this card I'd keep it for sure, but after selling my 260 I'll probably have around $180-$200 into this GTX 470. If I'm not happy with it, that's a waste of money.

EDIT: LOL, I just remembered that I took the side off of my case while playing this game. So the 81C load temp I reported earlier was with an open case...

[mailman2]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Yeah, it does run a little better in DX10, but its still not a whole lot different than my 260. At least the load times are better than in DX11 though. I wonder if they'll ever fix that bug.

Meh... I'm still on the fence.

I think if I was totally happy with at least one aspect of this card I'd keep it for sure, but after selling my 260 I'll probably have around $180-$200 into this GTX 470. If I'm not happy with it, that's a waste of money.

EDIT: LOL, I just remembered that I took the side off of my case while playing this game. So the 81C load temp I reported earlier was with an open case...

well to be completely honest with you BF BC2 is the worst gaming experience I've had with the GTX 480. Have you tried any other games? GTA IV EFLC gets alot more frames than my HD5870 got. Also, Metro 2033 runs much better. BF BC2 has problems, from what I've read, the last patch has really bombed Nvidia cards FPS. I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't base my decision completely on BF BC2.

[Muppet]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

EDIT: LOL, I just remembered that I took the side off of my case while playing this game. So the 81C load temp I reported earlier was with an open case...

Put the side back on. With it off you don't get the proper air flow through the case. My cards run cooler with the side on, than with it off.

[CaptNKILL]

Originally Posted by Muppet

Put the side back on. With it off you don't get the proper air flow through the case. My cards run cooler with the side on, than with it off.

My 470's load temps drop nearly 20C by taking the side off.

BTW guys, I just installed Crysis (the original) and set everything to Very High, at 1920x1200, with vysnc on... and...

Wow... its actually playable!

I figured it'd be better than my 260, but not this good. I even turned on 4x AA and it was still playable. Of course, Crysis is one of those games that seems to be alright at 30fps for me, where as I prefer most games to be over 50... but still. I set Shaders to High and gained another 10-20fps. Its buttery smooth (40-60fps) at 1920x1200 with 4xAA and everything set to Very High except for Shaders. I'm quite impressed with this! It ran at 40fps through the intro. I remember that being a total slide show (less than 10fps) at max settings at 1600x1200 on my 8800GTX when I first played the game.

Upon exiting the game, I checked my GPU core temp and it was 81C (with the side still off). I think with a case that actually circulates air properly, this could be better.

Of course, I don't play Crysis all the time... but I am happy with this. The card that finally "brings down the giant" and makes Crysis playable with all settings maxed has come sooner than I thought, and it wasn't even that expensive.

So, with this, I'll hang onto the card. I'll keep playing games to see how it works with other titles, but I think it'll be alright. I knew that BFBC2 would be a weak spot for this card, I was just disappointed because I only had two games installed and neither of them impressed me.

I really wanted to be able to play Cryostasis with high frame rates with all settings maxed and lots of wonderful Physx effects, but I guess I'll just have to chalk this one up to a poorly optimized game engine. There's no reason it should be tanking into the 20s with so little going on. I'll just lower some settings and enjoy the game one way or another.

Hopefully STALKER: Call of Pripyat runs well. I just bought it at walmart for a measly $19 (possibly a pricing error) but I haven't installed it yet. I never played Clear Sky but I think I'd rather just play CoP first since the reviews have been much more favorable.

Anyways, I may have to consider getting a new case. I don't want to spend a bunch of money, but I want something solid with good ventilation (primarily for the GPU). If it was relatively quiet as well that'd be very nice.

[mailman2]

Yea BF BC2 isn't a strong title for the GTX 480 - maybe after a few driver releases...

Cooler Master HAF932 or 922. This will get you some crazy airflow over the GPU and really lower temps.

[Muppet]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

Hopefully STALKER: Call of Pripyat runs well. I just bought it at walmart for a measly $19 (possibly a pricing error) but I haven't installed it yet. I never played Clear Sky but I think I'd rather just play CoP first since the reviews have been much more favorable.

Anyways, I may have to consider getting a new case. I don't want to spend a bunch of money, but I want something solid with good ventilation (primarily for the GPU). If it was relatively quiet as well that'd be very nice.

I think you will be plesently surprised at how well Stalker runs with these. It was pretty smooth on the 280, but this is even better.