Your opinion on the GTX 470 & 480

[newparad1gm]

You think my PSU (ABS SL 1050W) would be enough for what my current setup is with GTX 480s in SLI rather than GTX 280s in SLI? I would still have the 9600 GT as my PhysX card, and I'm adding an Intel X-25M G2 160GB SSD to the mix as well. I'm thinking I would probably be drawing ~700W of power in that case (compared to the reviews saying GTX 480s draw ~650W), and I'm wondering if running a PSU at 70 or 80% would be that healthy for it. I'll probably remove the 9600 GT in that case.

[Sazar]

Originally Posted by KasuCode

Naa you would be fine. I ran mine with my cpu at 4.6ghz stable for a month before i needed money and sold the 2nd card. thats on 750watt Im sure 700 would be fine for that ocz.

Really?

I thought you would need about a 1kw PSU to make that setup work

I have 2 of the PSU's you are running

[newparad1gm]

Originally Posted by KasuCode

ATI does have a 3d solution.

ATI has allowed their drivers to work with 3rd party 3D solutions. They currently do not have a first party product like 3D Vision.

[lee63]

Originally Posted by Xion X2

Looks like lee's in the market. Maybe you can purchase one of his.

Lee, I wish you luck, bud. I think you're making a mistake, but if anyone understands the 'hardware bug' it's me. Sometimes you just get antsy.

Is there any way that you could hold onto the 5870s until you've had a chance to test the 480s to see which you like best? Tri-fire is a heck of a setup to part with.

I already sold the two MSI's, I have the HIS left. I had always planned on either going with a couple of 480s or ATi's refresh.

I have a pre order for a 480 at Evga, prolly pick the second up from the egg...I tell ya one thing, I wont pay a dime over msrp....so f**k U ZZ.

Now if the ASUS Matrix comes out in the next two weeks...I might have to rethink my decision.

[newparad1gm]

Originally Posted by lee63

I already sold the two MSI's, I have the HIS left. I had always planned on either going with a couple of 480s or ATi's refresh.

I have a pre order for a 480 at Evga, prolly pick the second up from the egg...I tell ya one thing, I wont pay a dime over msrp....so f**k U ZZ.

Now if the ASUS Matrix comes out in the next two weeks...I might have to rethink my decision.

How did you pre-order at EVGA? All I can see is the auto-notify option. Also, looks like EVGA is the only one with an overclocked edition at launch.

[JasonPC]

Originally Posted by Sazar

Really?

I thought you would need about a 1kw PSU to make that setup work

I have 2 of the PSU's you are running

Heck no I think a 650W is what's suggested for crossfire 5870s?

[lee63]

Originally Posted by newparad1gm

How did you pre-order at EVGA? All I can see is the auto-notify option. Also, looks like EVGA is the only one with an overclocked edition at launch.

They had all of the cards, they were sold out in minutes. I forgot say in my last post..over the last six months I missed the security of owning a Evga card.

Also..not forgetting there will be a step up with these.

[jimmyjames123]

Originally Posted by slaWter

I just love 480 SLI and its scaling! Really impressed with it and finally a worthy upgrade!

Also I'm impressed by nV's performance at brand new games like Metro and Just Cause 2 - that just shows their engagement in the industry.

GF100 is an impressive architectural feat, but I am particularly impressed with GTX 470. The minimum framerate on GTX 470 is in many cases 15-25% higher than HD 5870 at high resolutions, and idle power consumption is within 6% of HD 5870 too. See details from PCPer review here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...postcount=1551

[KasuCode]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames123

GF100 is an impressive architectural feat, but I am particularly impressed with GTX 470. The minimum framerate on GTX 470 is in many cases 15-25% higher than HD 5870 at high resolutions, and idle power consumption is within 6% of HD 5870 too. See details from PCPer review here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...postcount=1551

Before you go judging min FPS look at frame by frame graphs from sites that did them. ATI would have one spot that dropped 10fps lower than any other part in the whole benchmark. MIN FPS doesn't mean as much as you think. Look at how many times it actually drops that low.

[Xion X2]

That PCPer bench is very odd. In no instance should a 285 ever be faster than a 5870 over a full benchmark. In one case, I even saw it faster than the 480.

Something strange is going on there.

I like to see minimums as well, but something to take into account is that higher averages usually mean higher minimums, also. What you see on a bar graph for a minimum represents a single frame--not so for the average. Going by minimums only can be tricky unless viewing a line graph that shows trending, because that minimum on a bar graph could have lasted for a single frame. And it could've been a hard drive access issue or something totally unrelated to GPU performance.

Any analysis on minimums really needs to be trended by a line graph to show a repeating pattern.

A graph like this is what's needed to view minimums. Here you can clearly see the difference over a period of time between 480 SLI and 5970 on Metro when tesselation is enabled. Seems to be hitting 5970 a lot harder right now.

[Ywap]

Sound level is brutal:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...0_sli_review/7

To hot and loud for me. The overclocked 5870 with custom silent coolers seem to be the best card to buy at the moment.

[Snake101st]

Originally Posted by Ywap

Sound level is brutal:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...0_sli_review/7

To hot and loud for me. The overclocked 5870 with custom silent coolers seem to be the best card to buy at the moment.

Yeah, if I didnt love 3d vision so much, Id buy 2 sapphire Vapor X 5850's and OC them to almost match 5870 level performance... really disappointed with the 4x0s.