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GTX 480 power and heat, really that bad?

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

Soldato
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As the thread states, Iv been looking at upgrading my 3870x2 since the 5870 ATI card comeout back in september 2009.

So far I'v held of upgrading, purely becuase, I wanted to see what the Fermi's would deliver when they where released.

I have managed to find a very good priced GTX 480..... but Im a bit concerned about all this talk about high temps and power consumption.

Is it really that bad? My PSU is a thermaltake 850watt.

Im gona wait untill september/october anyway, due to summer conditions in my loft where my computer resides.

By that time hopefully we will have some news concerning the 6000 series from ATI.....

The GTX 480 I found is not much more expensive than a regular 5870, in terms of price/performance is this worth it?

I will also be pairing it with a stock Qx9650 at 3Ghz.... should be fine right?
 
I run two and they can get pretty damn hot, one idles around 60 and the other 75. when gaming I find it impossible to keep the room cool.

If you are concerned about heat mainly then yes, the GPU's get hot very easily.
 
Only know one person with a 480 so not exactly gauranteed fact but yes his is hot and as he uses the fan the noise to keep it cooler is louder then any i can remember hearing before. I would wait for the refreshes be it ati 6 or whatever nvidia can get out if they get anything out this year.
 
hlennie said:
the 480 basically p's on the 5870 and some people are getting a much better overclock on them as well
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Dream on.

http://www.techspot.com/review/283-geforce-gtx-400-vs-radeon-hd-5800/

All run at 1920x1200 rez

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I'm sorry RizlaKing but do you not think it right to counter blatant false statements with posts that show them to be wrong? or would you have us ignore them and give people the wrong information regarding GFX card perofrmance.

Regarding 480 heat and power, just look at the reviews, there is no denying they run hot and as a consequence are louder for it, and the fact one 480 consumes more watts than a 5970 shows they are incredibly power hungry. Of cousre if you have a good case with good air flow and a decent PSU all should be fine.
 
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Creelers said:
your statement about the 480 basically owning the 5870 is false, just look at the benchmark Raven posted. And all your past GPU's are Nvidia, so you seem never to have tried an ATI card, which could make your post biased.
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http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_5870_Matrix/29.html

Says the 480 is around 13% faster on average (average of 18 different titles) when compared to the 5870 (@1920). A bit unfair to say the 480 'owns' the 5870, but equally stating the 480 is the faster card is perfectly valid.
 
layte said:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_5870_Matrix/29.html

Says the 480 is around 13% faster on average (average of 18 different titles) when compared to the 5870 (@1920). A bit unfair to say the 480 'owns' the 5870, but equally stating the 480 is the faster card is perfectly valid.
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The review raven posted is the best review out to compare the cards as it was based on real world performance using fraps in games not benchmarks. It also had nvidias new drivers with all the improvements. I think all review sites should start using this method. It basically shows the cards are close in real world usage and that nvidia cards have the same kind of minimum frame rates as the ati cards do. I also think that review shows just how good a 5850 is when comparing against the gtx470.
 
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I just installed my OCUK Value 480, I can't hear it and can touch the heat pipes. I will probably water cool it later but at the moment it's not too noisy and not getting hot.

Andi.
 
Untill you own a GTX 480/Fermi you dont know about the so called heat issues and you are simply listening to review sites and stupid benchmarks.

All the talk on forums and reviews sites are so exaggerated,they do not run as hot as ppl make out and if you have a decent case with cooling you have nothing to worry about like all video cards and cases.

I do agree however that they use more power than other cards.

Oh and im not being a fanboy with these comments as ive owned several ATI cards including a 5870.

It just makes me laugh when ppl who havent even owned or have a fermi seem to know these cards run really hot without even having one in there machine.
 
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TheRealDeal said:
The review raven posted is the best review out to compare the cards as it was based on real world performance using fraps in games not benchmarks. It also had nvidias new drivers with all the improvements. I think all review sites should start using this method. It basically shows the cards are close in real world usage and that nvidia cards have the same kind of minimum frame rates as the ati cards do. I also think that review shows just how good a 5850 is when comparing against the gtx470.
Click to expand...

Perhaps we should wait and see if similar results are found by others using similar methodology before we declare this 'best test evah'. I don't think we should be writing off the large amount of benchmarking we already have on the basis of a single test, especially one where they had to retract some original results as they did not perform fair comparisons.
 
Settle down lads, as NathWraith says let's keep it on topic, I personally have no problem with the 480's heat and power usage, I don't care about those factors because I know if I bump up the 480's fan to say 60% it will knock 20c of the max temp as opposed to having the fan on auto and it not bumping up until it hits 85c +, and if you don't have a decent PSU for a 480, then get one.
 
LOL my post got deleted for some reason but raven those fraps test where using beta drivers and we all know they can be totally screwy

im no fan boy

480/470 gtx air cooling normal clocks = space heater & power hungry

480/470 gtx WC and overclocked = beasts and still power hungry

my one 470 gtx oc under water out preformed my oc 5870 ON MY SYSTEM and at stock speeds i found the 470 to be smoother

u can only get a rough feel for how a card will preform by all these benchmarks the only way u will know if its good for u is to buy and try it in your set up

so if u got the cash try both and keep the one that keeps u happy
 
The noise and heat (admitedly I assume as I don't have one) is no real problem.

I mean, if it was 300% faster than a 5870 I'd not give a smeg it used 60-70% more power, it just wouldn't matter in the slightest, it runs hot, boo hoo. I say in ALL threads, not just pro AMD/Nvidia/Intel, a chip is NOT a human, too many people see a 70C temp and freak out because THEY wouldn't like that temp, a chip designed to run at 120C without dying wouldn't even care if it was running at 90C, thats just how life is.

The one issue would seem to be to keep lower temps and have room for overclocking its fairly damn likely you'd have to turn the fan up in which case noise does get not great.

Not sure if theres any 3rd party heatsink for a 480gtx yet, AMD and Nvidia heatsinks blow, literally, blower fans are useless, my load temps dropped some 40C on a overclocked overvolted 5850 with a better heatsink(not water).

The fact is when the cards are very similar then you start to look at other factors. If two cards offered identical performance, getting one that costs more to run(I dunno, if on 24/7, what £10-20 a year, its barely anything and hardly worth considering but its still there), will pump out more heat into a hot room(for me a massive massive issue due to my god awful room in summer) which won't be a problem for most people, and it costs more.

Theres just very little if anything positive about it, paying more than 10% more for 10% more performance starts to become bad value, the 5870 was already bad value compared to a 5850 from launch. £200 for a 5850, overclocked giving within 5-10% of OVERCLOCKED 480gtx performance which costs twice as much, is just madness. Frankly £300 for a 5870 thats only 5% faster than a 5850 fully overclocked, is 50% higher cost, for 5% more performance, also madness.

Theres nothing significantly wrong with the 480gtx, its a decent enough card, the problem with it is its simply not fast enough or good enough to justify the extra cost, and the extra noise, heat, power is just more things to add to the "if they were equal what would I choose" pro/cons list.
 
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