Guess what I just did

[TNA]

I don't really think you will see much of a boost in terms of raw performance going from 4890 xfire to single 480 to be honest. But I totally understand why you would want to. It's a single card, better minimum frames, you get dx11, and in the nvidia games you will probably get more frames.

As for the Raven dude, I think he is the one who needs to get his head checked. Guy is all over the graphics forums posting silly things.

I mean look at this case, there is a big diference if someone was building a pc and asked if they should go for xfire 4890's or single 480 (then what Raven is saying would make more sense) to someone who already has 4890's to upgrade to a single 480. In this situation it's not like he will get a 100% boost in frames or anything close to that in my opinion. So for the amount of money that he has to be spent it's probably not worth it in terms of price for performance. However with that being said, there are still many other benefits apart from performance boost in this upgrade, so I can understand why he is doing it.

It would probably make more sense to either wait for southern island or at least the new g104's/ northern island. But I know what it's like when you get the urge to upgrade and you want some new tech to play with. So yeah, it's not a great upgrade, but not a bad one either in my opinion. I know he will enjoy the new card

 

[Jay85]

Tell you what, start thinking before you post.

You're telling people that only morons would choose Xfire 4890 over a single 480 in a thread where OP states that he moved from one setup to another. Not chose between them. Not wanting to tear myself apart reading your posts, I'd rather choose to ignore them. That's where asking for an option comes from. Got it?

PS I by no means intend to insult you, you're allowed to have an opinion(s) and speak it out. I just can't stand how stupid some of your posts are, even though you may seem to show some intelligence in other threads.

+1

 

[AMG]

its not my best idea in the world but in terms of what I seen on this fourm, user switching from the equivlant card (HD5870 to a GTX480) hell even, crossfire HD5870...

I don't think no one is a fool for having HD4890s but with that said if they are consdering that, they don't have the money for something like a GTX480...maybe could get a refurb GTX295. Also I could get rebait on my HD4890s ( sell them)

I personally throught people would rip me to bits for going across, but instead I see a hell of a lot for support. I m fully aware its a side step, but any boost is welcoming and since I know a HD5870 is a little faster than a GTX295, in some situations i can saftly say i have made the best choice I could.

I ve waited long enough I have promsied myself I ll wait to the card I want comes down so I can justify its purshes and yet again OCuk delivers. whats the point of waiting when you can enjoy the benifits today? I mean say if I get with someone at the time I can't justify the buy as I m not using it I might as well be with a GTX460...this is why I bite the bulliet now.

 

[TNA]

Totally understand.

I don't get why anyone would rip you for going across to be honest. Going across is not the issue, but more so what you have to spend to get there and what you will get. For me it's not about the nvidia or ATI, but about bag for buck. But there are other things to consider also. In your case I understand why you want to upgrade. However if you was upgrading and coming up with comments like Raven for example then you would probably get ripped. lol.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[An Exception]

Tell you what, start thinking before you post.

You're telling people that only morons would choose Xfire 4890 over a single 480 in a thread where OP states that he moved from one setup to another. Not chose between them. Not wanting to tear myself apart reading your posts, I'd rather choose to ignore them. That's where asking for an option comes from. Got it?

PS I by no means intend to insult you, you're allowed to have an opinion(s) and speak it out. I just can't stand how stupid some of your posts are, even though you may seem to show some intelligence in other threads.

+1

 

[AMG]

However if you was upgrading and coming up with comments like Raven for example then you would probably get ripped..

Raven was agasint Nvidia at one point I even remember when the GTX480 came out a lot of people bashed them about thier heat/power but since they came down a lot in price plus 85% of the drivers Nvidia came out with for the GTX4XX have been gems in terms of performaces sept for the one that liked killing cards.

 

[James J]

Very nice pieces of kit are the 480s, was very tempted to get one myself until I realised the power draw on them means I'd have to upgrade my psu, AGAIN lol.

Just remember to look at custom fan profiles when you get it up and running to bypass the crap fan spin up default profile which lets the card get to insane tempts then blasts your ears with 100% fanspeed.

 

[AMG]

i ll be using afterburner anyways I ll try to do some benchis with my current when the drivers stop crashing me ..... or whatever keeps crashing me ( been having problems with the rig recently sometimes its fine sometimes its a complete arse)

 

[titaniumx3]

According to the Anandtech benchmarks, GTX285 SLI is slightly faster than GTX480.

Yes, minimums are faster on the GTX480, but ultimately, it's the average framerates that determine overall performance.

a lot of people seem to have this idea that a higher minimum framerate is always the most important number to look and while this is certainly true in many cases, it isn't always so simple. A high minimum framerate is always good, but a low minimum framerate can mean many things. For example, a low min could just represent a sudden dip in performance that only lasts for a fraction of a second and is largely unoticeable.

 

[billyboyd]

To go waaaaaaay back to the OP's first post, the latest Nvidia drivers are fine but off the top of my head i am not sure they come with the latest Physx drivers...might want to check that unless another poster know's and chimes in.
Also i would uninstall the ATI drivers then boot into safe mode and use Driver Cleaner to remove any remaining ATI files e.t.c before you install the Nvidia drivers.

Great card got one myself, well the Zotac version. Get those fan profiles set in MSI Afterburner and Bob's your uncle.

 

[Xelene]

I don't care what you think, be warned insulting other members on here will not be tolerated, I learned that lesson years a go, and yeah anyone who takes 4890 xfire over a 480 needs their head seeing to.

For those of us with a 4890 already, we could sell it for £100 and effectively get a 480 for £250 or add another 4890 for an extra £100.

480 are good cards, but are they £150 better?

Anyway, I still don't own any games that the single 4890 can't handle extremely well so i'll wait for the next generation.

 

[tdream]

According to the Anandtech benchmarks, GTX285 SLI is slightly faster than GTX480.

Yes, minimums are faster on the GTX480, but ultimately, it's the average framerates that determine overall performance.

a lot of people seem to have this idea that a higher minimum framerate is always the most important number to look and while this is certainly true in many cases, it isn't always so simple. A high minimum framerate is always good, but a low minimum framerate can mean many things. For example, a low min could just represent a sudden dip in performance that only lasts for a fraction of a second and is largely unoticeable.

er it's minimum framerate that determines real world performance. A dip that only lasts for a fraction of a second will occur on both cards if it's inevitable. A constant flip flop of high and low framerates while maintaining a high average... well... you know what that is.

 

[TNA]

For those of us with a 4890 already, we could sell it for £100 and effectively get a 480 for £250 or add another 4890 for an extra £100.

480 are good cards, but are they £150 better?

Anyway, I still don't own any games that the single 4890 can't handle extremely well so i'll wait for the next generation.

That's the thing, they are not. Best bet is to wait. But sometimes one cannot wait, and I can understand that. Happens to me sometimes

 

[titaniumx3]

er it's minimum framerate that determines real world performance. A dip that only lasts for a fraction of a second will occur on both cards if it's inevitable. A constant flip flop of high and low framerates while maintaining a high average... well... you know what that is.

I have no idea what you are talking bout ... real world performance, inevitability?

I've played plenty of games and run plenty of benchmarks to know that in many cases my games would run at over 60fps for 99.99% of the time, except for a very short instance where fps would drop to something very low and this usually exhibits itself as a stutter or loading pause. If I benchmarked this game, this would obviously reduce my minimum fps but it doesn't really reflect the actually gaming experience, as the fps only dropped for a single instance and did not "flip flop" back and forward.

Also these short instances of low fps or loading pauses can be depend on many things such as, graphics card make, drivers, hard disk activity, windows background activity and not necesarrily something that can be easily reproduced reliably on the same system, let alone two systems with two different graphics cards.

In an ideal world, rather than just look at the minimum framerate, you should really be looking at a graph that plots framerates at short, regular intervals for the entire length of the benchmark. That way you can get a better idea of what the minimum frame rate actually means, i.e. does it represent a single momentary drop in fps or more regualr drops in framerate.

 

[rounddodger]

/waits patiently for AMG's results..

 

[AMG]

sorry all damm delevery van....didn't get here till like two than had other issuse so the PC is now at stock I m just intalling updates, I have the lastest drivers from Nvida, my god they a biasc compared with AMDs...

I ll just finish up oh yeah I got a choice of 3 games

I ll post pics up later, plus I have work tomoz night so they will only be very quick on breif.

first throught of the card...bloody big isnt it ? and heavy frightened of dropping it...also windows kept trying to install the damm thing itself via windows up....that was fun

 

[Gashman]

I don't care what you think, be warned insulting other members on here will not be tolerated, I learned that lesson years a go, and yeah anyone who takes 4890 xfire over a 480 needs their head seeing to.

honestly, what is with you? people are trying to discuss things without any heated arguments. why on earth would you need your head seeing too? you can get 4890s around for around £90, so two of them is £180, are you really telling me that one would be 'stupid' for choosing two £90 - 100 cards over a single £360 card, even though the crossfire setup would probably give you as much as makes no difference even performance? so back to the needing their heads seeing to quote, do the maths: £180 - 200 for 4890 crossfire or £360 for a card that offers no enormous performance improvements? failing to see your logic here like dude. also we all know the GTX 480 benchmark scores were in black, the dude who said it got beaten off GTX 285 SLI was right, it does, how can you argue with what is in black and white (ok its blue)?

also worth noting how much power GTX 480s suck up, the answer being an absolute ton! and heat as well!

 

[RavenXXX2]

Where can you get 4890's for £90? cheapest I have seen them is on here for £117, so that's £236 right there, my personal opinion but I would find the extra £110 and get some DX11 and all the stability and performance that a single card has over dual cards in xfire.

 

[James J]

honestly, what is with you? people are trying to discuss things without any heated arguments. why on earth would you need your head seeing too? you can get 4890s around for around £90, so two of them is £180, are you really telling me that one would be 'stupid' for choosing two £90 - 100 cards over a single £360 card, even though the crossfire setup would probably give you as much as makes no difference even performance? so back to the needing their heads seeing to quote, do the maths: £180 - 200 for 4890 crossfire or £360 for a card that offers no enormous performance improvements? failing to see your logic here like dude. also we all know the GTX 480 benchmark scores were in black, the dude who said it got beaten off GTX 285 SLI was right, it does, how can you argue with what is in black and white (ok its blue)?

also worth noting how much power GTX 480s suck up, the answer being an absolute ton! and heat as well!

Logically, it makes perfect sense to get 2x 4890s for the same level of performance. However, in practise it doesn't work that great as ATI crossfire profiles and drivers are sub par at best. In most of the new games out, crossfire users experience massive problems from cashing in AVP to flicking textures in BFBC2 etc. The list goes on.

For less hassle, I'd get the 480 and just enjoy the card. Sure it costs a lot more than 2x 4890s but at the end of the day you'll save yourself cash in the long run anyway due to ripping out your hair with the ATI drivers when using xfire and would have to buy a wig anyway.

 

[Gashman]

the price was just a wild stab in the dark, got no idea how much 4890s are these days, sure you can find some good deals if you have a good look around. true the driver support can be testing at times, running older 10.4 drivers personally but not getting any noticable crossfire issues like micro-stuttering or anything such as that, hell only problem i get is insane amounts of heat (101*C before playing starcraft II but i think might have clogged heatsink). guess the problem remains for me personally, is the GTX 480 really £100 better and does DX11 mean anything? experiences with DX10 tell me to ignore DX11 for the most part and i can't see why without needing DX11 the GTX 480 is the better option? pretty sure you could find 4890s second hand for fair bit less than retail price and that makes the decision even more difficult to justify. hell i personally got this 4870X2 for £130, perfect condition, so in a perfect world lets say one could get another for same price. £260 for 4870X2 crossfire setup which sounds like a pretty good deal to be honest. only things that let that sort of a setup down is A) insane amounts of heat B) insane amounts of space C) insane amounts of power and D) not really great scaling for quad-fire, its not the technology thats flawed, just the drivers powering it. also be honest, what sort of setup requires that sort of power anyways? at the end of the day it just comes down to what do you want from your system, don't you want a top of the range powerhouse with no expense spared? or a potent system with some slightly out-dated componants? both complete the task in hand equally well, just personally taste i guess...

if ATI got their fingers out of their behinds and actually came up with some killer crossfire friendly drivers, would turn the GTX 480 away completely, but since they haven't (yet) then logically its the best option, unless you already happened to have crossfire capable motherboard and one 4890, in which case add another, bobs your uncle, save yourself a couple hundred quid.