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*** 25/02/2011 EXTENSION! *** DEAL OF CENTURY: Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB Graphics Card with 2 FREE

Incidentally, anyone tried undervolting in Afterburner for a 2D profile, or does the card undervolt automatically? And is this still the case with two monitors?

I'm thinking I could set a low voltage profile for desktop use when the clocks go to 405MHz, and then activate another profile for when firing up a game? Would that work/make any difference to temps.

Whilst the idle noise is okay, I'd prefer getting the temps down a bit and lowering the fan to 30% or so to make it inaudible.
 
strumpusplunket said:
My 44% fan speed is 1950RPM as well. It's.... audible. Not really loud, but different in tone to my case fans, I thuink.

My case fans I've always thought were quite quiet (though I guess other people might think they're too noisy), but they give a gentle swooshing sound. No buzzing, vibrating, motor noise or anything, just the "whoosh" of air moving. It's perfectly okay.

Now, I don't actually think the 480 at 1950RPM is louder, but the fan does have a slight-but-definite buzz to it that means I notice it's there compared to my 460, which was completely inaudible over my case fans.

It's nowhere near as loud as I was fearing, though. When my HDDs are accessed they are still the loudest thing in my system by a distance.

With two monitors, it seems to have stabilised on auto fan profile at 64C and 44% (1950RPM). This is... okay. I can live with this. Would like to overclock, but we'll see.

Thing is... I have yet to try any benches or games... :/

I am used to noise when gaming due to my Sharkoon SE CPU fan spinning up to 2000RPM, but I have headphones and I know that's a noise level my wife can live with too (bar the very occasional complaint).

So... onto gaming, but I'm feeling really relieved that all is bearable at idle, as that was always going to be the main issue. :)
Click to expand...

You can overclock, it won't affect idle temps...Fan doesn't spin up till gpu hits 70c with default auto profile.
 
Random Guy said:
Managed to mess around with my card a bit last night, but I had a complete curve-ball thrown at me - turns out the BIOS version for my Bloodrage GTI did not support the 4xx series properly. So I had a nightmare experience of the motherboard not posting with some obscure error code on the LED.

Well, that's the stuff we live for as PC Gamers right? ;)

So I eventually figured all this out, swapped out to my GTX280 again to update the BIOS, reinstalled the 480....and success! However, now my OC settings on my i7 are not working anymore! Hilarious and annoying at the same time, but **** happens. I have not benched anything yet - will sort this first I think.

[TW]Fox, really sorry to hear your experience of the card thus far. For my part, at idle the fan noise is exactly the same as my 280. I suspect at load it will not sound much louder than the 280 was, but as soon as I can get my system stable and overclocked again I will give it a go and report back.

Anyone have questions, feel free to ask.
Click to expand...


Sorted the overclock issue, got to benching.

First off, the card is a touch louder than my 280. I can hardly tell the difference but it is there. Idling at 38 - 41C and load has seen it hitting 78-80 (this is running the Crysis benchmark and 3D Mark 06). Not downloaded Haven etc. yet.

Some strangeness is that my min fps in the crysis benchmark is lower than with my 280 :confused:

3d Mark 06 with i7 at 3.2 nets me about 19,000 points.

All in all, happy with upgrade so far - but still lots more evaluating to do in-game and benches :p
 
Ok, at 760MHz core, I get a 25% improvement over my GTX460 @885MHz core (44.2 ave fps & 1114 points, vs 35.3 ave fps & 887 points).

Does that seem about right? I did think it might blow my old card away a little bit more comprehensively than that?

Went up to 86C over two runs and seem to stabilise there with 62% fan speed. Overall, my CPU fan @ 2000RPM is probably louder, but it did sound like there was a battle for noise supremacy going on in my case. Please I game with headphones... and my wife working behind me on her laptop didn't complain, so that's good :)
 
strumpusplunket said:
Ok, at 760MHz core, I get a 25% improvement over my GTX460 @885MHz core (44.2 ave fps & 1114 points, vs 35.3 ave fps & 887 points).

Does that seem about right? I did think it might blow my old card away a little bit more comprehensively than that?

Went up to 86C over two runs and seem to stabilise there with 62% fan speed. Overall, my CPU fan @ 2000RPM is probably louder, but it did sound like there was a battle for noise supremacy going on in my case. Please I game with headphones... and my wife working behind me on her laptop didn't complain, so that's good :)
Click to expand...

now clock that card to 850mhz and see the difference.
 
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CAkVE.jpg.png
 
strumpusplunket said:
^^ Wow. Nice temps. Max of 70C for a Heaven run is amazing compared to mine! Any special case cooling? I have a HAF932, which I would have thought would be amongst the best cases to keep a GPU cool...
Click to expand...

I have a CM Stacker 832.

The side panel has 4 x 120mm blowing on the GPU. Well two are directly.
 
Wow, nice. I have a big 230mm fan over the gfx slot, but I guess 4 x 120 give better airflow?

So... up to 800MHz core (still stock volts, which is nice), and the improvement over my 885MHz core 460 is now 29.8%

Temps 87C and 64% fan stable, and fan is back down to 44% in less than a minute, so this is all looking (and sounding) good. On a par with my 4870 at load with 63% fan speed, but much more than that and I can see me getting annoyed with it, so that define the limits of my clocking rather than temps or the limits of the card.

Edit: oh, but I did notice that the heat of the air vented out the back of the card is insane! It really is like a mini-fan heater. I kind of dread the summer, but it seems to be coping ok at the moment...
 
strumpusplunket said:
Whoah, yeah. That is going to be much more airflow than my slow-spinning single 230mm fan! How's the noise with that set-up?
Click to expand...

To be honest there is a constant drone from the 8 x 120mm fans in total + the CPU cooler and PSU fan, but as i have the case for 3 years, i have grown used to it.

I just turn my PC on when gaming mostly and use the laptop for browsing.
 
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[TW]Fox;18393830 said:
Just checked, same BIOS version.
Click to expand...

It's weird the difference in fan profiles. Like latepmas, I have 1950 at 44% fan speed, and in fact I don't get the 2950RPM you were reporting until 52%, and I agree that that would be unbearable for an idle noise level!

You have the same BIOS, so it's hard to see what's different. What driver are you using? Could they make a difference to the fan speeds?
 
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