480 vs 480 soc

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 16:25

Is it worth paying the extra 50 quid for the super over clock? Here are the 2 cards i'm looking at

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-079-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-124-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

cmndr_andi · 3 May 2011 at 16:31

It really is.

For £200 you get the stock GTX 480 - which is a fast card, but with the stock cooler it is hot and really quite loud.

For £250 (for the Gigabyte SOC) you get a much faster card (core clock 820MHz vs 700MHz stock) and the custom cooler used by gigabyte is much better than the stock one - as a result it is much quieter than the stock card under load (have a look at this).

Other cards worth a mention at this price range are the GTX 570 and the HD 6970.

chaotic_uk · 3 May 2011 at 16:36

cmndr_andi said:
It really is.

For £200 you get the stock GTX 480 - which is a fast card, but with the stock cooler it is hot and really quite loud.

For £250 (for the Gigabyte SOC) you get a much faster card (core clock 820MHz vs 700MHz stock) and the custom cooler used by gigabyte is much better than the stock one - as a result it is much quieter than the stock card under load (have a look at this).

Other cards worth a mention at this price range are the GTX 570 and the HD 6970.

if you have owned a gtx480 you would find that the 6970 is louder than the gtx480 and hotter .

back on topic: just depends if you have the extra cash spare

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 16:38

cmndr_andi said:
It really is.

For £200 you get the stock GTX 480 - which is a fast card, but with the stock cooler it is hot and really quite loud.

For £250 (for the Gigabyte SOC) you get a much faster card (core clock 820MHz vs 700MHz stock) and the custom cooler used by gigabyte is much better than the stock one - as a result it is much quieter than the stock card under load (have a look at this).

Other cards worth a mention at this price range are the GTX 570 and the HD 6970.

Thats made me mind up thanks andi

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 16:40

chaotic_uk said:
if you have owned a gtx480 you would find that the 6970 is louder than the gtx480 and hotter .

back on topic: just depends if you have the extra cash spare

sticking with the 480 soc chaotic thanks m8

straxusii · 3 May 2011 at 16:40

You'd have to be mad or deaf to use the stock 480 cooling

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 16:41

straxusii said:
You'd have to be mad or deaf to use the stock 480 cooling

nothing worse than sitting next to a air craft hanger

Mojo · 3 May 2011 at 16:41

chaotic_uk said:
if you have owned a gtx480 you would find that the 6970 is louder than the gtx480 and hotter .

back on topic: just depends if you have the extra cash spare

Anandtech beg to differ I'm afraid, the reference 480 is one of the loudest cards you can buy, as well as the hottest, and certainly hotter/louder than a 6970.

480 vs 6970

The Gigabyte coolers, on the other hand, are very good and very quiet, and make the 480 a very good card. One I might be picking up in the near future too, if my student loan finally bleedin' comes through.

chaotic_uk · 3 May 2011 at 16:42

straxusii said:
You'd have to be mad or deaf to use the stock 480 cooling

run a stock 6970 @50% fan speed then run the gtx480 stock fan @60% and the 6970's fan is louder than the 480's fan

, i know i have both cards and have been told the 6970 i have is not faulty it is just hot and loud

tommybhoy · 3 May 2011 at 18:55

chaotic_uk said:
run a stock 6970 @50% fan speed then run the gtx480 stock fan @60% and the 6970's fan is louder than the 480's fan , i know i have both cards and have been told the 6970 i have is not faulty it is just hot and loud

No chance is the 6970 louder than a stock 480, my mate sent one back because it sounded like a harrier jumpjet compared to my 6950>70, I ripped him rotten about it.

There was a batch of cards that had the wrong tim on them, or maybe the core is not covered with tim properly.

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 19:05

now now enough of the AMD vs Nvidia........ Nvidia are just better

LOL jk.............. But seriously they are

Defo go for the SE or the SOC the cooler is worth its weight in gold on that card i have the SE oc'ed higher than the SOC and its much much quieter than my cpu cooler

tommybhoy · 3 May 2011 at 19:52

Randall8686 said:
i have the SE oc'ed higher than the SOC and its much much quieter than my cpu cooler

And probably much much more stable than the soc too(when both at stock).

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 20:15

Randall8686 said:
now now enough of the AMD vs Nvidia........ Nvidia are just better LOL jk.............. But seriously they are

Defo go for the SE or the SOC the cooler is worth its weight in gold on that card i have the SE oc'ed higher than the SOC and its much much quieter than my cpu cooler

Are SE cards easy to overclock?

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 20:39

extremely lol u just run a program called MSI afterburner and slide the sliders up

mine is on stock volts too so if i wanted to go higher i can but tbh i can run crysis 2 at 60fps at 1050 i cant recommend the SE enough just to let you know my stats are

Core clock 870mhz
Shader Clock 1740mhz
mem clock 2000mhz

all on stock volts tbh i have not pushed the mem any harder yet as i have had no need to

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 20:41

for the purpose of comparison that would make my mem clock 4000mhz effective if you are comparing it to the SOC

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 20:43

Also i se the SE is back down to 229 (it was at 249 for a while) Given the amount of SOCs i have seen on here go belly up my weapon of choice would be the 480 SE i even run mine on a 550W PSU as im to lazy to change my psu and its fine

tet72 · 3 May 2011 at 21:41

Randall8686 said:
Also i se the SE is back down to 229 (it was at 249 for a while) Given the amount of SOCs i have seen on here go belly up my weapon of choice would be the 480 SE i even run mine on a 550W PSU as im to lazy to change my psu and its fine

thanks for the advice m8 u've just saved me 20 quid on me new rig

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 22:27

no worries you wont be disappointed its a blinding card,it eats anything i throw at it and i dont even have a very powerful cpu (see sig) and it still can run anything i ask

Randall8686 · 3 May 2011 at 22:30

also ignore the reviews about temps getting as high as 100c i really dont know what case cooling or lack of they have. I run mine in a antec 300 with all the fans on low and i cant hit 80 without trying fans are left on auto and 70-75c is my norm in gaming with the overclock applied if i manually turn the fans up to 80% then i can stay at high 60's but i just leave on auto.

Sida · 3 May 2011 at 22:31

tet72 said:
thanks for the advice m8 u've just saved me 20 quid on me new rig

If you can go for the SOC version, take it over the special edition. The special edition is just the standard edition with a custom cooler. The SOC edition has cherry-picked components that meet a higher requirement standard than is needed for the others. If a component is not good enough for the SOC, it's used for the special edition or standard edition.