GTX480 - card difference

[grantsmith82]

HI All,
ive not really been into graphics cards all that long. so im not that teccy with them however i am looking to get a GTX480 to replace a GTX275 i have in there now. However when doing a search there seems to be soooooo many different variety of the card.

with price difference ranging from £10-upto £70 for different variety

I dont really know which are the ones to avoid or go for so my questions are:

which one to go for (i dont need top of the range spec as i dont have endles budget)
and is there a real major/noticable difference between the varietys of the GTX480?

THanks

 

[Cleeecooo]

Hi,
The main differences will be the cooler.
The reference design cards are really noisy and run quite hot, however many companies make 480's with non reference coolers attatched which keep the card cooler, quieter.

The best non ref coolers IMO are the Gigabyte windforce coolers and the MSI twin frozr coolers.

My 480 reccomendation would be THIS

THIS is a card with a reference cooler

The gigabyte SOC cards do have a quite large failure rate - be wary. I had one and it died, but Gigabyte have excellent RMA and they sent me a 580 for free

 

[grantsmith82]

thanks for the info. so how do i tell if a card has a reference cooler or non ref cooler?

You said the gigabyte SOC cards have a large failure rate, however this was the card in your 1st link that you recommended (confused??)

I was running a HD5850 till sunday and that seems to have died on me (no video output and fan runs on max speed). so if im gonna spend a few hundered quid ideally want a card that will last me/reliable. (is there any devise/software u can get to check card temps)?

 

[Cleeecooo]

thanks for the info. so how do i tell if a card has a reference cooler or non ref cooler?

You said the gigabyte SOC cards have a large failure rate, however this was the card in your 1st link that you recommended (confused??)

I was running a HD5850 till sunday and that seems to have died on me (no video output and fan runs on max speed). so if im gonna spend a few hundered quid ideally want a card that will last me/reliable. (is there any devise/software u can get to check card temps)?

The reference cooler will look like the Asus card. The non ref will look different - it will be easily noticeable

The SOC' have a large failure rate, yet I still recommend them as 90% still work perfectly and the card is great value for money.

With the 5850, why don't you just RMA it? You can get a replacement and save yourself a lot of cash.

To check card temps, most people here use MSI afterburner <-- link

 

[grantsmith82]

sorry whats RMA?
i got the card 2nd hand so dont have any receipts or warrenty etc..

 

[Cleeecooo]

sorry whats RMA?
i got the card 2nd hand so dont have any receipts or warrenty etc..

return merchandise authorisation (a return basically)

As you don't have warranty, i'd get the 480 SOC

 

[grantsmith82]

i just d/l MSI afterburner and my temp for my GTX275 is 42c


on the LH side what would happen if i adjust the
core clock(mhz) and shader clock and memory clock towards the max will this overwork the graphics card?
at the moment the bars are all sat in the middle with the exception of fan which is near min (but set to auto)