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how long will a gtx480 last before it needs upgrading

beasty6

beasty6

beasty6

Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2010
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Kettering
hey guys,

i picked up a GTX480 when they were at £200, and im wondering, how long do you guys think it will be before it will start struggling badly and need upgrading ??

as to this ive decided im going to up my psu and pick up a second 480 to prevent having to spend a huge amount of money on a gpu in the future

so how long will it take for a single 480, and then how long for 480 in SLI ??

cheers :)
 
Depends on many things, res - sig noted, expectation, mod user, AA levels and minimum fps demand etc.

My single one should last me well into next year at the very least.
 
My 8800GTX still plays most games medium with little AA with 30FPS.

A 480 will last around 2 more years and then it will need to got to higher low/medium settings
 
The GTX 480 is still a beast of a card and will easily do for the next year at the very least.

SLI 480's.. another 2 year's possibly. However don't forget that they may get to DX 11.1 or even 12, and then you might want another card at that point.
 
If you play Farmville it will last 10 years if not broken; if you play The Witcher 2 with Ubersampling then it's already out-dated unless you do TRI-SLI.
 
well if i can get a card on the cheap or a reasonable card then im going to do it, i cant see why i would spend another £120 on a newer card for an extra 8-15 fps :/
 
GTX480 is an absolute ripsnorter that should keep going until 2013 I'd imagine assuming you don't want to be going overboard on settings.

SLI GTX480 is of course very powerful however the power consumption / heat output is going to be an absolute bitch. You could make a case to say that if you run SLI GTX 480 for a couple of years that the extra power used compared to a single, more efficient modern card would negate a lot of the savings.
 
harmony said:
If you play Farmville it will last 10 years if not broken; if you play The Witcher 2 with Ubersampling then it's already out-dated unless you do TRI-SLI.
Click to expand...

Ok I'm going to feed you...

Tried Ubersampling and everything on max in TW2, and got an average of 40 fps. It never dropped below 30 fps. So I would call that well playable.

To be honest Ubersampling doesn't make a lot of difference to image quality anyway and with it off I get a constant 60 fps with V-Sync on.

So yes, SLI 480's still rip into everything and give you a playable frame rate.

Edit: Just ran TW2 with Ubersampling off and was getting no lower than 80 fps, with it peaking in the 90's
 
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robin66 said:
Ok I'm going to feed you...

Tried Ubersampling and everything on max in TW2, and got an average of 40 fps. It never dropped below 30 fps. So I would call that well playable.

To be honest Ubersampling doesn't make a lot of difference to image quality anyway and with it off I get a constant 60 fps with V-Sync on.

So yes, SLI 480's still rip into everything and give you a playable frame rate.

Edit: Just ran TW2 with Ubersampling off and was getting no lower than 80 fps, with it peaking in the 90's
Click to expand...

I don't want to troll here, but the truth is that GTX580 3-way SLI can barely manage 60 fps with Ubersampling in the tent at the beginning of the game (by the king's will). Another user of GTX580 3-way SLI also confirmed this, so there is no need to wait for your screenshots in the corner deep in the forest with a framerate of local maxima.
 
You can assume all you like. The test I ran was through the forest where my game was last saved. Then into the Lobinden area and finishing up in Flotsam town square.

And the point is ubersampling doesn't really do much other than slow the game down with very little gain.
 
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robin66 said:
And the point is ubersampling doesn't really do much other than slow the game down with very little gain.
Click to expand...
Yea...really pointless to drop frame rate by 55-60% for the sake of basically no graphic improvement. Does Ubersampling make the graphic look different? Yes. Does it make the graphic look better than without? No.
 
so i should go for it then yes ?

im going to run them both on air to see how they go as my mobo wont have them right on top of each other, if the heat is a problem then ill invest in a big watercooling loop :)
 
beasty6 said:
so i should go for it then yes ?

im going to run them both on air to see how they go as my mobo wont have them right on top of each other, if the heat is a problem then ill invest in a big watercooling loop :)
Click to expand...
The only problem is your Antec 750W wouldn't be good enough to power a pair of GTX480 in SLI and a i5 760 system.
 
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On a more serious note i have considered a similar scenario. 580, 480 SLi or wait a bit for next gen.

I game @ 1080p 120Hz. I want BF3 to run at a consistent 120+ FPS.

Currently i run medium settings which never drops below 120FPS, and are smooth as silk :cool:, but its not ideal. :rolleyes:
 
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