Asking for some much needed advice plz

Finn Mac Cool · 3 Sep 2010 at 14:29

I have recently built myself a mid range gaming rig, purchased all of it bar the case and monitor from OC, I'm happy with everything except the Gainward 460 GS 1G due to fan noise. I hope to be returning this item and in the meantime ordering another graphics card but I'm not sure what to get.
As this was my first build in 6 years I wasn't up to speed on things like SLI etc, so in hindsight I might of spent a bit more than what I did (£900). My question is what make of graphics card I should buy? AFAIK my mobo (Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H) only works with CrossFireX, although I liked the geforce 460 and would have prefered 2 of those should I now switch to ATI in order to upgrade with another card in a few months?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Calgar117 · 3 Sep 2010 at 14:34

a lot of people recommend waiting for the 6 series cards to be released personally if you are looking at crossfire i would recommend something along the lines of 2x 5770's should do nicely for gaming.

Jay85 · 3 Sep 2010 at 14:36

IF and i base the emphasis on IF.. you want silence and cool running as well as low power consumptions then i suggest a ATi card something like a 5830/5850 would be on par with the 460 if not better depending on res you play at. BUT if you don't mind the extra bit of noise and heat then a single 470 might be better for you.

And again said this many times, AMD will be releasing their new cards, the 6 series shortly so you might want to hold out and get something cheaper in the time being and grab yourself a new 6 series when they come out in a few months time.

RavenXXX2 · 3 Sep 2010 at 14:52

You went cheap on the mobo and so it sucks for mulit-GPU, yes even xfire.

Don't expect to run SLI or CrossFire in this motherboard though, because the second PCI-Express slot is only an x4, and it's bandwidth is just 2.5GT/s, not the faster 5.0GT/s of PCI-Express 2.0.

I suggest a new mobo if you want to do SLI, or a single 470/5850, no release date has been confirmed for the 6000 cards, could be this year, could be next, they could suck, they might not, who knows

mupet0000 · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:04

My 5870 is very quiet in-game at default fan speeds, it's a reference card. If you get something from ATIs 5 series I'm sure it will be quiet too, though I'm not sure about non reference designs.

Nocky24 · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:32

If your concern is fan noise I can only recommend a reference 5850/5870 as an alternative, however its for that reason I'd also recommend you wait for the 6xxx series.

RavenXXX2 · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:35

^^ It's on the same process as the 5000 cards, it's not exactly going to run cooler with ATI beefing up the core.

An Exception · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:40

^^^
The standard cooler is supposed to be using vapour chamber technology to cool it, so it shouldn't be very much louder if at all.

Marine-RX179 · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:56

With the i3 530 at 4.0GHz, I would say just grab a single GTX470 and overclock it (or wait for something like 6850 and hope it will be at the £220 price point at launch). Any higher graphic card than that could start to hit CPU limitation.

Freddie1980 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:05

Marine-RX179 said:
With the i3 530 at 4.0GHz, I would say just grab a single GTX470 and overclock it (or wait for something like 6850 and hope it will be at the £220 price point at launch). Any higher graphic card than that could start to hit CPU limitation.

The guy isn't happy with fan noise of the GTX460 so you go an advise him to buy a card which is one of the nosiest on the market then tell him to overclock it which will only make more noisy.

RavenXXX2 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:10

See Rroff, his 470 is highly overclocked and still quiet when gaming, good case airflow tames the heat and in doing so keeps the fan RPM's down.

Freddie1980 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:13

RavenXXX2 said:
See Rroff, his 470 is highly overclocked and still quiet when gaming, good case airflow tames the heat and in doing so keeps the fan RPM's down.

Probably cheaper just to get a set of Sennheiser headphones – cancel out the sound and a better audio experience to boot.

RavenXXX2 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:17

lol just what I did, 555's keep the 480 noise at bay.

Marine-RX179 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:29

Freddie1980 said:
The guy isn't happy with fan noise of the GTX460 so you go an advise him to buy a card which is one of the nosiest on the market then tell him to overclock it which will only make more noisy.

ANY card with a crap cooler can be noisy. Most of the people I've seen (well, read) who bought the GTX470 don't really notice the so called noise issue that people who don't own the card keep repeating again and again. I guess as long as people got a decent case, the GTX470 won't get that high temp to the point to the fan becomes too loud. Another thing that the owners of the GTX470 mentioned was under normal gaming the the fan doesn't get too loud; only when running furmark it would become noticeably noiser.

If he's that worried about the noise, he could always get the MSI/Gigabyte GTX460 1GB that will guarantee quietness.

'Wes · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:32

I remember a few comments on the 5870 and 5970 being loud, i've never experienced such noise when i've owned both cards, saying that, i do have my Antec 1200 fans on max as well as my exhaust PCI vent and Zalman PCI cooler.

Finn Mac Cool · 4 Sep 2010 at 12:58

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond, so the plan has now changed as I'm stuck with the Gainward GS. I do like the performance of the card, just not too happy with the noise level and that's something that usually doesn't bother me, though I now have my build on the table beside me and not under the table.
I think what I'm going to do is wait on a better cooler to be released and maybe change the mobo, atm I'm using the Utgard which takes both m-atx and atx I beleive. Another problem I have to overcome is that I need to use a network card and at the moment it will only install directly under the GPU, covering half the fan when installed

With it being years from I last built, much has changed, it's been 200% more enjoyable, though I would have done it much differently with hindsight but there seems to be much more solutions to problems nowadays, which is good.

I have also put another 3 fans onto my Utgard case, bringing the total case fans to 6.

buttkinz · 4 Sep 2010 at 13:45

might be worth getting a cheap fan controller to tame the fan noise in the case, also setup a custom fan profile for the 460. if your not overclocking it you should be able to drop the fan speed a fair bit, it may run warm but anything below 90-95 is perfectly fine, running cards at 60-70 degrees is overrated imho, makes sod all difference to the lifespan.

Finn Mac Cool · 9 Sep 2010 at 14:13

Thank you bk, as I'm using an xigmatek utgard case, it has two fan controllers, which is handy. I do overclock the 460 for games, so I just bought a set of steelseries v2 headphones, I have yet to try them as I'm waiting on battlefield installing.
Having read through the excellent advice on the forums here I'm now itching to start another build, though I'll wait till next year and spend a bit more this time, maybe 2k.

darren.head · 9 Sep 2010 at 15:46

Sorry, but why do you need to install a network card?????

Marine-RX179 · 9 Sep 2010 at 15:47

Finn Mac Cool said:
Having read through the excellent advice on the forums here I'm now itching to start another build, though I'll wait till next year and spend a bit more this time, maybe 2k.

Yea. Both Intel and AMD will have new platform (AMD Bullozor and Intel Sandy Bridge) by next year, so you will have better/more options to choose from