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Graphics upgrade?

Noise seems to be a bit of an issue but there are 2 decent after market coolers you can buy for just over 35 quid. At times like this you just have to take advantage of the price,

- Core Clock: 700MHz
- Memory: 1536MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 3696MHz (Effective)
- Memory Interface: 384-Bit
- Processing Cores: 480
- Shader Clock: 1401MHz

For Under 200 quid. :eek:
 
Old tech.. it's exactly the same tech, it's on par with a 570 even though it has lower core clock, 700 core opposed to the 570s 732. Clocked the same it will be faster as the 480 has the higher spec, more ROPs and memory. If you got a 480 and buy an after market cooler you should hit 850-900 core. Stock cooler is fine if you have a good case with good airflow, if not then a third party cooler would turn the 480 in to a quiet beast.
 
Yes but sneaky chappys are careful & do not mark the original cooler, Then if owt happens you replace it & send it back.
 
In theory I think the 480 is the right choice, but I want to try and find out if the noise and power issues are a problem or not, relative to the position I'm in now.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market/16

This suggests that under load the 480 is significantly more power hungry than any other card.

I run a Corsair HX520 PSU with a 2500K, 8Gb Ram, a SATA DVDRW, a GTX 280 and 2x WD 750Gb Black Series in RAID0.

I notice the full load power consumption in the above test with a 480 was 479w - is this getting too close for comfort? Am I going to have issues powering all this?

And surely with all this heat - reviews seem to suggest it's in the 90's under load - overclocking potential is very limited?
 
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[TW]Fox;18333885 said:
I notice the full load power consumption in the above test with a 480 was 421w - is this getting too close for comfort? Am I going to have issues powering all this?
Click to expand...

depends on the age of your psu, personally i wouldn't feel comfortable tbh.
 
The Corsair is highly efficient and will do the job fine more so considering the highly power efficient CPU you have. My 480 is at 850 core temps never exceed 82c with max fan of 60%, set a custom fan profile and it will keep temps and noise way down compared to the default fan speeds, this will enable you to overclock to at least 800 core on stock volts. That or grab a cooler for it.
 
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If you are considering going for 1080p gaming in the future - then invest in a card with more VRAM (current games start to show some improvement at this res with more VRAM - and I can see this only becomming more of an issue with games such as crysis 2 - but that may just be my speculation).

either 6950 which you've a fair chance of unlocking to a 6970 or
480/570 if you want an nvidia card

Noise wise, the 480 is about on a par with your 280, so if you can handle the current noise levels then a 480 won't be a problem. I would consider a larger PSU if you go for the 480 bargain card though
 
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Whilst the 480 undoubtedly powerful and that deal is a bargain, they are hot, noisy and power-hungry.

If, as someone suggested, it is the same volume as a 280 then that's loud - my 280 was so flamin' noisy it drove me to water cooling!

The 480 is rougly the same performance as a 570 and thus roughly the same performance as the Gigabyte 560 SOC, which I've pre-ordered. Personally I'd pay the extra 30-40 quid for newer tech, lower noise, temps & power draw and not having to worry about binning the warranty with an aftermarket cooler but each to their own.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Whilst the 480 undoubtedly powerful and that deal is a bargain, they are hot, noisy and power-hungry.

If, as someone suggested, it is the same volume as a 280 then that's loud - my 280 was so flamin' noisy it drove me to water cooling!

The 480 is rougly the same performance as a 570 and thus roughly the same performance as the Gigabyte 560 SOC, which I've pre-ordered. Personally I'd pay the extra 30-40 quid for newer tech, lower noise, temps & power draw and not having to worry about binning the warranty with an aftermarket cooler but each to their own.
Click to expand...

Just shows how subjective the issue of 'noise' can be. I have a 280 and don't think it is loud at all - but that may be as I game using headphones and it only gets loud under heavy load when gaming (when I am isolated using headphones) and then within 30 seconds after exiting a game peace and quiet is restored.

In short, though, if the OP can cope with the noise levels of the 280, then a 480 will be no big deal
 
I have never found my 280 to be that bad. I don't really mind noise under load, its idle where I want silence.

Just worried about heat and whether my psu is up to the job.

Are there any numbers out there for this gigabyte soc?
 
RavenXXX2 said:
lol how much for a 580..£400, 480 and cooler = £230, I know where the smart money goes.;)
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My points still stand but...

A) I'm fairly sure swapping the cooler will void the warranty.

B) Clock for clock the 580 will still be quicker.

C) If I was so hung up over savings I wouldn't be into buying performance PC parts.

D) I really cannot be ***** faffing around with 3rd party coolers :p

E) I have some kind of weird OCD which would annihilate me for not buying the 580 :p
 
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