***THE OFFICIAL GTX480/470 END USER REVIEW THREAD***

[coupe69]

Yeah it's a Thermaltake Kandalf, well built case, lasted many years.

I'm sorry, but putting "Thermaltake" and "well built" in the same sentence should not be allowed

I had a Thermaltake Armor a few years ago and it was the worst case I've ever had the misfortune to buy, both in terms of quality and thermally.

May I suggest you invest in a more up to date case that allows for better thermal dissipation of todays new kit.

I mean c'mon judging by your sig you've obviously got plenty of money to spend on all the latest kit, and yet you're still using a case that can at the very best be described as average in terms of cooling ability.

Having said all that though, I cannot for the life of me understand how you're struggling to get the same overclock from your cpu just because you've installed a single 480GTX?? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Fair enough the 480s do run hotter, but we're only talking around 10°C or so more than one 5870, but you're running two 5870s!

I really can't see how one card can create that much more heat than two that are sandwiched together?

 

[RavenXXX2]

480's create much more heat than the 5870's, the whole card gets red hot, amplified by the exposed large HS, this radiates in to the case, times that by two and it's bound to effect CPU temps as well as other compoments on the mobo such as volt regulators.

 

[coupe69]

480's create much more heat than the 5870's, the whole card gets red hot, amplified by the exposed large HS, this radiates in to the case, times that by two and it's bound to effect CPU temps as well as other compoments on the mobo such as volt regulators.

Of course I understand what you're saying, but the guy says he's struggling with just one in his system not two.

He's comparing the heat of one 480 to two 5870s

 

[MR.B]

I'm sorry, but putting "Thermaltake" and "well built" in the same sentence should not be allowed

I had a Thermaltake Armor a few years ago and it was the worst case I've ever had the misfortune to buy, both in terms of quality and thermally.

May I suggest you invest in a more up to date case that allows for better thermal dissipation of todays new kit.

I mean c'mon judging by your sig you've obviously got plenty of money to spend on all the latest kit, and yet you're still using a case that can at the very best be described as average in terms of cooling ability.

Lol well the case has lasted well for me, and i could get a new case but it's pointless for me... because i always just have this case on it's side with the side window off like in the pic ('cause i'm always upgrading/messing around and got tired of having to dismantle it all), so it never gets too hot in there. It's basically just used to hold everything loosely together. If i got another case i'd just do the same with it.

Having said all that though, I cannot for the life of me understand how you're struggling to get the same overclock from your cpu just because you've installed a single 480GTX?? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Fair enough the 480s do run hotter, but we're only talking around 10°C or so more than one 5870, but you're running two 5870s!

I really can't see how one card can create that much more heat than two that are sandwiched together?

Well while the 480 is only a little hotter, when the card is inserted it's right by the chipset, and near to the CPU, so just a little extra heat can affect my OC. Because my OC really is at the limit, even 5MHz extra on the CPU and the system is unstable, or if i move the 80mm fan a few inches away from the chipset it becomes unstable.
My temps were only about 2c - 3c higher on the chipset and 1c on the CPU with the 480 installed, not much, but it was enough to make the system unstable.
Two 5870's do produce more heat but being as the case is always open on it's side, the second card dont seem to have any effect on the chipset temp or CPU, it's the closest card that does.

 

[jigger]

Maybe the convection plate on the gtx480 is the problem.

 

[layte]

..and because we know hoe much everyone loves Crysis..

Run #1- DX10 2560x1600 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: VeryHigh ~~ Overall Average FPS: 49.98
Run #2- DX10 2560x1600 AA=2x, 32 bit test, Quality: VeryHigh ~~ Overall Average FPS: 43.575
Run #3- DX10 2560x1600 AA=4x, 32 bit test, Quality: VeryHigh ~~ Overall Average FPS: 41.59

 

[coupe69]

snip

I can't see why you'd have to downclock a not insignificant 200Mhz for a mere 1-3° increase in temps?

I mean what happens when you have an ambient room temp increase of 3 degrees, does this mean you can't play games in the summer

You've perhaps gotta ask yourself whether you need to be right on the limit of your overclock, I mean is it really necessary?

There's a very good article that may interest you here concerning cpu bottlenecking.

 

[Greebo]

I can't see why you'd have to downclock a not insignificant 200Mhz for a mere 1-3° increase in temps?

I mean what happens when you have an ambient room temp increase of 3 degrees, does this mean you can't play games in the summer

You've perhaps gotta ask yourself whether you need to be right on the limit of your overclock, I mean is it really necessary?

There's a very good article that may interest you here concerning cpu bottlenecking.

I can. With my old q6600 if any of the cores hit 70C my 4ghz overlclock would fail on that core in prime95. So one degree was the difference between stability and failure.

However, your second point is valid though, should you be at the absolute limit of your cpu overclock for 24/7 use? No probably. I only ran my q6600 at 4Ghz when doing benchmarks and ran it at 3.7 for 24/7 use.

 

[jonstatt]

I understand that all GTX 480 cards (currently) are identical, so I might as well go for the cheapest one (the OcUK value one). But can anyone confirm this version does include a mini HDMI to normal HDMI socket adapter?

Thanks

 

[MR.B]

I can't see why you'd have to downclock a not insignificant 200Mhz for a mere 1-3° increase in temps?

I mean what happens when you have an ambient room temp increase of 3 degrees, does this mean you can't play games in the summer

You've perhaps gotta ask yourself whether you need to be right on the limit of your overclock, I mean is it really necessary?

There's a very good article that may interest you here concerning cpu bottlenecking.

I had to downclock exactly 260MHz for stability. And i use the CPU for my work a lot more than i use the GPU's for gaming, so for me it's worth it.

You have a point about the room temp, but so far i've not had issue with it and i run 24/7 at this speed. But say it got hot enough in the summer to have to downclock a little, if i had two 480's i'd have to downclock even more than i otherwise would.

The image quality of the GTX480 also bothers me a little because i do a lot of graphics, video, 3D rendering and web design work (why i want the CPU speed)... the colours on ATI cards are more vibrant, if i try to match this with NV (turning up colour or vibrancy), colours will just get saturated. Whites are also brighter and whiter with ATI, no amount of messing around will match them with NV hardware.
It's only a small difference and something you can only really notice on a high-end IPS panel which i have (very hard to see on my PVA panel, and i'd expect you'd never notice on a cheap TN panel).

Overall while i'd say none of the problems i have with 480 are very big, and for most people i'm sure they wont be a problem, they're enough to make me stick with two 5870's that work perfectly now and run any game at my 2560x1600 res maxed out (if it was 5+ months back though i would have switched to NV for there drivers alone, ATI's were appalling!).

 

[Arcane]

I've no problem with the colour, but then I always borrow a Gretag i1 from work and use colormatch to make sure the colour's spot on, probably a bit more than most have access to though. Messing about in the control panel to get accurate colour's just an exercise in frustration.

 

[MR.B]

I've no problem with the colour, but then I always borrow a Gretag i1 from work and use colormatch to make sure the colour's spot on, probably a bit more than most have access to though. Messing about in the control panel to get accurate colour's just an exercise in frustration.

I've tried calibration hardware/software and other monitors, different cable, different connections (HDMI, DVI), all sorts of things. You just cant get NV hardware to match ATI's in this area, it's the hardware itself. It's like with all NV cards before the 200 series, they have poorer and more dull colours than the 200 and 400 series, but these newer NV series still dont quite match ATI, it's a hardware issue. Being as you need a superior IPS panel to notice it though, it pretty much rules out all LCD's under £700.

 

[Sc00p007]

Hi,

I have just received all my watercooling parts. I was wondering if it will void my Asus warranty if i remove the foam strip on the back of the card? Seems i have to remove it to get to some screws underneath?
If so, what would be the best method to remove it without leaving evidence? im thinking a hot hairdryer? or maybe some acetal i have that i use to remove superglue from past projects (use the acetal to dissolve the glue, remove the strip, then carefully glue back on if i ever need to rma, im just concerned the liquid may start to dissolve the foam?)

Thanks in advance,

Phil.

 

[VoG]

I have just received all my watercooling parts. I was wondering if it will void my Asus warranty if i remove the foam strip on the back of the card? Seems i have to remove it to get to some screws underneath?

you don't need to remove the foam strip, just locate the screws thru the foam, & use a fingernail to gently roll the bit of the foam strip over the screw onto it's side to expose the screw.

thats how i did mine.

oh, & fitting a wb will void your warranty, the stock heatsink screws are held in place with locking compound which comes off when your remove them. so Asus would have to be blind not to be able to work out the hsf unit has been removed.

 

[jamma]

Its cooler in the middle of the cards than i thought,running occt,pulling 810 watts.Removing the corsair fan only gives slightly lower idle temp.

 

[Raikiri]

94c and 92% fan speed

Do you intend to water cool/fit after market coolers?

 

[jamma]

Not yet,that was under occt,under games i see 10-20% reduction in all the values.

 

[Arcane]

That's the thing with synthetic benchmarks, no games come close to producing the temps these things produce, Metro 2033 for example, gives a maximum 99% GPU usage but temps are 20c less than Combuster.

 

[Robert]

How do you find the noise? What card did you have previously?

 

[billyboyd]

Wow !! just went from a Asus GTX260 (old 192) to a Zotac GTX480. Big difference, bigger than i expected actually, it has eaten everything so far. Nice little but expensive upgrade for me.

One quibble though.... fan speed. After monitoring the temps and fan speed i felt the fan was not ramping up enough with the temps. Not a problem though i just used MSI Afterburner and done my own fan speed profile. (Had to do this with my old Asus GTX260 too).

Been reading a lot about the noise on various sites with these cards but to be honest i found the noise no worse than my old GTX260 and 8800GTX.

What else ...The card was no bigger than my old GTX260 and easily fitted in my Antec 300 case.