480x2 SLI to single 7950: How much of a downgrade?

[blckgrffn]

700 at the wall is less than 650 used, and that i7 isn't helping anything talk about a slab of a power hog vs performance.

I laughed at 1460 hours of entertainment for $113 being a "holy cow" moment for you though.

Is the OP using a 650w PSU for 480 SLI? I can't imagine why else he'd be psu limited with such low actual power consumption. Also try adaptive vysnc, I used it for a bit and even messed around with half refresh this 470 runs dead silent in actual usage. 1200p isn't huge so I'm not sure why he needs to run 480s balls out in the first place... That said...

Wooahhhh. I think [H] is sipping some cool-aid though.

Hah. It's not that it isn't a reasonable cost for that much enjoyment, but holy crap stupid overkill on power consumption.

We're talking about swapping out video cards here and the OP doesn't want to spend $100 on getting the obviously better card (670) but will gladly throw away power ($). That's my main point.

But having a rig take ~200W at idle and ~700W under load (I don't care about the efficiency much in this case, we are talking about getting a bill from the utility company) is just wasteful if a $100 difference between two cards is a big deal. Hopefully the rig is either off or playing games.

That's not even factoring in any money it takes to cool the room the beast lives in.

As to [H], wtf do they have in the rest of that rig? My OC'd 2600k idles @ ~33W, I can't imagine that these video cards idle at some 100+ Watts? I didn't get that impression from Anand's reviews... <edit> I see their setup idles @ ~160W. Nice. As in horrible.

see the sig; do the math.

Yay? If you have the money for the parts, you must have the money for the power (as has been said.) What does that thing idle at?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

They used a 920.

If performance isn't valued why two 480s, it's undeniable that a single 7950 even cranked up pushing high wattage is going to fall short of stock 480 SLI performance.

If heat is the concern, why are you overclocking and using a 920 there are chips that are far faster and use less than half the power. 920s can put out oggles of heat at 4GHz+ can he even run 4GHz?

When the next gen of cards come out the 7950 will be just as bad as the 480 is now, as the 920 is now. Heck it's not even good when you compare it to the 670/680 in that regard.

It just doesn't make a lot of sense, the 7950 is going to get trounced by 480 SLI, and 650~ at the wall when full out (why do you need to full out 480 SLI at 1920/1200?).

From a performance standpoint if you actually needed 480 SLI in the first place the 7950 isn't an option for replacement. If you didn't need 480 SLI in the first place, then why concern yourself with overclocking, which as should be well known, kills performance per watt for most every card and escalates at a faster pace the higher you go.

I dunno I hear a lot of goofy stuff, everything I've seen has lead me down a different point of view. The 470 I got on air runs Heaven all day at 625MHz with 46% fan speed it's as close to silent as a spinning fan can get.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Yes and 7950s can run comfortably at 1100mhz and won't suck down the power of two 480s.

On top of that the 7950 has a much better memory set up for mods and eye candy.

Yes it doesn't have the same RAW power of two 480s but it's not as big of a disaster as people are making out. And the OP said he will eventually crossfire making the horse power downgrade a moot point.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

It won't have the same performance though either.

Might as well just name it since there is only one game in the last few years that warrants that statement, Skyrim.

Downgrading is still downgrading, and it's not a minor one it's a rather large one and 480s can overclock as well he's not psu limited as he seems to believe.

Why isn't anyone jumping on that 920, so slow and power hungry almost "bulldozer" like?

He'd probably save more power and get more performance switching out the 920 with a IB or SB chip

 

[Jaydip]

Come on Balla I am sill rocking a 920

 

[Don Karnage]

Come on Balla I am sill rocking a 920

You need to take that 920 to 4.2Ghz :biggrin:

 

[blckgrffn]

He'd probably save more power and get more performance switching out the 920 with a IB or SB chip

Very true. And be in nearly the same situation cost wise, selling the current CPU and mobo for a near wash (should be less than $100, I would think.)

I didn't realize that a nehalem would have a system idle of 160W. Positively BD like in that regard - and really much worse.

Personally, I'd say sell one 480, keep the other, upgrade to IVB and turn down the AA I realize that probably isn't the prevailing opinion here

 

[Don Karnage]

All this bloomfield talk makes me wonder how a 960 would perform at 4.6Ghz. You'd have to overvolt the crap out of it but who cares.

 

[blckgrffn]

All this bloomfield talk makes me wonder how a 960 would perform at 4.6Ghz. You'd have to overvolt the crap out of it but who cares.

Someone has to have done this. Or at least attempted this... Hmmmm...

 

[wbynum]

Not even sure I know where to start on this response. I don't believe I ever said I really cared about power usage. I pay ~10 cents per KWH in electricity so running a computer ~6 hours per day is nothing to worry about power wise. Along that same thought, why would I spend the money to upgrade to a newer processor when the one I have is more than plenty for any game at 1920x1200. Talk about wasting money. Maybe if I paid 40 cents per KWH then it might be something to consider, but I don't pay that.

Of course I am PSU limited on OC'ing these 480's. Pulling over 700 watts on a mid range 850 watt PSU unit with 4 rails is realistically at the PSU's max. Power supplies do not like to be pushed to their max, especially lower tiered ones.

Concerning a 670, it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend $100 more on a 670. The dollars to performance ratio just is not there.

The one thing I do care about is heat and noise. Both of these should be improved with a 7950. Anyways, like I said, at this point I will just try it. When I bought the 7950 I know I got it cheap enough to be able to resell it without a loss.

 

[SolMiester]

Unless water cooling I dont understand why people build SLI systems with regular chassis. Cases like the Raven 3 with vertically mounted mobo are perfect combo to ease top card heat generation...

 

[blckgrffn]

Not even sure I know where to start on this response. I don't believe I ever said I really cared about power usage. I pay ~10 cents per KWH in electricity so running a computer ~6 hours per day is nothing to worry about power wise. Along that same thought, why would I spend the money to upgrade to a newer processor when the one I have is more than plenty for any game at 1920x1200. Talk about wasting money. Maybe if I paid 40 cents per KWH then it might be something to consider, but I don't pay that.

Of course I am PSU limited on OC'ing these 480's. Pulling over 700 watts on a mid range 850 watt PSU unit with 4 rails is realistically at the PSU's max. Power supplies do not like to be pushed to their max, especially lower tiered ones.

Concerning a 670, it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend $100 more on a 670. The dollars to performance ratio just is not there.

The one thing I do care about is heat and noise. Both of these should be improved with a 7950. Anyways, like I said, at this point I will just try it. When I bought the 7950 I know I got it cheap enough to be able to resell it without a loss.

Power usage turns into heat. Heat needs to be dissipated, that takes fans, fans make noise. It isn't so much about the bill, but you need to be able to move enough air to get rid of that ~700W of power in your rig. A 7950 vs 2x480 is a concession that brings power utilization down and gets away from an extra fun buzzing away. Win-win in that regard, so clearly you get that.

The reason that a CPU upgrade was mentioned is that it would likely cut your CPU power usage to 35-40% of current usage. I am *guessing* your CPU is ~225W under load, an IVB @ 3.8 would be faster and probably load to less than 100W, not to mention idle some ~100+ Watts lower as well. Which is pretty crazy, if you think about it. It's the equivalent of of pulling a 480, at least, and it is faster rather than slower.

Making your rig cooler and quieter in all situations with a CPU upgrade.

Or you could go with water.

 

[wbynum]

Finally had some time to install the 7950. Here are the benchmark results compared to the 480x2 SLI setup.

480 SLI Setup:

Stock cpu/memory/etc clocks

7950:

Core clock: 1075 MHz
Memory clock: 1375 MHz
Core voltage: 1149 mv

3dMark11:

480 SLI: P9901
7950: P8558

So a ~14% downgrade in 3dMark11. Not good, but not horrible.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, AAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 62.33 FPS
7950: 59.67 FPS

5% downgrade. Not bad.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, 4xMSAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 52.00 FPS
7950: 48.33 FPS

7% downgrade. Again, not bad.

Observations/Questions:

- As others have said, this dual fan XFX 7950 card is a pretty crappy overclocker.

- Temps running the Metro benchmark three times in a loop got up to ~90c. Is this bad or about average? Room temp is ~80f.

- While overall heat coming from the case should be a good bit less with the 7950 over the 480 SLI setup (one card running around 90c compared with two cards running around 90c), I'm not sure about the noise. These dual fans on the XFX 7950 card seem to make a lot of noise without doing that great at cooling the card.

- I forgot to run the tests with the computer plugged into the kill-a-watt meter.

Anyways, that's my report. Still undecided on what I will keep, but leaning towards the 7950 so I can sell the 480's while they still have some value.

 

[Jaydip]

I prefer a single card over a sli/xfire setup.But if this card already lags in the noise dept adding another 7950 later would be nigh impossible unless u go water cooling.So can u return this 7950 and get a quieter/cooler one?

 

[3DVagabond]

At those clocks and that voltage those temps are high. Your ambient temps are high, but I still think you should be running cooler than that.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

Get an aftermarket cooler if you can, those temps aren't great. Personally I'd go for either this or this.

 

[Termie]

Finally had some time to install the 7950. Here are the benchmark results compared to the 480x2 SLI setup.

480 SLI Setup:

Stock cpu/memory/etc clocks

7950:

Core clock: 1075 MHz
Memory clock: 1375 MHz
Core voltage: 1149 mv

3dMark11:

480 SLI: P9901
7950: P8558

So a ~14% downgrade in 3dMark11. Not good, but not horrible.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, AAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 62.33 FPS
7950: 59.67 FPS

5% downgrade. Not bad.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, 4xMSAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 52.00 FPS
7950: 48.33 FPS

7% downgrade. Again, not bad.

Observations/Questions:

- As others have said, this dual fan XFX 7950 card is a pretty crappy overclocker.

- Temps running the Metro benchmark three times in a loop got up to ~90c. Is this bad or about average? Room temp is ~80f.

- While overall heat coming from the case should be a good bit less with the 7950 over the 480 SLI setup (one card running around 90c compared with two cards running around 90c), I'm not sure about the noise. These dual fans on the XFX 7950 card seem to make a lot of noise without doing that great at cooling the card.

- I forgot to run the tests with the computer plugged into the kill-a-watt meter.

Anyways, that's my report. Still undecided on what I will keep, but leaning towards the 7950 so I can sell the 480's while they still have some value.

Those performance numbers are overall not too shabby. I'd say you'd barely notice them in a game. Since your goal wasn't a performance upgrade, that will work out fine. But the noise and temps do not sound good. 90C? That's outrageous for a new generation card. I know the whole point was you got a great deal on the XFX, but perhaps they were on sale for a reason. Exchanging it, if that's even possible, will certainly end up costing more. I would seriously encourage you to consider a GTX670 if you have to spend a penny more...

 

[blckgrffn]

It's been done to death here, but temperature of the GPU in no way correlates to the amount of energy, as heat, that is being dumped into your room.

That reduction should be measured at the wall with your kill-a-watt

That said, performance looks good

 

[wbynum]

Good point about the temps vs wattage. I'll re-run the tests tonight with the kill-a-watt meter plugged in.

The 90c temps are definitely concerning, especially when the card is not overclock/over-volted to an extreme level. Last nights run was with the side of my Storm Sniper case off. I will try tonight with it on. I don't suppose Afterburner could be reading the temps incorrectly, could it?

Sound is also a concern. With the temp around ~90c the fans crank up to 100%. Way to loud for a new generation card.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

Good point about the temps vs wattage. I'll re-run the tests tonight with the kill-a-watt meter plugged in.

The 90c temps are definitely concerning, especially when the card is not overclock/over-volted to an extreme level. Last nights run was with the side of my Storm Sniper case off. I will try tonight with it on. I don't suppose Afterburner could be reading the temps incorrectly, could it?

Sound is also a concern. With the temp around ~90c the fans crank up to 100%. Way to loud for a new generation card.

Just dump an aftermarket cooler on it.

 

[wbynum]

Just dump an aftermarket cooler on it.

Problem with that is it eats up my money savings. If I paid $100 for an aftermarket cooler then I am back in the 670 range for money spent.

Will have to do a bit more testing tonight and then decide on what to do.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

Problem with that is it eats up my money savings. If I paid $100 for an aftermarket cooler then I am back in the 670 range for money spent.

Will have to do a bit more testing tonight and then decide on what to do.

If that's the case then return it on the grounds that it runs too hot. Then just get a Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3x, sorted...

 

[Elfear]

OP - You could return your current card and get the MSI Twin Frozr. $339 AR with three games you could sell or use. It did pretty well in the temp and noise tests at Toms. Not the best in it's category for noise but for the price it does a LOT better than the reference design.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Finally had some time to install the 7950. Here are the benchmark results compared to the 480x2 SLI setup.

480 SLI Setup:

Stock cpu/memory/etc clocks

7950:

Core clock: 1075 MHz
Memory clock: 1375 MHz
Core voltage: 1149 mv

3dMark11:

480 SLI: P9901
7950: P8558

So a ~14% downgrade in 3dMark11. Not good, but not horrible.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, AAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 62.33 FPS
7950: 59.67 FPS

5% downgrade. Not bad.

Metro 2033 Average Framerate (1920x1200, 4xMSAA, 16x AF):

480 SLI: 52.00 FPS
7950: 48.33 FPS

7% downgrade. Again, not bad.

Observations/Questions:

- As others have said, this dual fan XFX 7950 card is a pretty crappy overclocker.

- Temps running the Metro benchmark three times in a loop got up to ~90c. Is this bad or about average? Room temp is ~80f.

- While overall heat coming from the case should be a good bit less with the 7950 over the 480 SLI setup (one card running around 90c compared with two cards running around 90c), I'm not sure about the noise. These dual fans on the XFX 7950 card seem to make a lot of noise without doing that great at cooling the card.

- I forgot to run the tests with the computer plugged into the kill-a-watt meter.

Anyways, that's my report. Still undecided on what I will keep, but leaning towards the 7950 so I can sell the 480's while they still have some value.

Not bad at all. I would say this was worth it. :thumbsup:

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

OP - You could return your current card and get the MSI Twin Frozr. $339 AR with three games you could sell or use. It did pretty well in the temp and noise tests at Toms. Not the best in it's category for noise but for the price it does a LOT better than the reference design.

Funnily enough my MSI Twin Frozer IIIs are the noisiest cards I've ever had, and that's against a reference 4870 X2.