I think his GTX460s are overclocked though. Once overclocked, the GTX460 SLi setup can be
substantially faster (although can suffer lower min frames). Still for $200-250, it's a "bargain" compared to the 580.
which is why I said it can be a good deal
but even those minium frame rate of the 580 can be much higher than the average frame rate advantage the 460 has, which I will take any day as long the average frame rates are within single digits.
I can see how 2 470s can get quite noisy. However at 750mhz overclock on the GPU, a 470 will come very close to the 480 in performance. Put 2 of those 470s together, and the 580 doesn't stand a chance. This means if a game doesn't scale at all, you will have a setup about 20-25% slower than a 580 but when it does scale, at least 40-50% faster than a single stock 580.
Why didn't you grab 2 6950s instead? For $500, once unlocked to a 6970, they would crush a 580. In the worst case scenario, a single 6950 @ 6970 speeds is about 15-18% slower than a 580 at 1920x1080. That difference narrows down to only 3-5% at 2560x1600. In CF, 6970s would be 50-60% faster than a single 580. In this generation, the 580 made no sense to me. The price premium is enormous. Even factory overclocked 570s were available for 'only' $370. To each his own I guess.
I went with a GTX580 for several reasons
1.) I was lucky enough to grab an ASUS DirectCU II GTX 580 for ~$380. Triple slot cooling makes the thing virtually silent relative to the rest of my system, even under full load and my moderate overclocking. I also did it to get rid of unavoidable drawbacks with CF/SLI.
2.) 2 x 6950s are easily one of the best deals for a high end setup in forever, however I am no longer gaming on my U2711, so I really didn't need that kind of power, not that it would have been much of an upgrade over my GTX470s (which were overclocked). And the biggest reason I wouldn't go AMD is because I need CUDA, although I am near the point where I could run separate rigs for work and play, but not quite just yet.
3.) I now almost exclusively game on my BenQ XL2410T, a 120Hz monitor with 0ms input lag which I vastly prefer over a higher resolution, as I almost exclusively play competitive shooters. Microstutter and AFR's inherent input lag were just too big of a drawback in my experience, and of course vsync to mitigate microstutter is not an option due to that added input lag.
I call it crushing when I have both of them running at 900mhz instead of the default 675mhz. There is no way that the GTX 580 can even come close to overclocking that well. I have compared benchmarks with my system, and believe me, my 460s crush the 580 provided that I'm not memory-limited.
Interesting considering I can get my GTX580 up to 950MHz, although I don't like to because I simply don't need that much GPU power and like to keep a system balanced for noise/power/heat. Also you running your 460's @ 900MHz just means that much more power they consume and heat they put out relative to my single 580.
The 460s shouldn't even come close to the 580 considering that they cost $300 less.
Why shouldn't they come close? Its 672 SPs vs. 512. If anything we should be arguing about the 580's MSRP being too high or even the 460s being priced too low
Seeing as they can soundly beat it when overclocked, I don't understand why anyone would get the 580 unless they need two of them for SLI.
Well I've spelled out my reasons several times so far, I guess one more time won't hurt: I simply don't like the drawbacks of multi GPU setups but still want bleeding edge performance. Seeing as how I need CUDA, I was more inclined to go with a single GTX570 but luckily I was able to grab a 580 with excellent aftermarket cooling for a relatively great price.
As for the power draw, the 460s consume way less power at idle, which to me is more important than 20 watts more under load.
? The AT Bench shows the 460s a 7W
higher when idle...
You also get surround gaming with SLI.
Considering the settings I'm used to on my single 1080p 120Hz monitor can push 800MB, good luck running a triple monitor setup with 768MB GTX460s, or even with the 1GB model. Heck, my single 2560x1440 U2711 could push the limits of the 1280MB of my GTX470s.
I thought GTX460 1GB SLI setup was being compared. If we are talking about 768mb cards, then they would face memory limitations fairly quickly in modern games if you crank AA high enough. But GTX460 1GB SLI setup is very nice, esp. overclocked to 900mhz. Also, if you noticed, I said had he sold his 470s for 6950s unlocked, then there hardly would be any tradeoffs outside of power consumption compared to a 580, esp. if he games at 2560x1600.
I originally linked a comparison between the GTX580 and 1GB GTX460 SLI because the AT Bench doesn't have the 768MB GTX460 SLI numbers. My original point was simply to show that a stock 580 can more than hold its own against a setup similar to (but ultimately faster than) a 768MB SLI setup. Sure, the GTX460s naturally have more OC headroom but that's not to say the 580 can't be overclocked at all, and I'm not aware of any benchmarks that readily show a ~900MHz 580 vs. 900MHz 768MB GTX460s, however I would wager the results aren't as "crushing" as some might want to claim.
and again, that's not to say the GTX460, whether alone or in SLI, doesn't make for a bargain (heck, its what I originally recommend to the OP), I just like to keep things in perspective
Facebook
Twitter