EVGA GTX 480 for $250 @ Amazon

[Zebo]

Exactly, a GTX 480 is no longer a performance card, it's a great performance/$ card until the last of the stock is gone. There at least six faster cards I can think of just off the top of my head.

It's got plenty of performance for most anything - it's right there with GTX 570 or 6950 which is no longer sold. Problem is loud as fuck and 270W stock so most ppl have to upgrade their PSU and wear headphones. $210 is exactly what it's worth.

I paid $625 for a GTX 580 hydrocopper which is not that much faster because silence is important to me. If it's not this card is a great deal.

Cheapest 570 is $259 from a generic name "galaxy". Next cheapest is Evga's @$279 or $70 more. Cheapest ti 448 is $249 or $40 more. There is no AMD solution as cheap and as high performance. Maybe next week with Oced 7850s.

 

[themasterpiece1]

I bit on this deal. I just finished building my rig and was about order the 6870 but I figured for $60 more I might as well order the GTX 480. Good idea? My budget for a GPU was $200 max. The GTX 480 seems like the best card for performance at $200, right?

 

[skipsneeky2]

I bit on this deal. I just finished building my rig and was about order the 6870 but I figured for $60 more I might as well order the GTX 480. Good idea? My budget for a GPU was $200 max. The GTX 480 seems like the best card for performance at $200, right?

Excellent buy,if i am correct the only card in its price range and performance range to have over 1gb of vram,that alone makes it a worthy purchase if your looking forward to game titles like BF3 at 1080p.

Did pretty good,i wouldn't worry about it.:biggrin:

 

[Zebo]

I bit on this deal. I just finished building my rig and was about order the 6870 but I figured for $60 more I might as well order the GTX 480. Good idea? My budget for a GPU was $200 max. The GTX 480 seems like the best card for performance at $200, right?

Easily performance wise. Just think of it as a GTX 570 which are $260+. Sometimes you can OC the 560 ti's past 480's performance but that's not guaranteed. Nothing else comes close since the same speed 570s are $260 and AMDs offering is not out yet.

 

[Grooveriding]

I guess that's why you've named them for us?

6990
7970
7950
590
580
7870
6970

could even throw in some of the weird ones

6870x2
560ti2win

Dude, the card is old news now, they're plenty of faster and better options. Especially when you are dealing with the 480, the hottest and most obnoxious card released in the past what, four years, even longer ? When it was just released, one could argue that since it was the best single GPU you could bite the bullet on it. The only thing it has going for it today is that its cheap as dirt for the performance while they have the last bit of stock on firesale.

 

[wbynum]

6990
7970
7950
590
580
7870
6970

could even throw in some of the weird ones

6870x2
560ti2win

Dude, the card is old news now, they're plenty of faster and better options. Especially when you are dealing with the 480, the hottest and most obnoxious card released in the past what, four years, even longer ? When it was just released, one could argue that since it was the best single GPU you could bite the bullet on it. The only thing it has going for it today is that its cheap as dirt for the performance while they have the last bit of stock on firesale.

Thus the whole reason people are buying the 480. Not sure what all the haters don't understand this...

 

[railven]

@$250 I'd opt for a faster, cooler, quieter, and more efficient 560 ti 448
@$220, I'd possibly consider it but then remember the noise/heat issues and wait a week or two.

Now if this was a GTX 570 or 580 - I'd be all over it like a hobo on a ham sandwich!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

While I think the power/heat are overstated especially when considering later revisions I still think at $220/$250 it's a tad over-priced. A year ago, sure, but 470's aren't very far behind 480s and they've been bottomed out at $150 for over a year now.

However if you can't afford the $300+ cards, with AMD no longer selling 6 series it's probably one of the better deals. That said the rest of Nvidia's line is going to drop as well, I've seen MSI Lightning 480s go for $200 on the egg a year ago, so these prices aren't anything special and 5 series is already starting to follow suit.

 

[railven]

While I think the power/heat are overstated especially when considering later revisions I still think at $220/$250 it's a tad over-priced. A year ago, sure, but 470's aren't very far behind 480s and they've been bottomed out at $150 for over a year now.

However if you can't afford the $300+ cards, with AMD no longer selling 6 series it's probably one of the better deals. That said the rest of Nvidia's line is going to drop as well, I've seen MSI Lightning 480s go for $200 on the egg a year ago, so these prices aren't anything special and 5 series is already starting to follow suit.

Second this. This card is essentially two "generations" old and once GTX 680 comes out, it should be given away free with the purchase of ME3.

 

[hans030390]

Here is a review talking about the improvements in both temp and power of the revised 480's six months after launch:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=607&Itemid=72

Looks pretty decent to me. IMO, at $210 the 480's were a very good deal. At $250 I would probably wait a few weeks and see how the new batch of cards pan out.

Has anyone else been able to back up their findings?

 

[BD231]

6990
7970
7950
590
580
7870
6970

could even throw in some of the weird ones

6870x2
560ti2win

Dude, the card is old news now, they're plenty of faster and better options. Especially when you are dealing with the 480, the hottest and most obnoxious card released in the past what, four years, even longer ? When it was just released, one could argue that since it was the best single GPU you could bite the bullet on it. The only thing it has going for it today is that its cheap as dirt for the performance while they have the last bit of stock on firesale.

Single GPU, 200 bucks, and you still have no answer for me. I sold a 460 for $130 (which I bought for $140 well over a year ago) and bought a 480 for $210. Right now I could sell the 480 and *MAKE* sixty to eighty bucks on top of the $80 bucks I spent while still giving someone a good deal. Hell, if the 7870 turns out to be $300 I could even upgrade to that and not spend more than $120 bucks thanks to the fact that I purchased the 480.

Bottom line even a year from now I'll still be able to sell this thing for a profit and again give someone a great deal. If you're the type to keep your spending to a minimum on stuff you know doesn't hold it's value these deals can actually end up making you money. For now the 480 is every bit as valuable as the new value parts which are 250-300+ dollars. That's a steal.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

One card is on water sharing a 240 rad with my i5, loaded around 55C max of 58C. Bottom card is on air, with a 9800GT in the last x4 slot blocking half the intake. Looks like it was around 76C load with a max of 79C.

Both were at 850 core, memory is overclocked but it's not shown... 607 to 850 is a 40% overclock, though I'm sure fan speed was at 85% or higher.

Everything is at stock here:

64C max for the air card, 48C max for the one on water. Wish i had tracked fan rpm back then.

800 core BFBC2

54C for water, 71C for air...

In my experience with both my cards they ran cooler than original reviews showed and overclocked well on air without getting blistering hot.

Edit: I should add I'm using what I believe is the third and last revision of the bios for the 470. Here is another review done is sep 2010 with a gigabyte non reference card: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...eforce-gtx-470-super-overclock-review-16.html

They found that the overclocked from 607 to 700MHz card actually drew less power than their initial reference card did.

 

[Tempered81]

I got a 6950 2GB 14 months ago did shader unlock and oc, had better performance and more memory than this 480. Paid $240 for it on ebay.

 

[Grooveriding]

...

Like I said and you are now saying, the card is appealing now because it is so cheap and is giving good price/$.

 

[railven]

Edit: I should add I'm using what I believe is the third and last revision of the bios for the 470. Here is another review done is sep 2010 with a gigabyte non reference card: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...eforce-gtx-470-super-overclock-review-16.html

They found that the overclocked from 607 to 700MHz card actually drew less power than their initial reference card did.

Perhaps throttling is involved? It idles for more but loads for less? I'd assume both cards would idle at the same clock speeds...but one idles more, and it's a noticeable amount.

Something is off here...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

GF100 doesn't throttle.

 

[Grooveriding]

Perhaps throttling is involved? It idles for more but loads for less? I'd assume both cards would idle at the same clock speeds...but one idles more, and it's a noticeable amount.

Something is off here...

Could be a lot of things; driver throttle, custom PCB with different power circuitry or the card is keeping the chip cooler than a stock card. Idontcare has this cool thread that explains how power consumption goes up with higher temperatures http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2200205

Interesting in the context of a roaster like the GTX 480. Assuming if you put the card under water it will use less power due to lower temps. Considering how hot it runs using the stock cooler it must have an effect and contribution to explaining why it uses so much power. Especially when you consider the 580 uses less power with essentially the same GPU on board with another cluster enabled to boot - part of that is likely because the 580 runs cooler than the 480.

Also that graph is only partially relevant as the 470 runs cooler, uses less power, has a different PCB with less components on board and is using a chip with more areas disabled compared to the 480.

 

[MrK6]

Could be a lot of things; driver throttle, custom PCB with different power circuitry or the card is keeping the chip cooler than a stock card. Idontcare has this cool thread that explains how power consumption goes up with higher temperatures http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2200205

Interesting in the context of a roaster like the GTX 480. Assuming if you put the card under water it will use less power due to lower temps. Considering how hot it runs using the stock cooler it must have an affect and contribution to explaining why it uses so much power. Especially when you consider the 580 uses less power with essentially the same GPU on board with another cluster enabled to boot - part of that is likely because the 580 runs cooler than the 480.

Also that graph is only partially relevant as the 470 runs cooler, uses less power, has a different PCB with less components on board and is using a chip with more areas disabled compared to the 480.

More than likely it has to do with the GTX470 SOC using a beefy custom cooling solution and 3DMark11 being a poor program to use to test for power consumption figures. Not only does 3DMark11 not fully load the graphics card, it also dynamically loads it with long idle times in between each scene. This is enough to drastically change operating temperatures, which is exacerbated by using an even better than stock cooling solution, that can easily produce the seemingly paradoxical power consumption figures seen in the graph.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Could be a lot of things; driver throttle, custom PCB with different power circuitry or the card is keeping the chip cooler than a stock card. Idontcare has this cool thread that explains how power consumption goes up with higher temperatures http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2200205

Interesting in the context of a roaster like the GTX 480. Assuming if you put the card under water it will use less power due to lower temps. Considering how hot it runs using the stock cooler it must have an effect and contribution to explaining why it uses so much power. Especially when you consider the 580 uses less power with essentially the same GPU on board with another cluster enabled to boot - part of that is likely because the 580 runs cooler than the 480.

Also that graph is only partially relevant as the 470 runs cooler, uses less power, has a different PCB with less components on board and is using a chip with more areas disabled compared to the 480.

3Dguru showed that is in fact correct.

Less than an 80 watt increase from stock to 900 core, it's also not equating the increased draw of the 125watt 1366 chip which would have to work faster to produce the additional frame rates.

Anandatech reviewed both:

1C isn't anything I'd really consider, though the fact that users after the fact report considerably lower temps is something to consider while also keeping in mind the power draw when running hotter.

 

[railven]

More than likely it has to do with the GTX470 SOC using a beefy custom cooling solution and 3DMark11 being a poor program to use to test for power consumption figures. Not only does 3DMark11 not fully load the graphics card, it also dynamically loads it with long idle times in between each scene. This is enough to drastically change operating temperatures, which is exacerbated by using an even better than stock cooling solution, that can easily produce the seemingly paradoxical power consumption figures seen in the graph.

Ahh, see that makes more sense. Since I don't really play synthetic benches on my PCs (hehe) I wasn't aware of these long pauses.

If a beefier cooler and better components is used in the position groove presented, it wouldn't account for the better cooled/built card idling at higher power consumption (10W) unless one is idling at higher clocks.

Why I'm suspect of how a card can idle for more but load for less. Whatever is applied to the load numbers should easily apply to the idle numbers. I'd expect it to idle for less too. Of course, unless I'm not considering some giant fan strapped on to it haha.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Ahh, see that makes more sense. Since I don't really play synthetic benches on my PCs (hehe) I wasn't aware of these long pauses.

If a beefier cooler and better components is used in the position groove presented, it wouldn't account for the better cooled/built card idling at higher power consumption (10W) unless one is idling at higher clocks.

Why I'm suspect of how a card can idle for more but load for less. Whatever is applied to the load numbers should easily apply to the idle numbers. I'd expect it to idle for less too. Of course, unless I'm not considering some giant fan strapped on to it haha.

You can rule out the first part since both cards would have the same delays between tests.

Even more to the point of fact there, as you pointed out the gig card idles at higher power than the reference card, so those lows in usage would actually benefit the overall power usage of reference more so than the gig card. :thumbsup:

 

[railven]

You can rule out the first part since both cards would have the same delays between tests.

But you can't because of better cooling. That was the reason that point was made.

Even more to the point of fact there, as you pointed out the gig card idles at higher power than the reference card, so those lows in usage would actually benefit the overall power usage of reference more so than the gig card. :thumbsup:

What? I'm trying to figure out why a card that loads for less idles for more. Which what you said does nothing to help me better understand why. Haha.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Look at what I posted with the 480, going from stock to water lowered power but not by much.

However the lower temps allowed a considerable overclock to not draw much more power.

You take a hot reference card which doesn't represent what users these days purchase, couple that with bios fixes, revisions, better yields, non reference design, and you get an overclocked card that when compared to reference uses less power while being overclocked 15%.

It goes into what everyone has been saying, the ES's that nvidia sent out were terrible, however since then there was a lot of work done which did several things, lowered power draw, and decreased temps are a few of them. Of course better driver optimization doesn't help.

Towards your question - Could be anything, could have been the other components within the system.

 

[railven]

Look at what I posted with the 480, going from stock to water lowered power but not by much.

However the lower temps allowed a considerable overclock to not draw much more power.

You take a hot reference card which doesn't represent what users these days purchase, couple that with bios fixes, revisions, better yields, non reference design, and you get an overclocked card that when compared to reference uses less power while being overclocked 15%.

It goes into what everyone has been saying, the ES's that nvidia sent out were terrible, however since then there was a lot of work done which did several things, lowered power draw, and decreased temps are a few of them. Of course better driver optimization doesn't help.

All this is irrelevant to what I'm asking. I understand how components work and how heat affects efficiency. Not sure why you're again repeating this since it was already posted in the thread.

Towards your question - Could be anything, could have been the other components within the system.

Exactly, with everything you just repeated, you'd expect the better built card to idle for less if not the same. It just comes off as odd to me. While I don't expect anyone to have an answer, I just keep pointing out it is odd.

 

[MrK6]

All this is irrelevant to what I'm asking. I understand how components work and how heat affects efficiency. Not sure why you're again repeating this since it was already posted in the thread.

Exactly, with everything you just repeated, you'd expect the better built card to idle for less if not the same. It just comes off as odd to me. While I don't expect anyone to have an answer, I just keep pointing out it is odd.

I just read through the article to understand their methods, and actually the heating/cooling of test cycling I mentioned isn't appropriate here since they're running a constant batch render as opposed to the standard benchmark. However, they do address your question:

Before this review, we had done some in-house testing of the GTX 470 under different temperatures since it was reported that heat buildup had a massive impact upon power consumption of the GF100 architecture. Well, it looks like these reports were spot on since the Super Overclock was able to post lower than reference power consumption numbers even though its core was substantially overclocked. Naturally, some of this difference may be due to component selection on Gigabyte’s part but the effect is profound to say the least.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...eforce-gtx-470-super-overclock-review-16.html