Got a new video card finally

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
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Bought a used GTX 580. Got a good price on it in the 180-200 range. I couldn't get anything that would fold as good as it in the 200 range.. The 660ti and 7950 are all up in the 300 range. Thing eats a lot of power 400-450watts though which is a negative thing. I can probably be hitting 600watts very easily with the 965 black edition going full speed ahead. Will be jumping into nvidia projects on the GPU soon for team anandtech. Right now have CPU folding einstein, SIMAP, and a couple other projects on 3 outta the 4 cores.
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
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Nice! That card is one of better crunchers/folders! :)

I bought some samsung memory off amazon prime also. Trying one stick before I commit to more. I'm going to keep an eye out on some good i7 deals. Will try to resell the old zalman vf 1000 led that cooled the 5850 and might try to offload the Kindle Fire HD which has been a waste of 200 bucks.
 

petrusbroder

Elite Member
Nov 28, 2004
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I have some very good experience with Artic Accelero - both of them - they work great: one on an 560Ti and one on an GTX570; the temps are really nice: approx 70ºC at 100% load, OC'ed (don't remember how much ...) :)
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
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I'd get around 70-75c 100% load on my 5850 with the zalman I had. Was a good video card but couldn't handle anymore milkyway@home being thrown it's way. I'm on newegg right now looking at a GPU cooler, New case, PSU. If I didn't care about distributed computing projects i'd probably just have gone with a 7850 at 199 bucks new. Only game I play runs fine on my backup x1950xt.

I have some very good experience with Artic Accelero - both of them - they work great: one on an 560Ti and one on an GTX570; the temps are really nice: approx 70ºC at 100% load, OC'ed (don't remember how much ...) :)
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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i can't say anything about the Zalman aftermarket GPU coolers b/c i've never used any of them. but i have used several Arctic Cooling products - namely an Accelero Xtreme PLUS, a few Accelero Xtreme PLUS II's, and several Accelero Twin Turbo II's - and i swear by them all. unfortunately i have nothing to compare them too except for the OE reference coolers they replaced. that said, i've used them to cool an HD 5870, several HD 6950's, a few GTX 460's, and several GTX 560 Ti's just in the last 2 years. even during maximum load crunching 24/7 on any of those video cards, i never had to run the fans on any of the various Arctic Cooling products higher than 50%. the highest temps i saw on any card was 70°C, and the average temps i saw were closer to 60-65°C. mind you none of the dual-fan or triple-fan Arctic Cooling models actually make noticeable noise until the fan hits 55% or so, and that's coming from a noise freak...so if you ask the average person, they'll probably tell you that they don't here the thing until fan speed reaches 70% or so.

as for that samsung RAM on amazon right now, i can vouch for its excellence. the stock timings look dreadful (11-11-11-41-2T) for DDR 1600, but they're very misleading. i'm running 2 x 4GB sticks in each of my machines right now, and while my timings are still quite conservative (8-8-8-30-1T @ 1.35v...and they're rock solid), others are reaching quite high clock speeds and quite low timings.
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
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91
I got the Samsung memory and have it running. It's in there with 2x2GB DDR 13600 G.Skill memory sticks. I am going to go ahead and buy three more of the samsung sticks and sell the G.Skill stuff. I have been looking into the Artic Cooling produts for my 580gtx otw. How do you think the GTX580 will compare up against the new 600 series Nvidia cards? I am seeing some good Christmas day deals on the 660ti. Kind of seemed like they might be crippled with the memory bus but offer more VRAM which might help in gaming in high resolutions. I am limited to my 22" 1680x1050 screen and only play a couple hours of WoW every once in a while. I may look into some BF3 or Black Ops 2. I am mainly into crunching because my heavy duty gaming days are behind me now with the arrival of my 4 month old baby. I need some things to get into so leaving my rig crunching and looking into it is a fun hobby along with fishing and star gazing :)

i can't say anything about the Zalman aftermarket GPU coolers b/c i've never used any of them. but i have used several Arctic Cooling products - namely an Accelero Xtreme PLUS, a few Accelero Xtreme PLUS II's, and several Accelero Twin Turbo II's - and i swear by them all. unfortunately i have nothing to compare them too except for the OE reference coolers they replaced. that said, i've used them to cool an HD 5870, several HD 6950's, a few GTX 460's, and several GTX 560 Ti's just in the last 2 years. even during maximum load crunching 24/7 on any of those video cards, i never had to run the fans on any of the various Arctic Cooling products higher than 50%. the highest temps i saw on any card was 70°C, and the average temps i saw were closer to 60-65°C. mind you none of the dual-fan or triple-fan Arctic Cooling models actually make noticeable noise until the fan hits 55% or so, and that's coming from a noise freak...so if you ask the average person, they'll probably tell you that they don't here the thing until fan speed reaches 70% or so.

as for that samsung RAM on amazon right now, i can vouch for its excellence. the stock timings look dreadful (11-11-11-41-2T) for DDR 1600, but they're very misleading. i'm running 2 x 4GB sticks in each of my machines right now, and while my timings are still quite conservative (8-8-8-30-1T @ 1.35v...and they're rock solid), others are reaching quite high clock speeds and quite low timings.
 

petrusbroder

Elite Member
Nov 28, 2004
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For crunching (but not for gaming) the the GTX580 is much better than the 660ti; the reason being that the double precision has been essentially halfed in the 600-series (probably because double precision FP-calculations are not really needed in gaming). Therefore the HD Radeons are som much more efficient. So for crunching: if you have the choice, choose GTX 580.
OTOH: not all BOINC-projects need double precision capacity, but, for example, F@H does. Some projects are more efficient using HD Radeons, others NVIDIA. There are a few threads in this forum about this issue ...
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
4,823
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I got the Samsung memory and have it running. It's in there with 2x2GB DDR 13600 G.Skill memory sticks. I am going to go ahead and buy three more of the samsung sticks and sell the G.Skill stuff. I have been looking into the Artic Cooling produts for my 580gtx otw. How do you think the GTX580 will compare up against the new 600 series Nvidia cards? I am seeing some good Christmas day deals on the 660ti. Kind of seemed like they might be crippled with the memory bus but offer more VRAM which might help in gaming in high resolutions. I am limited to my 22" 1680x1050 screen and only play a couple hours of WoW every once in a while. I may look into some BF3 or Black Ops 2. I am mainly into crunching because my heavy duty gaming days are behind me now with the arrival of my 4 month old baby. I need some things to get into so leaving my rig crunching and looking into it is a fun hobby along with fishing and star gazing :)
well i can't really advise you on the gaming side of things b/c i hardly ever game either. and in terms of pure compute, i can only speculate about the nVidia side of things b/c i have yet to get myself a GTX 6xx series GPU. that said, on paper the GTX 580 can be quite formidable against the newer GTX 6xx series with respect to FP64 (double precision) performance, where it still outperforms its successor the GTX 680 (198 GFLOPs vs 129 GFLOPs). its FP32 (single precision) performance where the 5xx series appears to start falling behind - the GTX 680 has approx. twice the raw compute power as the GTX 580, and the 670, 660 Ti, and 660 all have more compute power on paper. the entire 6xx series lineup consumes less power than the GTX 580 which, although it doesn't use as much power and generate as much heat as its predecessor the GTX 480, still consumes a good deal of power. as far as deciding between keeping the 580 and upgrading to a 6xx series GPU, its really going to depend on what you're doing with it right now, or what you plan on doing with it in the immediate future (specifically, which DC projects/applications you plan on running on that GPU).
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
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Mainly Seti@home or Einstein. I'll still do some milkyway but it seems to be dominated by ATI/AMD.

well i can't really advise you on the gaming side of things b/c i hardly ever game either. and in terms of pure compute, i can only speculate about the nVidia side of things b/c i have yet to get myself a GTX 6xx series GPU. that said, on paper the GTX 580 can be quite formidable against the newer GTX 6xx series with respect to FP64 (double precision) performance, where it still outperforms its successor the GTX 680 (198 GFLOPs vs 129 GFLOPs). its FP32 (single precision) performance where the 5xx series appears to start falling behind - the GTX 680 has approx. twice the raw compute power as the GTX 580, and the 670, 660 Ti, and 660 all have more compute power on paper. the entire 6xx series lineup consumes less power than the GTX 580 which, although it doesn't use as much power and generate as much heat as its predecessor the GTX 480, still consumes a good deal of power. as far as deciding between keeping the 580 and upgrading to a 6xx series GPU, its really going to depend on what you're doing with it right now, or what you plan on doing with it in the immediate future (specifically, which DC projects/applications you plan on running on that GPU).
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
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I got an OCZ 600watt PSU.. Quad 18amp 12V rails. Don't overclock the 965BE and don't plan on doing so with the 580GTX. Looks like I may be using around 560watts under load. Think I will run into any issues? Seems the recommendations for the amps on the 12V is 43amps. I should have plenty. I'm taking into account my case fans, and optical drives. Along with four RAM slots. I suppose I could ebay/sell my 600watt psu and go with 750+ PSU.
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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Mainly Seti@home or Einstein. I'll still do some milkyway but it seems to be dominated by ATI/AMD.
the GTX 580 seems to hold its own against the 6xx series lineup in Einstein@Home. it loses to the 680, but not by much. i didn't see any accurate run times for the 670 yet, and the 660 Ti seems to be quite unable to keep up w/ the 580. i do not know the current state of GPU crunching over at SETI@Home, so you'll have to search the S@H message boards to see if its worth it to move to a 6xx series GPU. for Milkyway@Home (and other projects requiring FP64 performance), its a no-brainer - the GTX 580's FP64 performance outpaces the 680's substantially.


I got an OCZ 600watt PSU.. Quad 18amp 12V rails. Don't overclock the 965BE and don't plan on doing so with the 580GTX. Looks like I may be using around 560watts under load. Think I will run into any issues? Seems the recommendations for the amps on the 12V is 43amps. I should have plenty. I'm taking into account my case fans, and optical drives. Along with four RAM slots. I suppose I could ebay/sell my 600watt psu and go with 750+ PSU.
a 600W PSU is more than enough to power a Phenom II X4 and a GTX 580, stock or overclocked, assuming its a quality PSU that can meet its rated output. just so you know, OCZ does not make its own PSUs - it buys PSUs from a manufacturer and puts its own label on it, but not necessarily before it makes its own set of minor customizations/modifications to the units before selling them (just what, if any, are made by OCZ i don't know...but such customizations/modifications often include the use of different electrical components and circuitry, or a different cooling fan). at any rate, i have no idea who the ODM (original design manufacturer) of this OCZ PSU is, but unless the base unit is a SeaSonic, CWT, or Delta, i'd think about flipping the OCZ PSU and splurging on a quality PSU, as literally everything else in the system depends on it. and honestly, i have no doubt that you could get away w/ only a 500W PSU and never come close to needing that much juice w/ those components...of course you may find better value in a deal on a slightly higher wattage PSU. but i wouldn't go for more than 550W if you don't eventually plan on adding a 2nd GPU.
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
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GTX580 is in and installed. Stock cooler under load is running around 80-81c. Going to hold off on crunching until I get an aftermarket solution. Pulling a solid 100 fps in WoW under High settings though :). New Case and GPU cooling solution what I'm going to get. The old maxtop signature Series was a good design model for air flow back when we were putting Geforce 2's in our desktops. Not so much anymore.
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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GTX580 is in and installed. Stock cooler under load is running around 80-81c. Going to hold off on crunching until I get an aftermarket solution. Pulling a solid 100 fps in WoW under High settings though :). New Case and GPU cooling solution what I'm going to get. The old maxtop signature Series was a good design model for air flow back when we were putting Geforce 2's in our desktops. Not so much anymore.
well keep in mind that while the aftermarket multi-fan GPU coolers generally win out over the blower-style reference coolers in both pure performance and performance per decibel, they dump all of their hot exhaust air right into the case, unlike the blower-style coolers which exhaust all their hot air out the back of the card, and thus to the rear exterior of the case. so if you're set on an aftermarket GPU cooler from Arctic Cooling, Zalman, or the like, make sure the case you get has sufficient ventilation in order to exhaust all the hot air that the aftermarket GPU cooler leaves inside the case.
 

petrusbroder

Elite Member
Nov 28, 2004
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Second Sunny129's advice. That is important. I usually addd exhaust fans to the box ...
 

Bradtech519

Senior member
Jul 6, 2010
520
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I ordered an Antec 300 Illusion last night off newegg. Case I have now isn't that good for modern PC ventilation. I had one of the Maxtop Signature Series cases that used to be good in the early 2000s when CPUs generated way more heat.


well keep in mind that while the aftermarket multi-fan GPU coolers generally win out over the blower-style reference coolers in both pure performance and performance per decibel, they dump all of their hot exhaust air right into the case, unlike the blower-style coolers which exhaust all their hot air out the back of the card, and thus to the rear exterior of the case. so if you're set on an aftermarket GPU cooler from Arctic Cooling, Zalman, or the like, make sure the case you get has sufficient ventilation in order to exhaust all the hot air that the aftermarket GPU cooler leaves inside the case.
 

Sunny129

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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I ordered an Antec 300 Illusion last night off newegg. Case I have now isn't that good for modern PC ventilation. I had one of the Maxtop Signature Series cases that used to be good in the early 2000s when CPUs generated way more heat.
nice...that should be sufficient enough to move the exhaust air from the GTX 580 and its aftermarket cooler. its wide enough to fit most tall CPU coolers and still an extra 25mm thick fan on the side panel. you may not even need the extra side panel fan since it already comes w/ 2 x 120mm front intakes fans, 1 x 120mm rear exhaust fan, and 1 x 140mm top exhaust fan. i can't seem to find any info on PCIe slot clearance (a measurement from the back of the inside back of the case to the backside of the drive cage)...thus i'm not crazy about the fact that it doesn't have removable drive cages, so hopefully there's enough room for a long card like the GTX 580 and the equally long aftermarket coolers for it. i wouldn't be too concerned though - chances are it'll fit no problem...you just might not be able to mount a hard drive in the adjacent drive slot.
 
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