GTX 480 - Quad SLI @ ~1500W!

[Voo]

Credit cards do not equal wealth.

Ahh prejudice is great isn't it? So everyone who spends 3k$ on his hobbies is indebted? You know I didn't even think about credit cards.. though it seems that is a rather uniquely american thing..

 

[MrK6]

Ahh prejudice is great isn't it? So everyone who spends 3k$ on his hobbies is indebted? You know I didn't even think about credit cards.. though it seems that is a rather uniquely american thing..

We didn't just have a financial meltdown for nothing.

Interesting rig, kind of ridiculous and overkill, but hey, interesting nevertheless.

 

[Baasha]

Instead of discussing the pros and cons of the set up, or even appreciating the monstrosity of a machine, you guys are arguing about power consumption and cost!

Trub's rig is upwards of $10k and I don't think he's worried about an extra $20/month in his electricity bill.

Regarding the performance, nothing comes close to that rig right now. Of course, we would have to wait and see the reviews for the 4GB HD5970 Crossfire OC'd to get a fair comparison with the Quad SLI GTX480.

 

[ClipSet]

Regarding the performance, nothing comes close to that rig right now. Of course, we would have to wait and see the reviews for the 4GB HD5970 Crossfire OC'd to get a fair comparison with the Quad SLI GTX480.

If only we could quad 5970s.

 

[happy medium]

Why just crossfire 5970 4gb, quad 5970 4gb would be fun.

They scale like shit.

 

[extra]

Cool, hehe. I couldn't handle the power bill or the AC that i'd prolly hafta keep running but very cool nonetheless! Mah friend at work was contemplating something like this but ended up going the dual 5970 route and is very pleased with 'em...

Can finally play crysis, yay. (jk jk)

 

[Dark Shroud]

It's a great rig and very cool to see how that performs. But you could do duel 5970s for less cost, less heat , & less power suck.

At the high end resolutions the GTX 480's performance gap disappears. Add into that ATI releaseing massive performance updates recently.

As to the comment about power draw, I couldn't run a system like that. Power here is not overly expensive but during the summer I would have to run my AC everytime I gammed or risk burning my rig out. My room gets very warm during the summer and I don't have space in my work area/office.

 

[Borealis7]

Outrageous! a single person holding half of the entire supply of Fermi production cards!

 

[Creig]

1500 watts at 10 cent /KWH here = 15 cents / hour to run .
Gaming 3 hours a day = 45 cents per day = $13.50 a month, no thanks.

Actually, I suspect it will be a lot higher than that, especially during spring/summer/fall months. When you stop to consider the fact that, at peak, there are 1500 watts of heat being dumped into his room, he's most likely going to need to have some sort of air conditioning running at the same time.

AFAIK, a household electric space heater rated at 1500w has the highest output you can legally purchase in the US.

 

[Borealis7]

i think the accurate power consumption of this rig is 1.21 JIGGAWATTS

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

AFAIK, a household electric space heater rated at 1500w has the highest output you can legally purchase in the US.

Lol! Maybe he lives in Antarctica and figures he'll kill two birds with one stone?

Yeah seriously though I have a i7 930 I'm undervolting at 1.175v and running at 3.2ghz and a overclocked gtx 280 and it heats up my house. 4 480's would be unbearable in the summer.

 

[yh125d]

You'd need some ginormous mountain mods case that can fit like 4 120x3 rads to WC the whole thing

 

[Madcatatlas]

i just cant stop thinking what an incredibly good argument nVidia would have had on their hands, had they launched gtx480 near the end of 2009. Mindboggling

 

[nitromullet]

Actually, I suspect it will be a lot higher than that, especially during spring/summer/fall months. When you stop to consider the fact that, at peak, there are 1500 watts of heat being dumped into his room, he's most likely going to need to have some sort of air conditioning running at the same time.

AFAIK, a household electric space heater rated at 1500w has the highest output you can legally purchase in the US.

I don't think it works that way. A space heater is designed to convert electricity to heat as efficiently as possible, whereas the heat output of the video card(s) is a by product of it's primary task of rendering graphics.

If did work that way, we'd probably forgo central heat, and just buy other cool stuff that consumed enough wattage to keep the house warm. We'd all be huddled around the 80" LCD HDTV to keep warm and cooking steaks from the glow of our GTX 580s.

To put this into perspective, we've probably all see the failed experiment of trying to fry an egg on the GTX480 cooler by now... Well, you can fry an egg with a frying pan and a kitchen stove... When you fry an egg in the kitchen, do you have to turn on the A/C to keep the house comfortable?

 

[Modelworks]

I don't think it works that way. A space heater is designed to convert electricity to heat as efficiently as possible, whereas the heat output of the video card(s) is a by product of it's primary task of rendering graphics.

It isn't the same as directly converting electricity to heat but it isn't far off about 95%. Electricity to heat is almost 100% efficient with the other by product being light. For servers to determine how much air conditioning they need for the room they use the method of 1 Watt = 3.412 BTU per hour . So 1500 x 3.412 = 5,118 BTU or the output of a typical one room window air conditioner.

5300 btu air conditioner uses about 4.5A so now you are at 1900+ watts per hour.

 

[deimos3428]

it's on like DONKEY KONG!!

Hopefully the owner can play something a tad more intensive with that rig...

 

[Creig]

I don't think it works that way. A space heater is designed to convert electricity to heat as efficiently as possible, whereas the heat output of the video card(s) is a by product of it's primary task of rendering graphics.

If did work that way, we'd probably forgo central heat, and just buy other cool stuff that consumed enough wattage to keep the house warm. We'd all be huddled around the 80" LCD HDTV to keep warm and cooking steaks from the glow of our GTX 580s.

It doesn't matter that video cards/CPUs aren't specifically designed to convert electricity to heat. All that does matter is that the amount of electricity being used has to be converted to some other form of energy. Since video cards/CPUs don't emit visible light, non-visible light, radiation, sound, etc, that means almost all of the 1500w gets converted to heat. The only amount that doesn't get converted directly to heat is that amount being used by the fans in the system. The amount used by the fans is converted to mechanical energy (and a small amount of heat in the motors).

To put this into perspective, we've probably all see the failed experiment of trying to fry an egg on the GTX480 cooler by now... Well, you can fry an egg with a frying pan and a kitchen stove...

Does your kitchen stove have a fan blowing directly on the burner in an attempt to keep it cool? What do you think the outcome would have been if the fan on the GTX480 had been unplugged and the thermal throttling circuitry disabled?

After nearly 45 minutes of running benchmarks and playing some games the egg white was turning white, but it was no where near cooked. Oh well, we tried! We had the fan on auto the entire time, so if you turned the fan down lower you might have some better luck.

When you fry an egg in the kitchen, do you have to turn on the A/C to keep the house comfortable?

Do you keep your kitchen stove on for hours at a time? Is your stove in an enclosed room where the heat can remain trapped or is it in an open environment? On hot summer days I try to grill outside as much as possible so that the heat from cooking doesn't heat up the house any more than it already is. Especially on days that the AC is kicking on.

As it is right now, I have to turn the ceiling fan on while gaming and I still find myself needing to open a window or turn on the AC at night when my den door is shut. And that's with an HD 4890 OC and a Q6600. There is absolutely no possible way I could game comfortably in my den (roughly 8'x12') with a setup that can hit 1500W of heat output.

 

[Madcatatlas]

There is absolutely no possible way I could game comfortably in my den (roughly 8'x12') with a setup that can hit 1500W of heat output.

Now your just being silly Creig..

Where there is will, there is a way!

Also, you sleep better if its colder in your room, so how about having the window open winterstime!?!!?!

 

[Creig]

Now your just being silly Creig..

Where there is will, there is a way!

I never said I couldn't game with a 1500w heat producing gaming system, I just said I couldn't game comfortably. My room already hits 80+ degrees with the window shut. Maybe if I were playing Far Cry the heat would add to the realism, but I would prefer the temps stay in the low 70s.

Also, you sleep better if its colder in your room, so how about having the window open winterstime!?!!?!

?? I don't usually need to open windows in my bedroom in winter since we usually get between 200-300 inches of snow per year. All I do is lower the thermostat and the 0-20 degree outside temps do the rest.

The heat problem in my den is because it's next to our bedroom and the keyboard/mouse clicking can keep my wife awake since she's a light sleeper. So I need to keep the door shut. Since that's the only door into/out of the room, my den is turned into a closed system once the door is shut. After a few hours of gaming, I need to open a window in order to lower the temps since it hits 80+ in there.

 

[sandorski]

That's approx 100 CFL Lightbulbs. I don't know about you guys, but in my small Apt that many CFL's would be so bright that it would probably mess up my Depth Perception and likely add a Bloom Effect to everything. Hell, I wouldn't need a PC to enjoy Modern Graphics Quality.

 

[rekio]

GTX 480 SLI is so good !!
But power 1500W

 

[Rubycon]

Tagan PSU?

Where's the Mister Yuck stickers.

I suppose if they are handing them to you - you use 'em, right?

 

[jbh545]

1500 watts at 10 cent /KWH here = 15 cents / hour to run .
Gaming 3 hours a day = 45 cents per day = $13.50 a month, no thanks.

ROFL

This calculation is only relevant if you subtract out the alternative cost of a more reasonable high end gaming PC, which would still use half the watts. And the real difference is even less than 750w since neither system will be anywhere close to peak wattage most of the time during gaming.

Cry elsewhere about the cost of a Subway footlong 1x monthly.

 

[pmv]

Instead of discussing the pros and cons of the set up, or even appreciating the monstrosity of a machine, you guys are arguing about power consumption and cost!

Trub's rig is upwards of $10k and I don't think he's worried about an extra $20/month in his electricity bill.

Regarding the performance, nothing comes close to that rig right now. Of course, we would have to wait and see the reviews for the 4GB HD5970 Crossfire OC'd to get a fair comparison with the Quad SLI GTX480.

Well, given that most of us (I think) will never have such a monster system, all we can do is sit here and marvel at the general concept of large numbers. The frame-rates are one such large number, the power consumption and the cost are another. They are all equally worthy of saying 'gosh that's a big number!'. To me, frame-rates are are a marginally less interesting kind of big number than power and money. But one could go either way, really.

 

[thegimp03]

That is a beast system. So is the "Heaven" benchmark known for bringing most systems to their knees? Must be if his minimum was ~31fps.