My thoughts on the GTX 480... Now with video

[toyota]

15-20% is pretty close IMO. It's certainly very good considering you're paying half the price compared to the other cards.

In terms of power consumption, yes, perhaps under load it's not great. My GPU is idle 95% of the time. I think I've outgrown gaming.

thats 15-20% on a very unrealistic oc though. realistically its going to be 25-30% for most people as 850 or so is much more realistic.

 

[videopho]

Most don't have to worry about that anymore:

Frankly, none of these cards mentioned are fast enough to play BF3 smoothly and will likely cry once Metro 2034 launches next year.

Most single gpu cards today are still crying with Metro2033.
Early report from NV forum, SLI folks are happy campers with BF3.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=206

But my BF3 copy is still en route. :-(

 

[Grooveriding]

They are really hot cards, relative to everything else out there. On their own they are good to go though.

Put a couple or three in SLI on air cooling and watch them irradiate one another.

My average temps in BF3 across my three cards from top to middle to bottom: 85 - 89 - 80 Top and bottom card are @ 80% fan, middle card goes to 85%. At least the fans on these don't whine, it's just a very loud whooooooooosh.

I'm waiting for the day that middle card or the backside of the third card just roasts away. I can't decide what to do with them when I upgrade, they've lost so much value already, and once 28nm comes I reckon I'll be lucky to get $150 for one.

I usually toss my stuff in my wife's computer or the other spare we have, but I think she'd complain if I unleashed 480 SLI on her I think I will put one in her PC and try to sell the other two for $300 as a combo.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Boy have prices dropped. Not that you would know it going to Fry's. Two of those cards in SLI for that price is sensational.

 

[peonyu]

A Gtx580 is insanely loud aswell if its set at auto fan speed and under load. I shit you not, I have my PC in another room, and that thing at 100% [ie-playing a game] i could hear as though it was next to me. My PC is 20 feet away and I also have a wall between me and the PC... That my friends, is 1 loud mofo of a stock heatsink fan. So idk what the 580 gtx reviewers were smoking when they said its "quiet" under load. Clearly it is some strong hemp.

A aftermarket Accelero or other "non bullshit" quiet heatsink/fan combo is what is needed for either a 480 or 580 if you truely want a quiet PC. Both are loud as hell under a heavy load with the stock coolers [100% fan]. I had both cards so far and thats my experience. On the other hand, stock Radeon 6xxx series cards are whisper quiet compared to either Nvidia card..

 

[toyota]

um pretty much any graphics card is extremely loud at 100%.

 

[peonyu]

There is a large difference between loud, as in sane loud noise coming from a Radeon 6950 card...And a GTX 580 stock fan which is so loud it sounds as though a Jet engine was sitting inside your PC. I had both cards, and the Nvidia 580 is ridiculous with its fan noise..The difference between the two is orders of magnitude.

 

[peonyu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIxWOia6bhA

Skip to 1:30.
Gtx 580 fan sound at load. Try watching a movie or playing a game with that shit going on..

Its a SC card in the video, but the SC cards use the stock Nvidia fan. So 0% difference.

 

[lavaheadache]

In absolute honesty, my 580 never gets anywhere near that loud. Nor have I heard that kind of noise out of the 480's.

On a second note, Why the HELL would someone put a rig directly behind their head like that. I'm suprised he doesn't have the case turned around exhausting on to his neck and hair, that way he would be able to complain about the heat it was blowing out too.

Also, accoustically speaking that thing is setup to echo all the sound out of that little cubby like a megaphone directly into his ears and the microphone recording sound. This is the same reason why cupping your hands around your mouth when you yell makes you seem to yell louder. It concentrates the sound to all travel in one direction. Just look at the placement of his rig and you will see it is full of epic fail.

 

[tviceman]

So what are you going to do with that gtx580?

 

[RussianSensation]

Why would you want to run a GTX580 at 100% fan speed? The card is perfectly stable at 60-65% fan speed in gaming.

Also, I have a stock HD6950 and it's not whisper quiet. The only time it's whipser quiet/silent is when I manually set the fan speed to 25% using a fan profile in idle. In contrast, my GTX470 was silent at 32% fan speed. At any fan speed above 25%, I can hear my HD6950 above 4 case fans. In fact, at only 50% fan speed, it becomes about as loud as a GTX470 at 65% fan speed. At 60%, it sounds like a jet engine, something my GTX470 would get at 75% fan speed. At 100% fan speed, it's a joke.

You can never compare % fan speeds across NV and AMD. Reference AMD cards run significantly louder at the same fan speed. I limit my card to 46% fan speed up to 80*C. There is no way I would game with an HD6950 with fan speed above 50%.

 

[lavaheadache]

So what are you going to do with that gtx580?

It's back in my rig. One of the 480's is in my living room pc. I had a 280 in that but I wanted a little more juice since I just got a 46" 1080p led Sony Bravia. The GTX 280 was fine up till now cause I only had a 42" 720p Hitachi plasma. It was great for games but terrible for desktop use. The 480 rips for 1080p use.

I would love to stick the 280 in my main rig for physx but there is almost zero point

 

[ImpulsE69]

n/m ugg. Too much shopping lately.

Thanks

 

[blackened23]

If you load it via furmark, or a benchmark, it is very loud. Regular gaming it isn't loud (except rare games like dead island).

This. Although people having varying definitions of loud, with the default fan profile it is very quiet at first but gets ridiculously loud when the GPU gets hot. At 80c+ you will definitely hear the fan. Even the reference fan on the 580 is louder than i'd like at high gpu temps, which is why I opted for the msi lightning.

 

[blackened23]

Why would you want to run a GTX580 at 100% fan speed? The card is perfectly stable at 60-65% fan speed in gaming.

Also, I have a stock HD6950 and it's not whisper quiet. The only time it's whipser quiet/silent is when I manually set the fan speed to 25% using a fan profile in idle. In contrast, my GTX470 was silent at 32% fan speed. At any fan speed above 25%, I can hear my HD6950 above 4 case fans. In fact, at only 50% fan speed, it becomes about as loud as a GTX470 at 65% fan speed. At 60%, it sounds like a jet engine, something my GTX470 would get at 75% fan speed. At 100% fan speed, it's a joke.

You can never compare % fan speeds across NV and AMD. Reference AMD cards run significantly louder at the same fan speed. I limit my card to 46% fan speed up to 80*C. There is no way I would game with an HD6950 with fan speed above 50%.

By the same token, the 6950 should be stable for gaming at 45% manual fan speed too. Just like the 470. My 6970 rig never had problems staying stable at 50% manual fan, even while overclocked.... although I had dabbled with MSI ab for various fan steppings depending on gpu temp.

But yeah, its loud past 65% or so, its one of those fans that makes that stupid high pitched whirring noise at high speeds. Hopefully AMD got the hint and will improve the cooling mechanism on the 7xxx series.

 

[RussianSensation]

By the same token, the 6950 should be stable for gaming at 45% manual fan speed too. Just like the 470. My 6970 rig never had problems staying stable at 50% manual fan, even while overclocked.... .

Ya, the point I was trying to make, I make my HD6950 @ 6970 speeds quiet by limiting it to 46% fan speed with an MSI Afterburner fan speed profile. But if I allowed the BIOS to use its predefined fan speeds, then it would be much much louder. Similarly, if you purposely run a GTX580 at 100%, you shouldn't be upset that it generates a lot of noise since the card runs fine at fan speeds far below 100%.

 

[JAG87]

I've had two in SLI since release day and I've never seen temperatures as high or the fans as loud as the reviews claim.

They are actually the best high end GPU purchase I've made so far because they've lasted the longest. They are about to outlast the 8800 GTX since there is nothing new until Q1 2012.

 

[Ferzerp]

I've really been waiting for the next gen cards to appear since neither AMD nor Nvidia's next gen are a big enough improvement to warrant a replacement, and I'm having to turn off more and more options to stay at reasonable framerate at 2560x1600 on mine. I could SLI, but I'd rather just wait for the next generation.

The last 2 video card generations have been way too close together in performance.

 

[peonyu]

My 580 ran hot by default, maybe Zotac didn't install the heatsink tight enough on it since when I replaced the stock HSF some of the screws I could hand turn out of the card. The temps I had were 95c in Deux ex HR at "dialogue" scenes where you choose a response, for some reason those screens load a GPU as much as Furmark would before OCP came out. Once a dialogue screen came up the fan would go crazy...no way would 50% fan speed be ok for that 580. A Accelero dropped temps from 95c at load down to 60c though, and its absolutely silent.

For shits and giggles I might make a sound file of my 580, it was louder than the one in the video by atleast 2x. Believe it or not.

 

[RussianSensation]

My 580 ran hot by default, maybe Zotac didn't install the heatsink tight enough on it since when I replaced the stock HSF some of the screws I could hand turn out of the card. The temps I had were 95c in Deux ex HR at "dialogue" scenes where you choose a response, for some reason those screens load a GPU as much as Furmark would before OCP came out. Once a dialogue screen came up the fan would go crazy...no way would 50% fan speed be ok for that 580. A Accelero dropped temps from 95c at load down to 60c though, and its absolutely silent.

For shits and giggles I might make a sound file of my 580, it was louder than the one in the video by atleast 2x. Believe it or not.

That's unfortunate. Good to see that Accelero had such a massive performance drop in temperatures for you. It's too bad that it takes a while for NV partners to start shipping non-reference designed/cooled cards, such as this Galaxy GTX580.

 

[Bryf50]

I've got my 480 set up. I changed the TIM with Tuniq TX-4 and set up a custom fan profile. This thing is an overclocking monster. I've got it set to 840/2200 at a stock voltage of 1.063. I'm still sure I can push it a bit more.

In BF3 it runs at a consistent 80C with the fan around 65-70%. You can hear the fan but it's more then drowned out by the sound of game play. Its also staying between 40-70fps at 1080p, Ultra Settings, 2xMSAA and High Post AA. I'm really happy with it.

For a quick 3dmark comparison I went from P5170 with my 560ti at 930/1100 to P6708 with the 480 at the clocks above. Not bad for the price I'll pay after unloading the ti.

 

[Grooveriding]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIxWOia6bhA

Skip to 1:30.
Gtx 580 fan sound at load. Try watching a movie or playing a game with that shit going on..

Its a SC card in the video, but the SC cards use the stock Nvidia fan. So 0% difference.

This makes me want to post a video giving you guys an example of how my rig sounds under gaming.

I'm not into photography or video though and could only take it with my phone or a small digital camera, I'm not sure how good a feeling it would give for the noise.

I think I will give it a whirl though.

 

[peonyu]

That's unfortunate. Good to see that Accelero had such a massive performance drop in temperatures for you. It's too bad that it takes a while for NV partners to start shipping non-reference designed/cooled cards, such as this Galaxy GTX580.

I already had the Accelero sitting around, but if I didn't I was going to get that. Stock vs that card there is no contest.

Edit- No contest but it has 1 prob - takes 3 slots so Sli is almost impossible unless you have a well spaced board. Its a problem for me in the future when I grab another 580..But still worth it for the zero noise and low temps.

 

[toyota]

I've got my 480 set up. I changed the TIM with Tuniq TX-4 and set up a custom fan profile. This thing is an overclocking monster. I've got it set to 840/2200 at a stock voltage of 1.063. I'm still sure I can push it a bit more.

In BF3 it runs at a consistent 80C with the fan around 65-70%. You can hear the fan but it's more then drowned out by the sound of game play. Its also staying between 40-70fps at 1080p, Ultra Settings, 2xMSAA and High Post AA. I'm really happy with it.

For a quick 3dmark comparison I went from P5170 with my 560ti at 930/1100 to P6708 with the 480 at the clocks above. Not bad for the price I'll pay after unloading the ti.

840 at 1.063 is not all that impressive as for as I know. my gtx570 can do the same thing but its stock voltage is only 1.013 so i have to manually raise it to 1.063. and looking at reviews it seems my gtx570 is about average if not below. your gtx480 is much better built and can handle the higher voltage better though. I am pretty scared to leave my gtx570 at 1.063.

 

[Bryf50]

840 at 1.063 is not all that impressive as for as I know. my gtx570 can do the same thing but its stock voltage is only 1.013 so i have to manually raise it to 1.063. and looking at reviews it seems my gtx570 is about average if not below. your gtx480 is much better built and can handle the higher voltage better though. I am pretty scared to leave my gtx570 at 1.063.

1.063 is how it came so I figure it should be safe. I guess my next step instead of ocing more could be to start lowering the voltage. I haven't played with the voltage at all yet.