Upgrade to 980, or add a third 480?

[SlowSpyder]

Can a 1200 watt power supply run three 480's with an overclocked CPU and other high end parts in a dream machine? I thought those things can chew up 300 watts each by themselves when they are really working?

 

[Grooveriding]

I agree with the idea of this, but the costs associated with water cooling are a little greater than a third GTX 480 or i7 980.

Just a quick run down of what he'd be looking at to water cooler a rig like that:

2x 120.3 radiators (1 for the cpu/mobo, the other for the cards) ~$200
cpu block ~$80
2 GTX 480 block ~$200
motherboard full block (optional) ~$150
2 pumps (either D5 or DDC) ~150
2 reservoirs ~$50-100
fittings ~$100 ($200-300 for compression/rotary fittings)
tubing ~$30
6x 120mm fans ~$30 for Yates, ~$100 for GentleTyphoons

Basically, he's looking at ~$850 just get his foot in the door with a dual loop system for his cpu, mobo, and cards. This doesn't take into account any niceties/bling either. This is a basic setup with standard barb fittings, stock pump tops, and cheap fans. Not to mention that he might need to mod his case or purchase a new one just to fit all this stuff in there.

To make this a good looking water cooled system, I would imagine the total cost would be closer to $1500 just for the cooling alone. If he really wanted to step up to the big leagues of water cooling, along the lines of 4 x 120.3 rads in a Mountain Mods case, he's looking at $2k+ easily.

Someone who is even considering 3-way GTX 480 SLI is not the type of person to settle for a bare bones water cooling rig. That was my problem... I couldn't settle for barbs, I had to have compression fittings. I couldn't settle for a singe loop, I wanted two... Eventually, just had to bail out because I was spending more time/money on the rig itself than actually using the damn thing or playing games. I ended up selling the wc stuff, and buying a second GTX 470. For $300 my rig now is pushing higher FPS in games than it ever did under water with a single GTX 470. Yes, it is clocked lower and is a bit noisier.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from water cooling (it is pretty damn cool), but one really has to be aware that you do water cooling because you can afford it and enjoy tinkering with your rig. You don't do it squeeze more value out of your existing components.

Yar it won't be cheap and will cost the op more than a third 480. I pieced together a water setup for my current rig and found for around $700 I could of done it.

I changed my mind though, as the GPU blocks alone are $100 a piece and they are card specific, which makes them useless when you're done with the cards unless you get lucky and can find a buyer for your cards who also wants the blocks. I always sell my old video cards to buy my new ones, so it stopped making sense.

OP, if you are serious about tri-sli, take your time and look at all the benches, not cherry-picked ones by people who really have no idea what they are talking about. Over a broad base of games tri-sli and quad-sli show large diminishing returns in scaling. Also remember, there are maybe four or five games on the market that can even take advantage of all that power, for everything else two 480s is just fine, even at your resolution.

I have a 30" monitor and can think of a total of three games I've played where I felt more power might of been nice and two of those do not scale well once you add a third card.

Also, you pretty much have to watercool with 3 480s. These cards run really hot and once you sandwich three of them together on air cooling, you're going to get serious heat problems.

Some context for you, I run two of them with a space between them the size of one of the cards so they have air to breath. With my custom fan profile under a gaming load the fans get up to 75%, they're really loud. Even at that fan speed and with the space between them, they can load at around 85C.

When I tested them side by side with the same fan profile, the top card would get to 95C.

If you sandwich three of these things together that middle card and top card are going to cook, you'll see temps of 100 and higher. Air cooling and tri-sli do not really mix, you -could- run your fans at 100%, but it is literally like having three hair driers on high at that point

Awesome power though! Check some other forums for opinions of people who are actually running the setup. The Evga forums have some folks who run 3 or 4. I've never seen any of them not doing it on water, but you could likely get an opinion there of someone actually running them.

I still would of gone water but with the 6870s coming shortly and offering likely a good 35% more speed than the 480, the GPU blocks would of been an even quicker to depreciate investment.

Let us know if you go with 3 and how you like it

 

[Grooveriding]

Can a 1200 watt power supply run three 480's with an overclocked CPU and other high end parts in a dream machine? I thought those things can chew up 300 watts each by themselves when they are really working?

A good quality 1200 watt can run it. The new Corsair AX or the Antec 1200 are used by some people running tri-480s.

 

[tigersty1e]

Just get the 3rd 480.

Life is short and in the grand scheme of things, the extra $450 won't really be noticed, but the fun will be noticed.

If you can do it, do it.

 

[bryanW1995]

Rumor is that it is just a "minor" improvement over the 5xxx series.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/-rumour-ati-southern-islands--hd-6000-a-minor-improvement/9414.html

AMD won't see a big improvement until they launch a new architecture late next year.

Are you running Folding@home or something? I would think a pair of 480's would be plenty. There are rumors of a 485/495 coming. But I doubt we will see any big improvement over the 480 this year.

This is pure fud. nobody has a firm or even soft release date yet of 6870. ignore wreckage, that is the only way he knows how to post.

however, I find myself in the unusual position of recommending nvidia when he doesn't. grab a 3rd gtx 480, you should get better eye candy/fps at 25x16 with it. I wouldn't even consider a 980x, a 4.0 ghz i7 quad (which a 950 will easily do) will do just as well on just about any game that you can imagine playing while you'll see tangible benefits on many, if not most, of your games with the 3rd gtx 480.

edit, after reading grooveridings post it sounds like you should do more research and decide if you want to go on water. aigormorla should be able to help you out in the cases and cooling section as well. I would now rank the choices:
1. stay with 2 cards, keep the extra $450 or so in the bank for another sli/xfire upgrade in a year or so.
2. get the 3rd 480, realizing that you'll probably end up going to water if you do that.
3. get 980x

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Just get the 3rd 480.

Life is short and in the grand scheme of things, the extra $450 won't really be noticed, but the fun will be noticed.

If you can do it, do it.

the extra 480 won't really be noticed either

 

[tigersty1e]

it will in benchmarks and in e-peen.

 

[Rakewell]

There are some really, really great posts here.

Thanks to everyone who contributed- You've all helped me immensely.

I'm not ready to watercool, and while I think tri-sli with 480s would be the bees' knees, The last thing I want is a heat problem. The one I have is already pretty freakin' loud.

I think the best thing to do is keep the system buy the way it is, and bank that money for a GPU upgrade in the next year or two.

I'll run some benches once the machine is up and running.

Thanks again - and cheers.

Rakewell

 

[ace55]

Two 480s is already excessive for a single monitor, even a 30 incher. I would only consider getting three 480s if you have an nvidia surround setup - considering the ancedotal evidence I have heard about poor scaling on the third card in 2d surround, I would only get three if you ran 3d surround.

A 980 won't do anything for games.

In short, you made the right choice.