Which series of NVIDIA GPUs is best for DC?

[petrusbroder]

I am considering of purchasing two GPUs to replace two aging GTX260. I am interested in folding (for the annual Holiday Season Race), and mostly in Primegrid, Seti@Home, WCG and some other new projects (as they come along ...).
The question thus arises:
Which NVIDIA GPUs should I get: GTX560Ti? GTX570? GTX670? GTX680? All these are awailable in Sweden. Are three GTX560Ti better than two GTX670? etc.
GTX590 and GTX690 are out of questions due to pricing, energy use and heat.
The PSU is a 80+ Gold, 750w, and should be good enough for my i7-920 run ning @ 3.15GHz.
The motherboard has three PCI-e slots, so there is sufficient space for two cards.

Appreciate your opinions!

 

[Ken g6]

It really depends on your project. The 570 is better for projects using double-precision floating point. The 670 is slightly better for single-precision floating point and integer math, and uses much less power while doing it.

F@H, probably 670.
Primegrid: sieves, 670; real prime finding like GeneferCUDA, 570.
Milkyway, SETI, many other projects: 570
WCG and other projects: Who knows?

Of course the 580 and 680 are better than the '70s, but their cost generally isn't worthwhile. 560s and lower have an unusual shader arrangement so that they can be as slow as 2/3 the speed of a 570 if it had the same number of shaders. The exception is the 560 Ti 448, which falls right behind the 570, as the 570 falls behind the 580. Confused yet? 😉

I'd probably take three 560 Ti 448s, but not regular 560Tis, over two 670s. Except that three 560 Ti 448s might overload your PSU. 🙁

Edit: Oh, and if Big Kepler ever comes out, it will trump all.

 

[Philippart]

some graphs for einstein http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=9097

 

[VirtualLarry]

Newegg has had GTX480s for ~$200. If you can stand the heat and power consumption, they are probably the best bang for buck as far as computational cards go.

 

[lane42]

Newegg also has a GTX 570 for $199.99 after rebate.

 

[Ken g6]

Newegg has had GTX480s for ~$200.

Newegg also has a GTX 570 for $199.99 after rebate.

Location: Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden

Yeah, I don't think Newegg is going to matter to Peter. That said, if you find a 570 and a 480 for the same price, get the 570. They have the same number of shaders, but the 570 is (a little) faster and cooler.

P.S. Nice post count!

Posts: 11,111

 

[petrusbroder]

Thanks for the input, mates! I'll wait a few days more for more.
BTW, you are right Ken_g6, I can not buy through Newegg, although I use that store for comparisons.
They do ship to Sweden, but customs adds a heft 25% VAT + 5% duty tax on top of the invoice price (incl. shipping!!!) which really hurts.
OTOH: I have a friend in the US who has bought stuff through Newegg for me, opened the boxes and anti-static bags, removed all the extras and only shipped the components in an anonymous box. A few weeks later he shipped the extras in an different (and much smaller package ...). It worked out ok 3 out of 4 times ... the 4th time I had to pay ... YMMV.