CF 6950 or SLI GTX480?

SaViOr-

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hey guys, need some help and advice.

How would Overclocked GTX 480 SLI compare to my Overlocked Crossfire 6950s?
I got offered a straight trade, 2x EVGA GTX480s for my 2x Powercolor 6950s. The GTX480s come with the EVGA high flow bracket for better cooling and are flashed to a voltage unlocked bios for easy overclocking. Runs 825/1650/4000 24/7 with 1.063v and will bench at 875/1750/4100 with 1.125v. I think stock speeds on these are 700/1401/3696.

My cards are OC'd to 880/1380 1.225v for 24/7 & will bench at 925/1425 1.241v.

Keep the 6950s or go with the GTX480s? Another concern I had was if my PSU would even be able to power the 480 SLI setup. Also, I'll be getting 3x 24" monitors in a week or so for Eyefinity/NV Surround if that makes any difference. Games I play are BFBC2, Crysis 2, Brink, Op Flashpoint, Medal of Honor & BF3 when it comes out.

Thanks in advance for any help and/or suggestions. :D
 
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I recommend against this. This trade was offered because your setup is better. Due to superior multi-card scaling the 6950 CF setup should equal the GTX 480 SLI setup. Most importantly it will use much less power and put out less heat and noise.
 
Ask for temps on the gtx480's overclocks, high flow brackets will throw most of the heat out of your allready large case that has good airflow. I think your PSU will be fine, its a good quality model.

The later model gtx480 were not all that bad compared to the first batch that most reviewers recieved, when were the manufactued?

The gtx480's will certainly be faster overclock to overclock.

Tough choice. Do they come with a warranty?
 
I was told that Temps are about 80 - 85C at load at 825/650/4000 depending on ambient temps. I asked about warranty so waiting to hear a reply back
 
Well it comes to down to two things,

1. Do you want to try physx, cuda or 3d? If so change.
2. Are you unhappy with your 6950's? If so change.

If the answer to both questions is no, then there is no point in changing. The only reason I would consider changing is if I was going for 3D.
 
I was told that Temps are about 80 - 85C at load at 825/650/4000 depending on ambient temps. I asked about warranty so waiting to hear a reply back

After some carefull thought, I would say keep the 6950 setup. The positives just don't outweigh the negatives.

Theres is nothing really to be gained by trading, in fact you will lose some money with the shipping.
 
I too recommend the 6950 setup, eyefinitey is the way to go since you are going to be getting 3 monitors soon.

I just picked up a 3rd monitor myself and going to be 2x23, we can be twinsies!

-Rich
 
I would say keep the 6950s. I think eyefinity is better then surround imo. And you can use 3 monitors in dual or single gpu configurations with the 6950s.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys! Really appreciate the help and advice.
Decided to keep the 6950s and enjoy me some Eyefinity action soon :D
 
Well, I was going to say stand pat myself. The 480 wasn't very good overall. It's only claim to fame was it was faster than the 5870. Also, from what I've read in reviews where they've talked about setting up surround, eyefinity is far more refined and easier to get working. The lower power usage and extra RAM are the cherries on the cake.
 
link?

because from what ive seen 480 destroys 6950 in the latest games.

its funny how you people talk out of you @$$

would you agree that a 480 is about equal to a 570?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/11/amd_69706950_cfx_nvidia_580570_sli_review/1

"Memory Patterns
Some of the situations where we were seeing memory capacity bottlenecks were in F1 2010 in the case of the GTX 580 and GTX 570 SLI. Our gameplay testing and our apples-to-apples testing showed that the GTX 580 SLI was not playable at 8X MSAA at 5760x1200, but by dropping it to 4X AA it received a massive performance boost and was playable. The GTX 570 SLI followed the same pattern. F1 2010 seems to be sensitive to memory capacity, and running at 5760x1200 with 8X MSAA is a heavy burden to bare. Both AMD video cards have 2GB of memory per GPU, and both GPUs were more than playable at 8X MSAA with faster performance."

do you think that future games will use more or less memory?
 
8x msaa? thats freaking dum @ triple monitor resolutions.
4xaa is more than enough that you could not tell the difference in real world gaming.

Thats review sucks! Its just to show where the memory would run out.
 
Keep the 6950s, unless you plan on using 3d vision or some other Nvidia feature I don't see the point. From what I've seen sli scaling isn't as impressive as crossfire scaling on 6950. From what I hear eyfinity also scales better than NV's surround.
 
if u want max image quality then the 6950's would win, 480's will be far more power hungry and the extra heat will have to go somewhere.
 
link?

because from what ive seen 480 destroys 6950 in the latest games.

its funny how you people talk out of you @$$

A single GTX 480 is faster than a single 6950, not overwhelmingly faster, however 480 in SLi is not as fast as 6950 in crossfire due to AMD's superior scaling via the 6000 series. That's one side of it, second thing is the OP is getting into eyefinity and will be running 5760x1080 or x1200 OR Portrait 3240x1920 and in that scenario the OP would definitely benefit from the extra vram of the 6950s he so wisely chose to keep.
 
6950's have excellent scaling, and weren't blasted for being hot, flaming disappointments like the 480s where nvidia just hammered super hot, unrefined chips out. The 480's and 470's were nice, when they weren't consuming copious amounts of energy and baking your computer with the heat of the sun... The 500 series is what the 400 series was supposed to be.
 
6950's have excellent scaling, and weren't blasted for being hot, flaming disappointments like the 480s where nvidia just hammered super hot, unrefined chips out. The 480's and 470's were nice, when they weren't consuming copious amounts of energy and baking your computer with the heat of the sun... The 500 series is what the 400 series was supposed to be.

Have you run a GTX570 on a GTX470 cooler? These vapor chamber coolers are what made the difference. If 6970 weren't using one that would be one loud ass card too, as is they run pretty warm.


I've heard good things about the 480 and 470 by actual users. I don't care what the fanboys have to say.
 
Have you run a GTX570 on a GTX470 cooler? These vapor chamber coolers are what made the difference. If 6970 weren't using one that would be one loud ass card too, as is they run pretty warm.


I've heard good things about the 480 and 470 by actual users. I don't care what the fanboys have to say.

Have issues with differences of opinion, eh.
 
Trading down a down a generation doesn't seem ideal to me even though the GTX 570 = GTX 480.

The 570 does run a lot cooler I can tell because I have used both, but settled with GTX 570 SLI seeing I was able to pawn off my 480 for a good price.
 
Unless you watercool, the 6950s are going to be cooler, quieter, and use much less power than the 480s.

I've had 480s,580s,and 6950s.............the 6950 in CF is by far the better choice unless you want to run nvidia surround.
 
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Have you run a GTX570 on a GTX470 cooler? These vapor chamber coolers are what made the difference. If 6970 weren't using one that would be one loud ass card too, as is they run pretty warm.


I've heard good things about the 480 and 470 by actual users. I don't care what the fanboys have to say.
I didn't write what I did on "fanboy" opinions, I went back and double checked the first reviews [H]ardOCP made of the 470 and 480. They fall pretty much in line with exactly what I said. I can copy/paste if you so wish me to.
 
This is prolly completly pointless but im pretty happy with my 480 and since i already have one i plan to get two more under water for surround gaming hopefully it will do good altho idk if i should switch to a newer gen card with ati...
 
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