Impressions from a 5870 to GTX 480

B

BM00

Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2004
Messages
681
As great as it is to have website reviews and random user feedback, there's just no replacing a hands on self review, right? 5870 @ 950/1300 vs GTX 480 @ 775/1550/2000

Firstly, the fan noise is tremendously overblown. I actually prefer the woosh of the 480s fan at high speeds (anywhere from 70-100 is what I consider high speed on this card) vs the 5870. Even at idle, the fan speed of 44-55% is as silent as a 20% 5870 setting. BUT, what wasn't "tremendously overblown" is the fact that this card runs hot. Idle temps are 6-8c higher than the 5870: around 50c. When running games such as crysis warhead, GTA IV EFLC, Battlefield BC2, Just Cause 2, the card hovers around 80-96c. Once the card is overclocked to 775/1550/2000 it never drops below 90c when gaming. The 5870 either left on AUTO or with a manaul speed of 50% or so never went higher than 75c.

The only game this card runs better is GTA IV (probably due to ATI drivers), Crysis warhead with a custom dx9 autoexec runs about the same. Just Cause 2 seemed to run worse but I was also using the new filter+CUDA water tweak, hmmm. The big strange questionmark exclimation point is Battlefield BC2 -- I've tried both the WHQL and the new beta drivers but no graphics setting will make the game run smooth. DX10 / DX11, it's just choppy and drops down into the 30s-55s rarely staying at a solid 60 like the 5870 easily does. If I can't figure out the issue soon, hairs will be pulled and moods will be fouled.

Anyhow, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to give nvidia a chance to release some better drivers... or just return the card with this good days trial. The heat could honestly almost be the deal breaker to me. Summer in Texas is no joke unfortunately. Wattage is definitely higher (around 10-15w more at idle and over 80-100w during load).
 
The latest BC2 patch drops NVIDIA perf about 30%... and no obvious changes were made to cause that. So it's a game bug somehow. I'm sure it will be resolved.
 
Does anybody has screen flickering issues? I have a HDMI to DVI cable connected to my GTX 480 here on my 32" screen, this has never happened with the previous cards I had so it must be driver issues.
 
I haven't noticed any drops in performance with my 480 after the last big patch in bc2 other than the game and its controls completely sucking which has nothing to do with graphics performance of course.
 
Maybe triple buffering isnt working ? Try riva tuner but only install it. You dont have to run it. The item of interest is the d3doverider.exe that comes with it in the tools directory. Sounds like your frame rate drops might be double buffering causing the rate from 60 to 30 if it drops below 60. Wont hurt to try.
 
My brother has a GTX 480 SLI and really likes it, aside from the blast furnace effect. He removed the side panel of his case to help cooling. I'm getting a second 5870 in a few weeks. We'll run some 5870 CF vs. GTX 480 SLI comparisons.
 
turdhat said:
Maybe triple buffering isnt working ? Try riva tuner but only install it. You dont have to run it. The item of interest is the d3doverider.exe that comes with it in the tools directory. Sounds like your frame rate drops might be double buffering causing the rate from 60 to 30 if it drops below 60. Wont hurt to try.
Click to expand...

I use d3doverrider already (without riva installed), the frames are still choppy in that game oddly enough. Appreciate the suggestion nonetheless.
 
Out of curiosity, why did you get the 480 if you already had a 5870? Just for benchmarks? Most of my nvidia using friends noticed improvements with last week's new drivers in gta4 performance so they definitely tweaked that a bit.
 
For JC2, the GTX 480 does indeed run slower than a 5870 even without the GPU water / bokeh filter. Either way though, it's perfectly playable on a GTX 480 at max settings with the extra eye candy. AMD right now is having issues with xfire scaling in JC2, I have 2x 5870's right now and in eyefinity I only see about 120-125% scaling. GTX 480 sli seems to tear apart JC2 which is looking good for nvidia surround.

The thing about the 5870 fan vs. the GTX 480 one is that my 5870's never go higher than 30% fan speed while maintaining temps in the 70's. My roommate's GTX 480 will routinely go 70% just to keep temps at 90 C... which ends up being pretty loud.
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
Out of curiosity, why did you get the 480 if you already had a 5870? Just for benchmarks? Most of my nvidia using friends noticed improvements with last week's new drivers in gta4 performance so they definitely tweaked that a bit.
Click to expand...

To tell you the truth, it was so I could play GTA IV EFLC and see just how much better this card was supposed to be. It's definitely not for benchmarks -- as it seems to tie or lose to the 5870 at my settings. I'll probably just keep the 5870 if the next nvidia driver doesn't fix the BFBC2 issue for dx11 and performance.
 
BM00 said:
As great as it is to have website reviews and random user feedback, there's just no replacing a hands on self review, right? 5870 @ 950/1300 vs GTX 480 @ 775/1550/2000

Firstly, the fan noise is tremendously overblown. I actually prefer the woosh of the 480s fan at high speeds (anywhere from 70-100 is what I consider high speed on this card) vs the 5870. Even at idle, the fan speed of 44-55% is as silent as a 20% 5870 setting. BUT, what wasn't "tremendously overblown" is the fact that this card runs hot. Idle temps are 6-8c higher than the 5870: around 50c. When running games such as crysis warhead, GTA IV EFLC, Battlefield BC2, Just Cause 2, the card hovers around 80-96c. Once the card is overclocked to 775/1550/2000 it never drops below 90c when gaming. The 5870 either left on AUTO or with a manaul speed of 50% or so never went higher than 75c.

The only game this card runs better is GTA IV (probably due to ATI drivers), Crysis warhead with a custom dx9 autoexec runs about the same. Just Cause 2 seemed to run worse but I was also using the new filter+CUDA water tweak, hmmm. The big strange questionmark exclimation point is Battlefield BC2 -- I've tried both the WHQL and the new beta drivers but no graphics setting will make the game run smooth. DX10 / DX11, it's just choppy and drops down into the 30s-55s rarely staying at a solid 60 like the 5870 easily does. If I can't figure out the issue soon, hairs will be pulled and moods will be fouled.

Anyhow, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to give nvidia a chance to release some better drivers... or just return the card with this good days trial. The heat could honestly almost be the deal breaker to me. Summer in Texas is no joke unfortunately. Wattage is definitely higher (around 10-15w more at idle and over 80-100w during load).
Click to expand...

I went from a 1Ghz / 1.3Ghz HD5807 to 800/1600/2000 GTX 480 and I have to agree. BF BC2 just sucks on this card, even when its running with high FPS its got a stutter or hitch to it that is just annoying. I'm water cooling so heat and noise don't really matter but the overall game experience with the GTX 480 is alot less pleasant than with the HD5870. I already sold my HD5870 so there is no easy going back for me, but I am considering buying another HD5870 and selling this...

I hate giving them time to work on drivers, this should be done before the card is in the publics' hands. So many sites reviews games but never actually sit down and play them. I want to know about how the game plays not just the numbers. Reviews really mean nothing anymore to me, I've owned all the GX2 cards and the gaming experience was the worst ever. Dual cards / micro stutter / and me don't mix. But no one even talks about that, just the raw benchmark numbers.

The GTX 480 in Vantage at 875 core just smoked the hell outta my HD5870 but seriously I can't even play BF BC2 anymore I get so angry at how bad it plays now. On the other hand GTA EFLC went from 42 FPS to 67 FPS using the settings I play at. So the GTX 480 does have it's high points too. I may wait till the 256 driver then decide. I just want a smooth gaming experience, I don't care about a few extra FPS.

I found Far Cry 2 with the GTX 480 to be alot faster, in fact my minimums now were my avg with the 5870.
Also, if you disable the extra nvidia crap in Just Cause 2, its faster on the GTX 480 too. At least according to the ingame benchmark.

Funny - you and I have the same motherboard... wonder if its something with the P55 chipset...
 
Last edited:
BlueStorm said:
The latest BC2 patch drops NVIDIA perf about 30%... and no obvious changes were made to cause that. So it's a game bug somehow. I'm sure it will be resolved.
Click to expand...

This is DICE we are talking about - I doubt it.
 
First, you're overclocking the 5870 more than the 480. Most 480s should hit 800-820 on stock volts and 850-870 overvolted and so far they seem a lot more consistent than 5870 (mine needed a voltage bump just to hit 875).

Second, you could lower your temps a lot just with a case fan blowing on the heatpipes. You should also have a manual fan profile. No reason for the card to be 90c+, mine never even hit that in sli at much higher clocks than yours.

Third, the GTX 480 prolly wasn't the best choice for your situation. The 5870 is perfectly fine for 1920. If you want to play at 2560 with AA on, that's where the GTX 480 shines, and then mainly in SLI. (5XXX series multigpu sucks ass at 2560 with AA, trust me).

As for your gaming experiences, it's hard to comment since you're only using one card. But 2x GTX 480 OCed absolutely raped 5870+5970 trifire OCed at my settings. In terms of average framerates, who knows, but the play experience is much much smoother even with higher settings. I could even play GTA IV (not eflc) at 2560 with every single slider and setting maxed under the new patch that adds more intensive shadows. If I were in your shoes though, looking for a setup to play at 1920, the 5870 is fine or a 5970 is good too. I tried 5970 by itself at 1920 for a while before I got my new monitor and I liked it, but the 1GB 5XXX series just doesn't have enough memory to compete at 2560. GTA IV maxed uses over 1400mb and I've seen several other games use over 1GB.

Oh, and battlefield 2 runs like shit which is a source of much angst. It was running great when I first got my 480s but that patch ruined it. Hopefully it gets fixed...I tend to blame dice more than nvidia though.
 
I have the same problem in BC2 with my 470 and it seems the game is only using 40-50% of the GPU, with a 5870 it was always above 90%. Use Afterburner and monitor your GPU usage, I bet it will be absurdly low. I don't know if its a bug in the drivers or a bug in the game, but I've changed every setting possible and nothing has fixed it.
 
dnottis5 said:
Also, if you disable the extra nvidia crap in Just Cause 2, its faster on the GTX 480 too. At least according to the ingame benchmark.
Click to expand...

[H] already debunked this, JC2 gameplay runs slower on the GTX 480, period.
 
dook43 said:
[H] already debunked this, JC2 gameplay runs slower on the GTX 480, period.
Click to expand...

Not for me..and I actually own one :) I ran the ingame benchmarks with the same settings after I swapped cards. I got an avg of ~20 FPS more on each in game benchmark. Same exact settings. Period.

I think the problem is all these reviews used near stock CPUs (Intel Core i7 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz) which bottlenecked the GPUs. On a 4.2 Ghz I7 the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. [H] needs to run some CPU scaling tests with the HD5870 and GTX 480. 'Jus sayin'
 
dnottis said:
Not for me..and I actually own one :) I ran the ingame benchmarks with the same settings after I swapped cards. I got an avg of ~20 FPS more on each in game benchmark. Same exact settings. Period.
Click to expand...

It's not just [H]. Look at the tom's review they just did of GTX 480 tri-sli. The GTX 480 is plain slower as a single card but shines in multi-gpu. Crossfire scaling just fails past 1920 for some reason in that game.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
It's not just [H]. Look at the tom's review they just did of GTX 480 tri-sli. The GTX 480 is plain slower as a single card but shines in multi-gpu. Crossfire scaling just fails past 1920 for some reason in that game.
Click to expand...

Again, they are using a stock CPU. And their single card results are almost identical.
 
dnottis said:
Again, they are using a stock CPU. And their single card results are almost identical.
Click to expand...

You think a stock i7 is going to bottleneck at 2560x1600 with 4xAA ?

The 5870 was faster by over 10% at that setting, I'd hardly call it 'identical'. I also doubt OCing the i7 will give the GTX 480 over 25 fps at that kind of resolution. Just makes no sense.

I'm just referring to the OP's observation that the GTX 480 seems to be slower in JC2 as a normal thing. The fact that your 5870 ran slower is definitely not normal and you probably did something wrong with the 5870 or had different settings when benching the two cards.
 
dnottis said:
Not for me..and I actually own one :) I ran the ingame benchmarks with the same settings after I swapped cards. I got an avg of ~20 FPS more on each in game benchmark. Same exact settings. Period.

I think the problem is all these reviews used near stock CPUs (Intel Core i7 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz) which bottlenecked the GPUs. On a 4.2 Ghz I7 the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. [H] needs to run some CPU scaling tests with the HD5870 and GTX 480. 'Jus sayin'
Click to expand...

Canned benchmark vs. in game tests.
 
dnottis said:
Not for me..and I actually own one :) I ran the ingame benchmarks with the same settings after I swapped cards. I got an avg of ~20 FPS more on each in game benchmark. Same exact settings. Period.

I think the problem is all these reviews used near stock CPUs (Intel Core i7 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz) which bottlenecked the GPUs. On a 4.2 Ghz I7 the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. [H] needs to run some CPU scaling tests with the HD5870 and GTX 480. 'Jus sayin'
Click to expand...


sorry to say, I came from 5870 as well.

the performance in BC2 is a bit noticeable decrease while swapping between them.

and for most game, there is no performance increase that is noticeable enough beside under higher level of AA setting, which 5870 are likely to be running out of VRAM that causes the stutter..

there is no way you are getting 20fps more on avg, unless you are running some canned benchmark..
 
I find it funny how all the people arguing with me DON'T EVEN OWN GTX 480s. Well whatever you believe is fine with me, but my experience with both cards the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. Maybe it's because I'm still running a 22" monitor at 1680x1050 resolution. We've seen the reviews where at 2560 with AA on, the GTX 480 does have issues.
 
shansoft said:
sorry to say, I came from 5870 as well.

the performance in BC2 is a bit noticeable decrease while swapping between them.

and for most game, there is no performance increase that is noticeable enough beside under higher level of AA setting, which 5870 are likely to be running out of VRAM that causes the stutter..

there is no way you are getting 20fps more on avg, unless you are running some canned benchmark..
Click to expand...

If you've run Fraps during BF BC2 though its not even the performance. Today I was playing online, was running about 110 FPS came into an area where it jumped to 160 FPS but felt like 15 FPS suddenly. Its not even a performance issue though, its just the lack of "smoothness while playing BF BC2". (1680x1050, DX10, 4xAA, 8xAF, everything else at max.)

I enabled vsync which seems to help but then introduces input lag and drives me nuts. The new BF BC2 patch should be out next week, hoping it fixes this issue.
 
dnottis said:
I find it funny how all the people arguing with me DON'T EVEN OWN GTX 480s. Well whatever you believe is fine with me, but my experience with both cards the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. Maybe it's because I'm still running a 22" monitor at 1680x1050 resolution. We've seen the reviews where at 2560 with AA on, the GTX 480 does have issues.
Click to expand...

Not saying your canned benchmarks are wrong at all, I'm just saying I trust the in game testing methodology that [H] used on their review.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Not saying your canned benchmarks are wrong at all, I'm just saying I trust the in game testing methodology that [H] used on their review.
Click to expand...

Regardless, Just Cause 2 is one game. The issue with BF BC2 is extremely annoying right now and I'm hoping it gets fixed. Let's get this thread back on track in regards to the OP posting his thoughts.

I'm still on the fence with this card though - wish I would've hung onto my HD5870 a little longer.
 
dnottis said:
I find it funny how all the people arguing with me DON'T EVEN OWN GTX 480s. Well whatever you believe is fine with me, but my experience with both cards the GTX 480 is faster in Just Cause 2. Maybe it's because I'm still running a 22" monitor at 1680x1050 resolution. We've seen the reviews where at 2560 with AA on, the GTX 480 does have issues.
Click to expand...

I play at 5262 x 1050 :rolleyes:

If I were still playing at 1680x1050, I'd still be running a 1GB 4870. It's absolutely useless to have $500 worth of cards for that res
 
Not sure what the issue with BFBC2 is as I run mine under the extra load of 3D Vision and it is all butter smooth... interesting.
 
dook43 said:
I play at 5262 x 1050 :rolleyes:

If I were still playing at 1680x1050, I'd still be running a 1GB 4870. It's absolutely useless to have $500 worth of cards for that res
Click to expand...

Wrong. I can run 8xAA/16AF on just about any game and still get great FPS. If my CPU wasn't an i7 @ 4.2Ghz you might be right. I had a 4870 a few generations ago. Could barely handle 1680x1050 with 4x AA with a decent framerate.
 
dnottis said:
Wrong. I can run 8xAA/16AF on just about any game and still get great FPS. If my CPU wasn't an i7 @ 4.2Ghz you might be right. I had a 4870 a few generations ago. Could barely handle 1680x1050 with 4x AA with a decent framerate.
Click to expand...

HMM 4870 easily handeled 1680x1050 res. No offense but I think there must be some other limiting factor in your system. I had a 4870 and almost ran everygame other then crysis, it ran that at high but not very high, and all this at 1920x1080.
 
NKD said:
HMM 4870 easily handeled 1680x1050 res. No offense but I think there must be some other limiting factor in your system. I had a 4870 and almost ran everygame other then crysis, it ran that at high but not very high, and all this at 1920x1080.
Click to expand...

LOL I went from HD4870 to GTX 260 to GTX 280 to HD5870 to a GTX 480. So the 4870 was like 4 upgrades ago...that was a long time ago in PC hardware years.

In any case a 4870 isn't enough GPU for me. it wasn't then either.
 
dnottis said:
I went from a 1Ghz / 1.3Ghz HD5807 to 800/1600/2000 GTX 480 and I have to agree. BF BC2 just sucks on this card, even when its running with high FPS its got a stutter or hitch to it that is just annoying. I'm water cooling so heat and noise don't really matter but the overall game experience with the GTX 480 is alot less pleasant than with the HD5870. I already sold my HD5870 so there is no easy going back for me, but I am considering buying another HD5870 and selling this...

I hate giving them time to work on drivers, this should be done before the card is in the publics' hands. So many sites reviews games but never actually sit down and play them. I want to know about how the game plays not just the numbers. Reviews really mean nothing anymore to me, I've owned all the GX2 cards and the gaming experience was the worst ever. Dual cards / micro stutter / and me don't mix. But no one even talks about that, just the raw benchmark numbers.

The GTX 480 in Vantage at 875 core just smoked the hell outta my HD5870 but seriously I can't even play BF BC2 anymore I get so angry at how bad it plays now. On the other hand GTA EFLC went from 42 FPS to 67 FPS using the settings I play at. So the GTX 480 does have it's high points too. I may wait till the 256 driver then decide. I just want a smooth gaming experience, I don't care about a few extra FPS.

I found Far Cry 2 with the GTX 480 to be alot faster, in fact my minimums now were my avg with the 5870.
Also, if you disable the extra nvidia crap in Just Cause 2, its faster on the GTX 480 too. At least according to the ingame benchmark.

Funny - you and I have the same motherboard... wonder if its something with the P55 chipset...
Click to expand...

Yeah, the BFBC2 performance really took the steam out of my expectations right away. This is the MP game I'm focused on right now and for drivers to be in such as state -- ESPECIALLY coming from the company that's supposed to have "better" drivers than ATI... has me confused. I just hope it doesn't take them a month to fix the dx11 loading issue. GTA IV runs great, no need to use a commandline.txt to fix stuttering and pop-ins like I was used to on the 5870 (latest patch - previous ones were fine) I think Just Cause 2 honestly runs better on the 5870 at this moment, I bet with some new drivers things could change; however my hopes aren't too high as even the 5870 was already running games great with release catalyst versions.

anonmoniker said:
First, you're overclocking the 5870 more than the 480. Most 480s should hit 800-820 on stock volts and 850-870 overvolted and so far they seem a lot more consistent than 5870 (mine needed a voltage bump just to hit 875).

Second, you could lower your temps a lot just with a case fan blowing on the heatpipes. You should also have a manual fan profile. No reason for the card to be 90c+, mine never even hit that in sli at much higher clocks than yours.

Third, the GTX 480 prolly wasn't the best choice for your situation. The 5870 is perfectly fine for 1920. If you want to play at 2560 with AA on, that's where the GTX 480 shines, and then mainly in SLI. (5XXX series multigpu sucks ass at 2560 with AA, trust me).

As for your gaming experiences, it's hard to comment since you're only using one card. But 2x GTX 480 OCed absolutely raped 5870+5970 trifire OCed at my settings. In terms of average framerates, who knows, but the play experience is much much smoother even with higher settings. I could even play GTA IV (not eflc) at 2560 with every single slider and setting maxed under the new patch that adds more intensive shadows. If I were in your shoes though, looking for a setup to play at 1920, the 5870 is fine or a 5970 is good too. I tried 5970 by itself at 1920 for a while before I got my new monitor and I liked it, but the 1GB 5XXX series just doesn't have enough memory to compete at 2560. GTA IV maxed uses over 1400mb and I've seen several other games use over 1GB.

Oh, and battlefield 2 runs like shit which is a source of much angst. It was running great when I first got my 480s but that patch ruined it. Hopefully it gets fixed...I tend to blame dice more than nvidia though.
Click to expand...


By adding another 120mm intake fan (low rpm noctua), the idle temps have dropped from 50c - 44-46c. I didn't run the 5870 with these conditions but I'm sure the idle temp would have dropped just as much if not more. One of my main concerns is how quiet and cool my system runs - while having a high and seemless performance in any task. The 5870 fits my needs better than the 480 right now.

As for the overclock on both cards, I think it was fair to judge game performance with these settings. I tried 800/1600/2000 but Just Cause 2 was displaying some odd lines, I think it worked fine in all other games - including vantage/3dmark06. Not interested in tweaking the vcore for another frame or 2 as things are already too hot. 775/1550 is a decent compromise. I agree about the 5870 probably meeting my needs more, I just wanted to get a better understanding of what the two top single GPU cards bring to the table. I guess my findings aren't that different than most of the reviews out there save for the fan noise and overall gaming experience. Those will always be subjective.


I'm really underwhelmed thus far. I guess if I was going to run a super high res and need 32xAA or use 3dvision it might be more of an incentive to keep the GTX 480; but unfortunately (or fortunately haha) as of right now, the entire experience is just much more solid with the 5870. I've 30 days to return this back to Fry's so hopefully within that time frame either nvidia gets the act together with some drivers that fix all the odd performance issues or I put the 5870 back in.
 
dnottis said:
Wrong. I can run 8xAA/16AF on just about any game and still get great FPS. If my CPU wasn't an i7 @ 4.2Ghz you might be right. I had a 4870 a few generations ago. Could barely handle 1680x1050 with 4x AA with a decent framerate.
Click to expand...

I don't run any AA, and you didn't say if you had a 512 or 1GB 4870 which of course makes a difference. AA kills performance for almost no benefit on such high PPI monitors, IMO of course.
 
BM00 said:
I've 30 days to return this back to Fry's so hopefully within that time frame either nvidia gets the act together with some drivers that fix all the odd performance issues or I put the 5870 back in.
Click to expand...

According to Nvidias forums, they are shooting to release 256 driver later this month. I can't be expected to give Nvidia 9 months to catch up, they should've had their shit together sooner imo.
 
I remember when I was using a few different GTX 285s over the span of a few months -- nvidia was knocking out betas and WHQL drivers on what seemed like a weekly basis. I really hope some kind of "big-bang'esque" type driver patckage comes out soon that shifts the planet's axis the performance is so great. That's quite possibly what it's going to take for me to keep the card
 
BM00 said:
As great as it is to have website reviews and random user feedback, there's just no replacing a hands on self review, right? 5870 @ 950/1300 vs GTX 480 @ 775/1550/2000
Click to expand...

When they are both overclocked to such high speeds, they're both gonna be pretty noisy.

Firstly, the fan noise is tremendously overblown. I actually prefer the woosh of the 480s fan at high speeds (anywhere from 70-100 is what I consider high speed on this card) vs the 5870. Even at idle, the fan speed of 44-55% is as silent as a 20% 5870 setting. BUT, what wasn't "tremendously overblown" is the fact that this card runs hot. Idle temps are 6-8c higher than the 5870: around 50c. When running games such as crysis warhead, GTA IV EFLC, Battlefield BC2, Just Cause 2, the card hovers around 80-96c. Once the card is overclocked to 775/1550/2000 it never drops below 90c when gaming. The 5870 either left on AUTO or with a manaul speed of 50% or so never went higher than 75c.
Click to expand...

I think the 480 fan definitely produces more noise because it uses a high CFM delta fan. Fortunately, there is no high pitched fan whine, so it's not really aggravating, it's just NOTICEABLY loud.
PS I can tell you only have a single monitor hooked up to your GTX 480, because idle temps jump by 20C+ by just hooking up a second monitor, even at idle. I find that very unfortunate.
PPS I just hooked up a different monitor to each video card and my idle temps dropped by 5-10c! 73c on gpu1 and 75c on gpu2 right now. Very interesting. Weird but this could work. ^_^
PPPS My idle temps rose back to 72/80. Looks like I spoke too soon! :(

Anyhow, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to give nvidia a chance to release some better drivers... or just return the card with this good days trial. The heat could honestly almost be the deal breaker to me. Summer in Texas is no joke unfortunately. Wattage is definitely higher (around 10-15w more at idle and over 80-100w during load).
Click to expand...

It definitely heats up my room. I have to leave the door and window open. It gets very toasty after operating for a while, particularly after an intense gaming session of Just Cause 2.
I added 2x 120mm fans to my case just to increase positive pressure for these Fermis, a 120mm front intake fan, Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 rpm, and the slim line 120mm scythe slipstream fan that came with the kama bay plus is now serving duty as the bottom intake fan on the HAF 932.
So 4x intake fans (230mm front, 230mm side, 120mm front, 120mm bottom) and 2 exhaust fans (230mm top, 120mm back).
 
Last edited:
Interesting results. I'd say there's little in it with the performance especially with the high overclocking you can do with most 5870 cores. BC2 performance could be a bug, they're actually a lot better at patching in BC2 than they ever were with BF2 so if it's something obvious/significant I'd keep an eye out for fixes.
 
shaolin95 said:
Not sure what the issue with BFBC2 is as I run mine under the extra load of 3D Vision and it is all butter smooth... interesting.
Click to expand...

+1. No issues with performance between last patch and current patch at all on my 480.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top