Any 5XXX owners SERIOUSLY secretly contemplating selling their cards for Fermi?

[GoldenTiger]

Thanks !

I'm also no forgeting that I save money each month with the 5850.

I don't need a new power supply.

I don't need more cooling which uses more power.

Depending on how much i game in a month I can most likely save $10 or so a month by keeping the 5850. I keep my pc on all the time. I normaly have blurays burning (home video 1080p edited with effects and what not ) when i go to sleep or leave the house and I have torrents going to (legal stuff)

Thats $120 bucks a year. I only plan on running these cards for a year. But assuming $260 vs $350 + $100 is going to be an easy win in my book

Idle power draw is about 75w different from your 5850 at load to go to a GTX 470, as an example (source below). Let's pretend you don't even encode, so your system is *ALWAYS* at idle when not playing a game. In fact you are stating that it is often at partial load, but let's just ignore that and give a less favorable scenario here for how much it would cost you.

Let's say you have an average household electric rate of $0.15 (15 cents) per kwH (kilowatt hour). Let's also say you don't have a job, and game at a rate of 10 hours per day to keep the card at high load, every day, for an entire year (highly unlikely but let's pretend here).

That is a difference of $41.06 on your electric bill for the year.

Let's place a more average scenario of a heavy gamer playing on average of 4 hours a night after work: $16.43 for the year. This is *every... single... day... without fail...* as well.

From firingsquad.

You literally cannot even construct a scenario that even under 24/7 gaming by a zombie who cannot sleep, go to the bathroom, or eat, can rack up a $120 difference at the average household rate. Some may be higher, some may be lower ($0.10/kwH through around $0.20/kwH is typical). In fact, you'd barely manage it with this imaginary situation,

 

[siliconnerd]

Most reviews are using Furmark to load the video cards. This means the cpu isn't even being touched. My i7-860 overclocked to 3.7 GHz pulls 160w MORE loaded with prime95 than idling. Add this to the loaded power results sites are showing and even a 600w power supply wouldn't be enough. If you are overclocking a quad with a 480, I wouldn't look at anything less than a 700w unit.

 

[BravO)))]

Blastingcap, please read up on PSU's before spreading 100% misinformation about power draw and requirements of PC's. You're doing the community at large a disservice by posting about it with a very incomplete understanding. I sincerely hope no one goes off without doing their due diligence on research from your misinformation here, regardless of what card they may be choosing to buy.



I can link a graph too, if you want to do a one-game comparison. To think, people claim my linking entire full reviews with apples-to-apples comparisons is cherry-picking...

Here, have one at 1920x1200

or have another at 2560x1600

(Firingsquad)

Nvidia claims there's a driver bug as far as 2560x1600 goes... but even if that's 100% PR FUD, you can hardly claim you're going to notice a 3-fps difference at 2560x1600. The graph you linked uses different settings (2x transparency multisampling, vs. 8x plain without multisampling from the looks of it) so it isn't really directly comparable in my opinion.

I am just pointing out you said 30% or so difference in a game such as dirt 2, but yet I do not see it... Plus the fact you are going from a 5870 to a 470. If physx are that important to you, couldn't you have used your 9800gt with the 5870 for that. I am running a gt 240 with my 5850 and the only game that supports physx I have I don't even play it.

 

[ultimateuber]

The asking price for Fermi is too high to warrant a switch from my 5870 any time soon. Fermi also has much greater power consumption and produces more heat.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Most reviews are using Furmark to load the video cards. This means the cpu isn't even being touched. My i7-860 overclocked to 3.7 GHz pulls 160w MORE loaded with prime95 than idling. Add this to the loaded power results sites are showing and even a 600w power supply wouldn't be enough. If you are overclocking a quad with a 480, I wouldn't look at anything less than a 700w unit.

The links I gave use a variety of ways to load, but here's one that states it uses 3dmark looping (which stresses CPU *and* GPU fully) to test power draw:

HardwareCanucks:

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption.

This eliminates the possibility as you are stating hypothetically.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I am just pointing out you said 30% or so difference in a game such as dirt 2, but yet I do not see it... Plus the fact you are going from a 5870 to a 470. If physx are that important to you, couldn't you have used your 9800gt with the 5870 for that. I am running a gt 240 with my 5850 and the only game that supports physx I have I don't even play it.

You're right, my in-head math was wrong: it's only around 24% on the minimum FPS there, and 23% on the average.

 

[BravO)))]

You're right, my in-head math was wrong: it's only around 24% on the minimum FPS there, and 23% on the average.

But that is on just one review (many other reviews disagree with that statement), and at those frame rates you will not be able to tell the difference in which card you are playing with.

 

[GoldenTiger]

But that is on just one review (many other reviews disagree with that statement), and at those frame rates you will not be able to tell the difference in which card you are playing with.

I actually agree with that point which is why I changed my order from the 480 to the 470. I have found my results usually match up pretty well with HWC's when I actually pop a new card into my system, which is why I am putting so much weight on their results.

 

[Arvig]

No. My plan was this: 1) If Fermi was a 5870 killer, then get 1 or 2 GTX 480, put that in my main PC, move the 5870's to my spare. 2) If Fermi was about the same amount of power per dollar, then probably not get one, wait until end of the year and see what both ATI & Nvidia has then, and decide if I want to upgrade or not. Since "2" seems to be the fact based on everything I've seen, the no.

As an aside, for everyone saying "Oh, wait for drivers to mature"..okay fine. Let's say that takes 3 months. 3 to 6 months after that, ATI and if Nvidia goes back on schedule Nvidia will more likely then not have the next generation of cards out, or at least a major refresh. By the time the drivers are "mature", the next cards are almost out. Sure, there's the arguement that anything electronic is "outdated" the minute you buy it, but unless one just needs an upgrade now, I just can't see getting a Fermi based card now.

But, I'm also not a fanboy of either brand and I think it's silly to be a fanboy to a piece of electronics. So if a hypothetical GTX 485 or 495 ends up mauling anything ATI can put out, (and if ATI falls behind schedule some so that the 68xx series is a bit late given how late Fermi was) then hey, maybe I would get one. And again I'll look at the next generation after Fermi too. And to be fair, maybe a better driver for Fermi is just around the corner too instead of maybe 3 months or so down the road, if that hypothetical driver wipes an ATI 5870 using Catalyst 10.3, then I'd actually start considering Fermi some again.

But the short answer, way it sits now...no.

 

[blastingcap]

Blastingcap, please read up on PSU's before spreading 100% misinformation about power draw and requirements of PC's. You're doing the community at large a disservice by posting about it with a very incomplete understanding. I sincerely hope no one goes off without doing their due diligence on research from your misinformation here, regardless of what card they may be choosing to buy.

What the hell are you smoking? I linked to 3 reviews all showing that GTX 480 draws close to 300 watts at stock clock at gaming load, up to 320 watts on Furmark. What have YOU got?

You are way out of your element in saying, without a shred of evidence, that you can run a GTX 480 on a 500 watt power supply with no ill effects, and then saying that I, rather than you, are spreading misinformation. I've supplied review data. You've supplied hot air.

I work in the utilities industry by the way. Your hypothetical about electric rates is not a bad first stab, but it's also incomplete because of tiering structures that are commonplace around the country. For instance, in PG&E's service territory there are 5 tiers of rates and only the first tier is ~12 cents/kWh, it keeps going up if you go beyond certain electricity consumption thresholds. If you are at Tier 1 you will pay relatively little, but once you hit Tier 3 or higher you are paying through the nose (more than just the 20 cents/kWh you think is the worst case scenario, closer to 40+ cents/kWh), and lots of people get into those tiers in hot parts of the state due to all the air conditioning. Plus some people care about greenhouse gases and other bad effects, not just their bills.

Also, PSUs are not 100% efficient.

There is also the SECONDARY effect of high power: high heat. If you are using 300 watts to run a GTX 480, that's the direct power cost, but if you are running air conditioning on top of that, your air conditioning will cost extra due to all the heat the GTX 480 is adding. Conversely, during wintertime GTX 480's 95 degree Celsius thermals would make a nice space heater and tend to lower heating bills.

pasta said he runs his computer 24/7 so the appropriate comparison is between idle wattage which isn't nearly as bad but still worse for the GTX 480 than the HD series, plus adding in an extra factor depending on gaming load. If he's folding, then Fermi would presumably be sucking load-level wattage instead of idle.

Edited to add: PG&E actually got some news coverage for proposed electric tiering changes, for anyone who is interested. Top tier is about 50 cents per kWh. http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14753554 Some states do not have tiering, so ymmv, etc.

 

[GoldenTiger]

What the hell are you smoking? I linked to 3 reviews all showing that GTX 480 draws close to 300 watts at stock clock at gaming load, up to 320 watts on Furmark. What have YOU got?

You are way out of your element in saying, without a shred of evidence, that you can run a GTX 480 on a 500 watt power supply with no ill effects, and then saying that I, rather than you, are spreading misinformation. I've supplied review data. You've supplied hot air.

Also, PSUs are not 100% efficient so a 300 watt draw actually means more than 300 watt draw at the wall.

I showed reviews showing whole-system power draws. These whole-system power draws in all the charts you and I have linked, are measured at the wall, and as you just said, PSU's aren't 100% efficient. PSU's *ARE* rated for *internal* power draw. Thus, a system pulling 450 watts at the wall like these reviews show, is only demanding around 80% of that inside the system against the PSU's rating. I already showed the math on that, but it comes out to around 360watts. That would leave a very comfortable margin for a 500w high-quality PSU to operate at.

The average US electricity rates can be seen here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html Your mileage may vary, but the rates I stated are accurate as far as I can see. If you have other info that shows the rates I used are wrong for most people, I'm open... just link me .

 

[WabeWalker]

This is just a ridiculous question.

Nobody who owns a 5870 is going to buy a single GTX 480. All this thread is going to do is generate a bunch of antagonistic responses.

I don't understand what the point of this thread is? Those of us with lesser cards, and have been waiting to upgrade - and have therefore been waiting for the Fermi reviews - aren't going to get anything out of this?

 

[Nearsite]

Hey GoldenTiger, assuming you are trustworthy and objective, I'm interested in what your opinion will be once you actually recieve your 470. It would be nice if you used it for a few weeks to a month with your normal usage, and give us your thoughts then.

What I find totally ridiculous is you speaking on this card like you already own it and are using it in your current rig. You're acting like some sort of religious fanatic and acting on blind faith alone. If you actually had the card and have been using it, then pple here might not just take you as some 'fanboi' talking out your arse about a peice of equipment you dont' even have in your possession.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Hey GoldenTiger, assuming you are trustworthy and objective, I'm interested in what your opinion will be once you actually recieve your 470. It would be nice if you used it for a few weeks to a month with your normal usage, and give us your thoughts then.

What I find totally ridiculous is you speaking on this card like you already own it and are using it in your current rig. You're acting like some sort of religious fanatic and acting on blind faith alone. If you actually had the card and have been using it, then pple here might not just take you as some 'fanboi' talking out your arse about a peice of equipment you dont' even have in your possession.

I absolutely intend to post up my results once it's actually in my system. However, no one else owns it here either just yet, so the best data we have to debate over is from reviews. So, I don't see how they could be taken any more seriously than I am when talking about anything Fermi-related.

 

[blastingcap]

I showed reviews showing whole-system power draws. These whole-system power draws, re measured at the wall, and as you just said, PSU's aren't 100% efficient. PSU's *ARE* rated for *internal* power draw. Thus, a system pulling 450 watts at the wall like these reviews show, is only demanding around 80% of that inside the system against the PSU's rating. I already showed the math on that, but it comes out to around 360watts. That would leave a very comfortable margin for a 500w high-quality PSU to operate at.

The average US electricity rates can be seen here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html Your mileage may vary, but the rates I stated are accurate.

Yes I looked again and there may be some truth to that (I haven't gone through all the reviews), hence my truncation edit, though even if you assume 85% efficiency @ 320 Furmark that's STILL higher than 250W TDP, morel ike 275W. At stock clocks.

You should know your electric rates in your area--who cares what some guy in Montana pays, you should care about your own marginal costs and tiering structures. I said it was a good first stab but incomplete. I think it's an accurate statement.

Also, those benching systems are bare bones, and if you want to do things like recharge USB devices, run external hard drives, have extra hard drives, overclock, and account for aging capacitors, you will want more than the absolute minimum. I.e., you will want at LEAST 600 watts for GTX 480. Plus it's generally a good idea not to run PSUs at 100% of rated capacity for reliability reasons as well as efficiency, since most PSUs are most efficient near 40-60% of rated load and start falling off if you go too far in either direction.

Edited to add: P.S. NVIDIA ITSELF on the leaked box info says 550W recommended PSU (I think they may have changed it to 600W with the new clocks), and you seem to think you know more than NVIDIA. Yes you can claim it's about PSU quality, etc. etc. barf, but in the end, you know you are wrong and still have not addressed what to do about non-bare-bones systems, efficiency, etc. nor have you provided complete analysis for marginal power costs.

 

[SulSeeker]

I'm still giggling that GoldenTiger sold a 5870 for a pre-order 470. That's the funniest thing I've seen on [H], slightly behind this post, which... aptly, fits.

Honestly, he's trying so hard to make Fermi look good after the fallout of the reviews that he looks like a shill. Course he'll say he has no vested interested... but when it walks, talks and acts like a duck...

To GT personally... look, you can put whatever you want in your system. That's the whole point of it being yours. But when you have multiple people correct the same relevant information in your posts... well... maybe you could take a step back and figure out what they're saying and why.

As for a power issue, In 2004-05 had an overclocked Athlon XP, Overclocked FX 5950. 3 HDD's and a CR-RW on a 180W Compaq Power supply. I can guarantee someone will call B.S., Doesn't make it any less true.
Today I wouldn't runa 58750 or a 470 with anything less than 600 PSU, anything less and you're looking for problems.

 

[WabeWalker]

Hey GoldenTiger, assuming you are trustworthy and objective, I'm interested in what your opinion will be once you actually recieve your 470. It would be nice if you used it for a few weeks to a month with your normal usage, and give us your thoughts then.

What I find totally ridiculous is you speaking on this card like you already own it and are using it in your current rig. You're acting like some sort of religious fanatic and acting on blind faith alone. If you actually had the card and have been using it, then pple here might not just take you as some 'fanboi' talking out your arse about a peice of equipment you dont' even have in your possession.

I'll be buying a GTX 480, which will be upgrading my GTX 275, so I'll let you know what I think about it.

Fan noise will drive me crazy - but to be honest, my GTX 275 isn't exactly quiet either.

Most of the games I've got right now are being eaten alive by my GTX 275, but I'd like to try out some DX 11 games - and who knows, maybe some developer is going to release a DX 11 game that really looks fantastic.

For me, Call Of Duty 2's DX 9 mode just knocked my socks off - and I'm hoping that a DX 11 title will do likewise.

 

[pasta4u]

Idle power draw is about 75w different from your 5850 at load to go to a GTX 470, as an example (source below). Let's pretend you don't even encode, so your system is *ALWAYS* at idle when not playing a game. In fact you are stating that it is often at partial load, but let's just ignore that and give a less favorable scenario here for how much it would cost you.

Let's say you have an average household electric rate of $0.15 (15 cents) per kwH (kilowatt hour). Let's also say you don't have a job, and game at a rate of 10 hours per day to keep the card at high load, every day, for an entire year (highly unlikely but let's pretend here).

That is a difference of $41.06 on your electric bill for the year.

Let's place a more average scenario of a heavy gamer playing on average of 4 hours a night after work: $16.43 for the year. This is *every... single... day... without fail...* as well.

From firingsquad.

You literally cannot even construct a scenario that even under 24/7 gaming by a zombie who cannot sleep, go to the bathroom, or eat, can rack up a $120 difference at the average household rate. Some may be higher, some may be lower ($0.10/kwH through around $0.20/kwH is typical). In fact, you'd barely manage it with this imaginary situation,

According to hardocp the difrence is 117w at load. My cost actual goes up to 23c /kwh depending on the time of day. When I encode video on my computer my gpu is also used along with my cpu.

It will cost me more than what your assuming actually because fail to factor in the aditional cooling i would need in my case and last i check fans take energy to use.


And we are talking about a 10-15% improvement in performance and I can't use eyeinfinty (or surround gaming ) with just a single card.


Then is the fact that I allways have 2 of my monitors on. when my pc is in use

legitreviews tested the gtx 480 with 2 monitors

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1258/15/

1lcd 2lcd
watts 184 264
idle temp 57 90c

If the gtx 470 has a similar situation going on then its really big problems to me

here is the 580

1lcd 2lcd
watts 148 189
temp 42 55

 

[GoldenTiger]

Yes I looked again and there may be some truth to that (I haven't gone through all the reviews), hence my truncation edit, though even if you assume 85% efficiency @ 320 Furmark that's STILL higher than 250W TDP, morel ike 275W. At stock clocks.

You should know your electric rates in your area--who cares what some guy in Montana pays, you should care about your own marginal costs and tiering structures. I said it was a good first stab but incomplete. I think it's an accurate statement.

Also, those benching systems are bare bones, and if you want to do things like recharge USB devices, run external hard drives, have extra hard drives, overclock, and account for aging capacitors, you will want more than the absolute minimum. I.e., you will want at LEAST 600 watts for GTX 480. Plus it's generally a good idea not to run PSUs at 100% of rated capacity for reliability reasons as well as efficiency, since most PSUs are most efficient near 40-60% of rated load and start falling off if you go too far in either direction.

Fair enough. One of the charts I linked before is of an overclocked i7 rig (http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/GTX480123/GTX480-80.jpg) though, showing the power draw I'm stating.

I agree that saying it's a first stab but incomplete is accurate, on power costs. It wasn't meant to be comprehensive, but I (hope) think it got the rough idea across.

Not all of the benching systems are bare-bones... they usually use one hard drive and overclock. Additional hard drives usually consume around 5-7w of power internally, and externals/USB devices could easily add 15-20w more if you loaded things up a lot. Aging capacitators also indeed will shave off some efficiency and overall capability.

With those figures in mind, we'll take my statement of a 500w PSU. We'll add in 3 hard drives, a DVD burner, and the USB/external draw (which could be wrong, it's just an offhand guess) above. We'll aim for a target of 80% of the maximum capability of the power supply, and take into account aging by slashing off 10% of the capacity in the end.

500w - (350w internal draw + 21w extra drives + 10w DVD drive + 20w externals = 401w) = 99w left over. 500 minus 10% is 450, leaving a slim 49 watts left to spare. This results in a 90% load of its theoretical maximum.

So, consider yourself told: you're right: even with a high-quality PSU I agree that 600w at minimum is a more realistic figure for a 480 system, unless you like running on the really-too-high side of things. I was wrong after actually evaluating it instead of going off of the top of my head. Thankfully I have a 750w PSU that's rated well that I got on a deal awhile back and never used... if I didn't, the whole concept of Fermi being a free swap for me would be totally out the window.

 

[siliconnerd]

This eliminates the possibility as you are stating hypothetically.

So you want less theoretical?

That is with:
i7-860 @ 3.7 GHz
ATI XFX 5870 stock
8gb Corsiar PC-16000 DDR3
EVGA P55 FTW
Antec 750w Truepower New
Azuntech X-Fi Forte sound card
Hauppage HVR-1800 Tv tuner
WD 500gb AAKS

I loaded the system with Prime 95 + FurMark. NONE of the power tests online show both the cpu and video card loaded. This is what you need to pick a power supply based on. For a GTX 480, you would be insane to go with a 500w power supply and if you are doing any overclocking even a 600w power supply is pushing it. ATI even recommends a minimum of 650w for a 5970 and the GTX 480 pulls more power than the 5970.

 

[GoldenTiger]

So you want less theoretical?
[*IMG]http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1033/img6160cropped.jpg[/IMG]

That is with:
i7-860 @ 3.7 GHz
ATI XFX 5870 stock
8gb Corsiar PC-16000 DDR3
EVGA P55 FTW
Antec 750w Truepower New
Azuntech X-Fi Forte sound card
Hauppage HVR-1800 Tv tuner
WD 500gb AAKS

I loaded the system with Prime 95 + FurMark. NONE of the power tests online show both the cpu and video card loaded. This is what you need to pick a power supply based on. For a GTX 480, you would be insane to go with a 500w power supply and if you are doing any overclocking even a 600w power supply is pushing it. ATI even recommends a minimum of 650w for a 5970 and the GTX 480 pulls more power than the 5970.

Yup... you are 100% correct. After actually taking a step back to think about why blastingcap was saying what he was saying, it turns out I was completely wrong on the power issue here. I know you're going to think this is complete bull, but honestly I am glad to have been corrected on that: I was originally planning on trying to throw a 480 (now 470) into my system on my Corsair HX520w instead of hassling with swapping out PSU's to the 750w one. I also like knowing the facts if I'm wrong about something. I'll be a lot more at ease with the 750w in-place even with a 470 in my rig.

 

[siliconnerd]

Yup... you are 100% correct. After actually taking a step back to think about why blastingcap was saying what he was saying, it turns out I was completely wrong on the power issue here. I know you're going to think this is complete bull, but honestly I am glad to have been corrected on that: I was originally planning on trying to throw a 480 (now 470) into my system on my Corsair HX520w instead of hassling with swapping out PSU's to the 750w one. I also like knowing the facts rather than just "thinking" something's right. I'll be a lot more at ease with the 750w in-place even with a 470 in my rig.

Atleast 750w power supplies are now cheap. The Corsair 750TX runs for $100 all the time and the Antec Truepower New was $70 just a few weeks ago.

 

[Brackle]

No It is not worth it right now.

The price is too much. I'm still torn in Multi-monitor gaming on it. I like the fact that you can use 3 DVI's with 2 in SLI, but thats the catch, you need 2 video cards. With ATI you don't. Also Nvidia Multi-monitor is Software base. Where ATI's is build into the card.

2 480's GTX's $1000 (before the price gouging starts, and not including an SLI mobo and expensive PSU).

1 5870 + adatper is around $500 for multimonitor gaming.

Either way. No I do not want to buy a 480gtx.

And the 470 is such a waste of money. No idea why anyone would waste money on that card when the 5850 is just as fast if not faster.

 

[siliconnerd]

The price is too much. I'm still torn in Multi-monitor gaming on it. I like the fact that you can use 3 DVI's with 2 in SLI, but thats the catch, you need 2 video cards. With ATI you don't. Also Nvidia Multi-monitor is Software base. Where ATI's is build into the card.

The other option is to grab a cheap card like a 8400GS and use SotfTH for the third monitor. Since Nvidia's solution is software based, there might not be much of a benefit in using 2x480s (besides the performance gain).

 

[Brackle]

The other option is to grab a cheap card like a 8400GS and use SotfTH for the third monitor. Since Nvidia's solution is software based, there might not be much of a benefit in using 2x480s (besides the performance gain).

And waste more money buying sotfTH and even more money buying a 8400GS?

when I can just use my 5870 and buy a $100 adapter....why go sotfTH

 

[GoldenTiger]

And waste more money buying sotfTH and even more money buying a 8400GS?

when I can just use my 5870 and buy a $100 adapter....why go sotfTH

Um, SoftTH is free: http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

and an 8400GS runs significantly under $100 if you're comparing costs. Hassle factor, you would have a point possibly... cost, not so much.

 

[Brackle]

Um, SoftTH is free: http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

and an 8400GS runs significantly under $100 if you're comparing costs. Hassle factor, you would have a point possibly... cost, not so much.

Ok so I need to buy a 480 GTX for around $550-600, then another $50 for a 8400gs?

When I own a 5870? and just pay $100 for the adapter.

So lets see to use SotfTH I need to spend around $600-$650 to get it going? or spend $100 on an adapter for my 5870....

 

[blastingcap]

Good point, if CPU and GPU are at load, that means you DEFINITELY want at least a 600w PSU for a 480, and even that's really pushing it if you have more than a bare-bones system. A high-end i7 CPU and GTX 480 GPU alone have like a 450-500 W combined realistic TDP. Adding in load wattage for hard drives, SSDs, peripherals like mice, cams, and other USB devices, optical drive (at load), and the motherboard and RAM at load... accounting for aging capacitors... yeah 600w is definitely cutting it VERY close at load. I'd want 650w minimum just to be safe and more efficient and give at least a LITTLE room for overclocking.

So you want less theoretical?

That is with:
i7-860 @ 3.7 GHz
ATI XFX 5870 stock
8gb Corsiar PC-16000 DDR3
EVGA P55 FTW
Antec 750w Truepower New
Azuntech X-Fi Forte sound card
Hauppage HVR-1800 Tv tuner
WD 500gb AAKS

I loaded the system with Prime 95 + FurMark. NONE of the power tests online show both the cpu and video card loaded. This is what you need to pick a power supply based on. For a GTX 480, you would be insane to go with a 500w power supply and if you are doing any overclocking even a 600w power supply is pushing it. ATI even recommends a minimum of 650w for a 5970 and the GTX 480 pulls more power than the 5970.

 

[blastingcap]

Yup... you are 100% correct. After actually taking a step back to think about why blastingcap was saying what he was saying, it turns out I was completely wrong on the power issue here. I know you're going to think this is complete bull, but honestly I am glad to have been corrected on that: I was originally planning on trying to throw a 480 (now 470) into my system on my Corsair HX520w instead of hassling with swapping out PSU's to the 750w one. I also like knowing the facts if I'm wrong about something. I'll be a lot more at ease with the 750w in-place even with a 470 in my rig.

I am glad you will have enough juice to overclock with!

 

[pasta4u]

Ok so I need to buy a 480 GTX for around $550-600, then another $50 for a 8400gs?

When I own a 5870? and just pay $100 for the adapter.

So lets see to use SotfTH I need to spend around $600-$650 to get it going? or spend $100 on an adapter for my 5870....

The best part is apparently that software doesn't work with dx 10 or 11 games .

Your also running an extra video card producing more heat and drawing more power.


I need a third monitor anyway , its cheaper to just buy a DP monitor from the start than go through all these hoops.

Its also software so god only knows how it actually performs

 

[Brackle]

The best part is apparently that software doesn't work with dx 10 or 11 games .

Your also running an extra video card producing more heat and drawing more power.


I need a third monitor anyway , its cheaper to just buy a DP monitor from the start than go through all these hoops.

Its also software so god only knows how it actually performs

WOW it doesnt work with DX10 and 11?.....well WTF is the point of it then when you want to use a 480 GTX.

Not sure I want to play Metro 2033 or Dirt 2 or BC2 in DX9 mode. Might look good for benchmarks, but I want the best renderer possible.

 

[Vexerz]

So you want less theoretical?

That is with:
i7-860 @ 3.7 GHz
ATI XFX 5870 stock
8gb Corsiar PC-16000 DDR3
EVGA P55 FTW
Antec 750w Truepower New
Azuntech X-Fi Forte sound card
Hauppage HVR-1800 Tv tuner
WD 500gb AAKS

I loaded the system with Prime 95 + FurMark. NONE of the power tests online show both the cpu and video card loaded. This is what you need to pick a power supply based on. For a GTX 480, you would be insane to go with a 500w power supply and if you are doing any overclocking even a 600w power supply is pushing it. ATI even recommends a minimum of 650w for a 5970 and the GTX 480 pulls more power than the 5970.

Incidentally you just sold me on getting a Kill a Watt.

 

[Dan_D]

Running a Radeon HD 5970 here. I have no plans on trading out for a Fermi based card at this point. If NVIDIA gets their multimonitor gaming support in order, I'd consider switching to GeForce GTX 480's, but only because the CrossfireX scaling with two 5970's is so bad. I may need the extra GPU power when I go from a single 30" to a 3x30" monitor setup.

 

[pasta4u]

WOW it doesnt work with DX10 and 11?.....well WTF is the point of it then when you want to use a 480 GTX.

Not sure I want to play Metro 2033 or Dirt 2 or BC2 in DX9 mode. Might look good for benchmarks, but I want the best renderer possible.

according to the site

While SoftTH can theoretically be compatible with any Direct3D 8 or Direct3D 9 game, some features used by games could not be yet suppoted or they can use special features which are incompatible with SoftTH. A common problem is also that the game cannot handle the aspect ratio, which results in a stretched image.

Even with dx 8 / 9 games it as problems with some features

http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

 

[xkon]

waiting for the driver teams to duke it out a little more, crossing fingers that the RMA'd 5870 I had will have no grey screen issues, and hoping that there is a price drop within 2 months on Fermi. If anything I'll have one Fermi system and one Crossfire 5850 or single 5870/5970 system. so i'll do both. yes, i'm a frikkin nutt. Mostly due to Fermi having a possibility to be single slot because non of the outputs jump into the second slot like most all the 5850's and 5870's do (aside from MSI) and I just can't convince myself to run two 5970's right now.

 

[ChronoDetector]

I don't see a point of upgrading to a 480 GTX if you already own a 5870, the price is not worth it and what really bothers me about the card is the high power consumption and heat levels of the card, and the fan noise is unbearable. Until NVIDIA makes another revision of the GTX 480 that reduces these issues I would personally stay away from it.

 

[bostton1]

I have in my computer

a q9550 @ 4.3ghz
8 gigs of ram
a 60 gig vertex
2 1TB Blacks raided
a azuren forte card

Im curious what an azuren forte card is?

 

[Brackle]

Running a Radeon HD 5970 here. I have no plans on trading out for a Fermi based card at this point. If NVIDIA gets their multimonitor gaming support in order, I'd consider switching to GeForce GTX 480's, but only because the CrossfireX scaling with two 5970's is so bad. I may need the extra GPU power when I go from a single 30" to a 3x30" monitor setup.

I accually have to agree with you. SLI scaling is amazing. Looking at the Metro 2033 benchmarks you can really tell how well it scales (of course ATI didnt optimize drivers for the game yet).

1 thing I am curious on is if the 480 GTX would scale for 3 in SLI. I am also curious how well its multi-monitor gaming support is. Will it support 5-6 monitors with 3 video cards?....Blah still gotta wait.

But yea 480 GTX SLI for multi-monitor gaming has really crossed my mind...But then i look at my bank account and I realize Its just too much for me...

Specially considering I got a 5870 which can do multi-monitor gaming...ATI FIX YOUR DAMN CROSSFIRE SCALING!!!!!!

 

[noquarter]

Ok so I need to buy a 480 GTX for around $550-600, then another $50 for a 8400gs?

When I own a 5870? and just pay $100 for the adapter.

So lets see to use SotfTH I need to spend around $600-$650 to get it going? or spend $100 on an adapter for my 5870....

I upgraded into Eyefinity so I bought a native DP monitor (on sale) for $20 more than the non-DP version, so not a big deal.

SoftTH's performance is abysmal of course, but I'm hoping that Nvidia's solution won't be so bad since it has the SLI link to bus the frame buffer across instead of having to run it out the PCI-e lanes and back.

 

[WorldExclusive]

I upgraded into Eyefinity so I bought a native DP monitor (on sale) for $20 more than the non-DP version, so not a big deal.

QFT. People are more likely to buy a 28" Hanns-G for $300 then to spend $220 on a Displayport monitor. There are about four DP monitors at Dell that are under $300 and one NEC 23" IPS monitor on Newegg for $300. I'm sorry if others fell forced to buy a quality monitor to run your high-end GPU.