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Deciding between two cards

BigJayDogg3

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 21, 2009
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Its between a 480 and a 560 Ti 448. I currently play at 1080, but will be moving to 1440 before the end of the summer.

To make a long story short, I currently have the 448. Eventually (fall/winter area) I want to move to water. Problem is unlike EVGA, MSI used a completely custom PCB and there are no waterblocks. I'm trying to decide what to do.

  • I could keep the 448 on air (especially since I have really, really good temps, even OC'd).
  • I could buy a 480 for ~200 either as a refurb through EVGA, or new from Newegg if/when the price drops, then pick up a waterblock and sit on it for a couple months.
  • After having tried my brothers 670 for a while I was going to go that route...but it is still a $400 card. Call me cheap, but that's a lot of cash, especially since I don't think I'm getting double the card of the 480.
  • 7850 would likely make a lot of sense as well price/performance wise, but I'm not moving to AMD.
At this point, I'm really choosing between the 560 and the 480. Again, if I go the 480 route, it will go under water at some point in the near future, and I have more than enough PSU to support it. In other words heat, power, and noise are not concerns. The question then becomes which one is going to perform better at 1440. IIRC, the 480 has more memory bandwidth as well as .25GB more memory which should mean it is going to scale better. Is this going to matter enough to justify the cost? Does anyone have experience with the 448 at 1440?

[H]ive mind, help me out!
 
560 ski is not that great in real life imo. Had it and went to a 670. Get the fastest single card you can.
 
The thing with the 670 is not that its just faster.
As far as i know it also needs less power, so its going to help with the power bill as well.
Its not double in terms of speed, but it gives more overall.
 
If your 448 clocks well, why sidegrade to a 480? What is the upside? You probably won't get any more performance unless you get a monster clocker, and you have to spend money on a waterblock (I'm assuming you already have the rest of the loop?). The only thing I can think of is potentially less load noise due to water (depending on pump/rad fans).

I don't think you will see any benefit in games from changing over. As long as your 448 is quiet enough for your tastes and providing adequate performance I would keep it for now.

Personally, for 1440p I would want more power, as you are talking about a 78% increase in pixel count which is going to choke your 448 and force you to lower settings to keep frame rates up. If you want to go water, I'd get a 670 with a 680 PCB (e.g. Gigabyte Windforce) and use a 680 block on it, push it to 1300MHz and enjoy max settings at 1440p :).
 
The thing with the 670 is not that its just faster.
As far as i know it also needs less power, so its going to help with the power bill as well.
Its not double in terms of speed, but it gives more overall.

Besides when u need more performance, u'll only need another 670 instead of needing to get rid of two other cards to upgrade. That's what I did. Sold my 6850 saved up and got a 670.
 
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