Whats your 480GTX SLI performance on NV surround

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gpitpitan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 15, 2004
Messages
248
Just got my 480GTX cards in today and swapped out my 285 GTX's. At first I didnt think my enermax galaxy DXX 850watt wasnt gonna cut it, but she proved me wrong. (I ended up buying a corsair ax1200 anyway, so she'll be up for sale soon)

Im running NV surround across three dell 2408 LCD's.

In BFBC2 with max settings, no AA, no HBAO. Im only getting 25-40fps, with it mostly hovering around or below 30fps. Afterburner shows the GPU's temp maxing out around 80-85C under load and my fans are staying at 60-70 percent speed.

Heres the kicker: I'm only running an E6600 OC'ed to 3.2ghz. Is it safe to say that my trusty ole Core 2 is keeping my race horse 480 GTX's from doing their jobs? What performance should I be getting if i had, say, a core i7 930 instead? edit: I've browsed a bunch of websites for benchmarks and reread the 480SLI article here on hardocp, but i'd still like to hear what you guys have to say =D

I'm || this close to pulling the trigger on a whole new i7 setup, so your feedback is appreciated.
 
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so you have no trouble dropping money for 3 monitors and $1000 in video cards but you need encouragement to buy a proper cpu to actually utilize those cards? :confused:
 
cannondale06 said:
so you have no trouble dropping money for 3 monitors and $1000 in video cards but you need encouragement to buy a proper cpu to actually push those cards? :confused:
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Yeah I was like... wow that is the biggest mismatch of CPU to GPU I've seen in a while... but then he's running 3x24" so it's actually not as much of a mismatch for Surround applications. I'd still upgrade the CPU before anything else, it's cheap after spending $$$ on the GPU/monitors. 850W is asking for trouble. Glad he's upgraded that.
 
But SLI is different than a single card, that CPU is a BIG bottleneck, just look at the reviews of 480 SLI. You're well under the performance you should be getting out of those cards. Hell I can run BC2 faster than that in 3D at 5760x1080 with only two cards.
 
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/16/sli_cfx_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x16x8/2

You seem to only be a bit under the average.

I'm running tri-sli on an [email protected]

At max with no hbao and 1xaa/af (i think) I'm normally around 120fps, but drop down to around 50 or so at lowest depending on how crazy things are. Yet it never feels laggy.

Expensive as all hell, but these 480's will last me for the next 2 years or more, as there isn't a game on the horizon they can't play at good settings with high fps.
 
cannondale06 said:
so you have no trouble dropping money for 3 monitors and $1000 in video cards but you need encouragement to buy a proper cpu to actually utilize those cards? :confused:
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i know i know. Its rediculous. I had a feeling a Core 2 may not cut the mustard with two of those but i didnt think it was going to be THAT big of a performance hit. I guess you could say i gambled that I wouldnt need a new CPU with these things and I lost big time...and turned into a PC noob over it. Lesson learned =P
 
In lieu of being a posterchild for bottlenecking, my rig i just ordered (thank you credit?) I shouldve known that it was gonna end up costing me way more lol.

Corsair 800D
Corsair H70
Dominator GT 3x2GB Cas 7
Asus Rampage III extreme
i7 930
OCZ vertex 2 60gb
 
gpitpitan said:
In lieu of being a posterchild for bottlenecking, my rig i just ordered (thank you credit?) I shouldve known that it was gonna end up costing me way more lol.

Corsair 800D
Corsair H70
Dominator GT 3x2GB Cas 7
Asus Rampage III extreme
i7 930
OCZ vertex 2 60gb
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That's better, the 800D in a fantastic case! Running high-end hardware is never cheap
 
You will notice a big jump in BC2 at least with that new setup. Get the 930 upto around 4GHz and you will double your frame rates in that game. HBAO is still as far as I am concerned not playable at sourround levels. It just kills the FPS to below 50 fps. In a FPS that is not good but at 6050 x 1080 all high 2 x AA 16 x AF I would say I get between 55 - 75 depending on what is going on. I was actually getting similar performance minus a few fps with my 5970 @900/1200. I got these to run tri-sli in surround but so far drivers not playing well with that setup so still only have 2.
 
gpitpitan said:
i know i know. Its rediculous. I had a feeling a Core 2 may not cut the mustard with two of those but i didnt think it was going to be THAT big of a performance hit. I guess you could say i gambled that I wouldnt need a new CPU with these things and I lost big time...and turned into a PC noob over it. Lesson learned =P
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Keep in mind that BC2 is probably the most CPU intensive game out right now. Dual core is a serious bottleneck regardless of clock speed in that game.
 
poo417 said:
You will notice a big jump in BC2 at least with that new setup. Get the 930 upto around 4GHz and you will double your frame rates in that game. HBAO is still as far as I am concerned not playable at sourround levels. It just kills the FPS to below 50 fps. In a FPS that is not good but at 6050 x 1080 all high 2 x AA 16 x AF I would say I get between 55 - 75 depending on what is going on. I was actually getting similar performance minus a few fps with my 5970 @900/1200. I got these to run tri-sli in surround but so far drivers not playing well with that setup so still only have 2.
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Ill pray for 4ghz, heres to hoping i dont get a dud CPU. Also gonna dust off my old watercooling (mcp 650 pump, 2x120rad) kit and grab some GPU waterblocks, a new reservoir and see how it works out.
 
z3r0- said:
Keep in mind that BC2 is probably the most CPU intensive game out right now. Dual core is a serious bottleneck regardless of clock speed in that game.
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I ran some more tests, and even at super low settings (exact same that i used with my 285 SLI setup) i was getting WORSE performance then i did with the old cards. Gonna swap em out again and verify but damn thats messed up.
 
z3r0- said:
Keep in mind that BC2 is probably the most CPU intensive game out right now. Dual core is a serious bottleneck regardless of clock speed in that game.
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BC2 will play just fine with a fast clocked dual core cpu especially in DX10 or DX9. now I agree it does need a quad if you plan on pushing higher end gpu setups. for the most part, anything like a gtx460 or better will be cpu limited with a dual core cpu in BC2.
 
not only the cpu but probably the mobo's general bw as well... the fill rate on these new cards is pretty intense and two of them is going to test the whole system.. getting textures in and out of mem, etc... time for an or p55/x58 and a core i5/i7. :)
 
gpitpitan said:
I ran some more tests, and even at super low settings (exact same that i used with my 285 SLI setup) i was getting WORSE performance then i did with the old cards. Gonna swap em out again and verify but damn thats messed up.
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Do you mean you are running the 480's with dx10? If so, this might be your problem. I just swapped out my 4890 crossfire setup with a 480gtx, did some comparisons with Stalk CoP with dx10. The 480 gets smashed in DX10 but meets/beats in DX11. Hope that helps.
 
Pliskin said:
Do you mean you are running the 480's with dx10? If so, this might be your problem. I just swapped out my 4890 crossfire setup with a 480gtx, did some comparisons with Stalk CoP with dx10. The 480 gets smashed in DX10 but meets/beats in DX11. Hope that helps.
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did both. same performance in each direct x mode. mind you i didnt actually graph numbers or record anything, but im positive it was about the same.
 
You may want to try uninstalling and reinstalling drivers. Use the tool "Driver Sweeper" which can be found on Guru3D. I think the performance you are seeing is lower than you should be seeing. Although I guess it could just be pairing it with the E6600. I still think it should be higher though. Since you are getting a new system it's not necessary, especially because you'll probably reinstall OS because of the move to an SSD, but if you want better performance now you might try this.
 
jadawgis732 said:
You may want to try uninstalling and reinstalling drivers. Use the tool "Driver Sweeper" which can be found on Guru3D. I think the performance you are seeing is lower than you should be seeing. Although I guess it could just be pairing it with the E6600. I still think it should be higher though. Since you are getting a new system it's not necessary, especially because you'll probably reinstall OS because of the move to an SSD, but if you want better performance now you might try this.
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*sigh* it was a driver issue. I get 30+fps max settings no hbao no AA now on this setup. But now i have an entire new i7 system to work with. /facepalm lol
 
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