Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question
Solved

Temporary (~half year?) replacement for GTX 470

Tags:
  • Gtx
  • Performance
  • Computers
  • Intel i5
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
Share
April 7, 2014 3:27:02 PM

My computer is slowly losing the battle with time and performance (i5-760, GTX 470) so I'm planning on doing a massive upgrade. But nVidia is taking its sweet time with 800 series (I'm planing on buying 870 if they keep their usual pattern) so in the mean time, while I'm saving up the big titles for that happy time, I've decided to do some marathons on Total War games (Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2).
Now all of them run just fine on my current system but the noise is killing me (they all max my GPU fan, whether I'm in strategic or tactical map). The noise is starting to get so unbarable that I'm seriously considering buying a card that would perform just as good as my current GTX 470 (or slightly better) but would be the cheapest replacement, however I want to stick to nVidia.

Any advice on which card I should get?

Or - can I somehow limit my GPU load and thus lowering fan speed? (that would probably be a cheaper solution :D )

More about : temporary half year replacement gtx 470

April 7, 2014 3:30:09 PM

GTX 770 and stop waiting for the 870, it's unlikely the 870 will be a huge game breaking improvement over the 770 anyway.
m
0
l
April 7, 2014 3:30:15 PM

Sometimes high noise level can come from the video card being dirty so the fans need to ramp up even more creating even more noise. You can use a utility program like msi after burner to manually set at what temps you want your fan speed to ramp up or down.
m
0
l
Related resources

Best solution

April 7, 2014 3:39:41 PM

I have a GTX 480 currently, and I just purchased a GTX 750 Ti off Ebay. I as well am waiting for the 800 series before I make a high end purchase. from what I have seen, the GTX 750 Ti is more or less the same as a GTX 480. However it does suffer a bit when the memory bandwidth gets intensive.

What you should try first is to reapply thermal compound to your GPU, as well as give the heatsink/fan assembly a FULL cleaning. This should lower your GPU temperature and allow the fan to run at a lower RPM. If you wish too you can try slightly undervolting (perhaps underclock too?) the GPU to shave off a few degrees as well.
Share
April 7, 2014 4:08:48 PM

Thanks for the cooling advices, but this really is a single game (or rather, a game series) problem.
Other games run just fine (just tested Skyrim, Far Cry 3 and GTA IV) - even with GPU load of 95%+ fan doesn't go above ~65% and although it is a bit louder, I'm fine with that. But with Total War games, it's like running Furmark - fan goes to 85%+ and constant 99% load. So I'm thinking that maybe if I would cap my GPU load to around 95%, that might solve the problem. It's worth a try, but I really don't know how. I have an EVGA GTX 470, so that msi after burner probably won't work for me, or will it?

Also, thanks for pointing out 750 Ti, azathoth. I was checking this card for a bit, but hadn't collected much data yet. Could you elaborate what you mean by "suffer a bit when the memory bandwidth gets intensive"?

AshyCFC, they say it'll have DX12 support, though. That must count for something when I'm buying a card that is supposed to last me ~4 years.
m
0
l
April 7, 2014 4:10:40 PM

Msi afterburner will work on any video card
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 1:29:02 PM

I tried afterburner, but didn't have much success. If I set fan to ~70% (which is the highest noise I can tolarate), the card starts overheating like mad, hitting 100°C+. Lowering frequencies doesn't really help.
I must say it's really weird. While most games that "max" my card hover around 97-99% GPU load and fan manages to keep temperatures below 90°C with 65% or less, Total War games seem to want to constantly max at 99% GPU load, which causes this severe overheating which means fan usually turns at 85%+.
I did a bit of googling but it seems to me there is no way to limit a graphics card to a certain max GPU, or is there?

Also, thanks for that DX12 info, didn't know it would be so backwards compatible - I'm quite surprised, tbh.
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 2:14:55 PM

Like I said, not much upgrading going on really in the world of GPU's.

The whole reapplying thermal paste/afterburner is worth a shot.
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 3:52:54 PM

Tbh, I've waited and gambled on 800 series release for so long and sacrificed playing a few games on 470 that would have run much nicer on 770 that I'm not quitting now. Just gonna stick to "the plan" and then either be happy about my choice or laugh at myself. But I'm not quitting mid-race :) 

I'll give that reapplying thermal paste & cleaning cooler a chance, but I'm really skeptical it will do such a huge difference. But it can't hurt.
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 5:01:32 PM

zacetnik said:
I tried afterburner, but didn't have much success. If I set fan to ~70% (which is the highest noise I can tolarate), the card starts overheating like mad, hitting 100°C+. Lowering frequencies doesn't really help.
I must say it's really weird. While most games that "max" my card hover around 97-99% GPU load and fan manages to keep temperatures below 90°C with 65% or less, Total War games seem to want to constantly max at 99% GPU load, which causes this severe overheating which means fan usually turns at 85%+.
I did a bit of googling but it seems to me there is no way to limit a graphics card to a certain max GPU, or is there?

Also, thanks for that DX12 info, didn't know it would be so backwards compatible - I'm quite surprised, tbh.


What is happening is your GPU is rendering extra unnecessary frames over your monitors refresh rate. This is because you don't have anything limiting your GPU such as VSync turned on.

Download NvidiaInspector, and open it. Beside the Driver Version bar there is a wrench icon for Driver Configuration.

It will default to having _GLOBAL_DRIVER_PROFILE selected, in which under the Common section you will see "Frame Rate Limiter". I would recommend you set that to 60FPS. Doing so should lower your temperatures, whilst not effecting your gameplay or performance in ANY way.
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 6:49:48 PM

Thank you for a great tip. Sadly, it didn't fix the problem. Even with framerate limited to 60 fps - or even to 30 fps (I limited it once with adaptive vsync (half rate)), the fans still go jet-engine on me with these 3 games.

The reapplying thermal paste didn't have the desired effect either.
m
0
l
April 8, 2014 7:00:12 PM

I think you might just want to buy your video card now instead of waiting. To be honest a lot people always say I'll wait until the new one comes out but there will always be a new one coming out. So any video card 400 series or higher will be able to use DX12 when it comes out. So for right now I would say your best bet would be to buy something like a gtx 770 or 780 if you have the money. The 780 is probably the best price performance card out there and judging by the games that you play currently it will be more than beneficial for you. It will also give you a great gaming experience for the next 3 years. I sold one of my old gtx 480's to a friend a while ago and he said that it still gave him really good frame rates even in some of the newer games. So you would probably highly benefit from something like a 780 instead of waiting for the next gen
m
0
l
Related resources
!