Help GTX 480 or Silent WC'd GTX 260 SLI

[tomaso1z]

Hi all,

Require advice on new card for card, really want to pop my cherry with water cooling but the GTX 480 is out next week and as a keen overclocker, full water cooling kit is a must at some stage, at the moment i have a sheepish H50 DIY kit as follows,

QX6850 @ 3.33Ghz (H50 Water Cooler)
GTX 260 @ 690Mhz Core / 1174 mem
4GBDDR2@ 1066Mhz
Corsair TX850watt

Budget: £500 budget
Preferd online retailer: ebuyer / scan / overclockers
Prefered Manufacture: Any
Deadline: 27th March 2010

Direct X 11 Option 1) GTX 480
Silent OC'd Option 2) A>New Case maybe Coolmaster CM 690 II,
B>2nd GTX 260
C>CPU/GPU Water Cooling Kit

Any comments would be most helpful.

 

[shadow187]

Probably just grab an HD5970, especially if your board support Crossfire/Trifire.

Wait a couple of weeks for GTX480 benchmarks.

 

[jonpaul37]

QX6850 @ 3.33 with water cooling? are you using warm water? LOL, kidding, but you should be able to hit higher with water cooling, hell, i have my Q6600 @ 3.6 on air temps average load @ 60*celcius.

I agree with Shadow here, wait for the GTX 480 bench's, it may bring the 5xxx series cards down a bit which could work out in your favor.

 

[Rustyy117]

Probably just grab an HD5970, especially if your board support Crossfire/Trifire.

Wait a couple of weeks for GTX480 benchmarks.

I believe he would have to get a new case if he was going for a HD5970 as his GTX260 is basically touching his HDD cage.

@ OP, I don't really see the point in going SLi with another GTX260 as its old tech (obviously no DX11)

I think the best thing to do is just wait a few more weeks and then weigh up your options then, You may decide to grap a GTX4xx series card or you may see prices of the 58xx series cards from ATi come down and go for that. Don't see any rush as im sure your GTX260 doesn't struggle to much.

 

[tomaso1z]

Thanks for your quick replies, i agree with you both just wait for benchmarks.

The board is Tri-SLI only so better keep to Nvidia.

 

[flyinfinni]

Wait for Benchies, but if you are stuck on staying with Nvidia, you'll want Fermi, if only because it'll be DX11 and you'll be wanting that going forward. Personally, I'd go for a single ATI card (probably 5970) instead if the benchmarks come out close to the rumors even if you don't have the option of crossfire in the future with your mobo.

 

[tomaso1z]

QX6850 @ 3.33 with water cooling? are you using warm water? LOL, kidding, but you should be able to hit higher with water cooling, hell, i have my Q6600 @ 3.6 on air temps average load @ 60*celcius.

I agree with Shadow here, wait for the GTX 480 bench's, it may bring the 5xxx series cards down a bit which could work out in your favor.

cheers for your comments i just need an opinion as what to do this has helped me stay on course for next week folks lets see what tomshardware brings

As for the overclocking the QX6850 runs 130watts compared to 95watts q6600 so that maybe a factor also the nforce 6 board wont let me push the FSB on Quads for some reason (had no probs with a dual core) thankfully i have a unlocked multiplier. Had it running intel burn test stable @ 3.66Ghz but then PRIME95 kept failing on some cores. loosened RAM timings and dropped it down to 3.33 and its now also PRIME95 stable. only thing ive noticed as ive only had QX6850 2 weeks, is my system locks up for 20-30 seconds and comes back to life maybe its vista i dont know.

 

[flyinfinni]

You could always push the voltage a little higher at the 3.66 GHz and see if you can stabilize it there- I don't imagine you're temps are getting too high if you've got (even a fairly simple) water cooling system on there.

 

[tomaso1z]

You could always push the voltage a little higher at the 3.66 GHz and see if you can stabilize it there- I don't imagine you're temps are getting too high if you've got (even a fairly simple) water cooling system on there.

ive got it set to AUTO & it sets volts to 1.424v @ 3.66 so my Voltage regulators are awfully hot its trial and error, dont know what to do but stay on track for next weeks nvidia launch

 

[shadow187]

Your CPU will bottleneck a lot of cards too..

 

[flyinfinni]

Well, if you have it set to auto, you're less likely to get a stable OC. bumping that voltage up just a tad, even 1.45 might stabilize you, should not hurt your regulators unless you have a really cheap motherboard. Its generally better to manually handle your core voltage when overclocking, just takes a bit more patience and trial/error.

Shadow- if he's running a core2quad at 3.33 GHz, thats gonna bottleneck? Doesn't seem like you'd hit a CPU bottleneck that easily, and especially not if he got it to 3.66.

 

[shadow187]

Lower-End quad-core running the equivalent of an HD5870? I guess that would work, but tri-SLI won't do him any good at that...neither will that 850Watt.

 

[tomaso1z]

Your CPU will bottleneck a lot of cards too..

maybe its just moeny dude but also id have to upgrade my PSU aswell for SLI GTX 480 i heard they take 300w juice each thats 600w & my PSU is only 80% efficient i.e. 672w been researching this along time i go round i circles dude i hope im not the only one. if i could id overclock a hexacore i7 980x @ 4Ghz (total 24Ghz) and have done with it for 3/4 years

 

[tomaso1z]

Well, if you have it set to auto, you're less likely to get a stable OC. bumping that voltage up just a tad, even 1.45 might stabilize you, should not hurt your regulators unless you have a really cheap motherboard. Its generally better to manually handle your core voltage when overclocking, just takes a bit more patience and trial/error.

Shadow- if he's running a core2quad at 3.33 GHz, thats gonna bottleneck? Doesn't seem like you'd hit a CPU bottleneck that easily, and especially not if he got it to 3.66.

no actually i nearly forgot your right it doesnt bottleneck during playing BC2 & Crysis ive had task manager running for CPU usage and EVGA Precision for GPU usage and the CPU is about 60% GPU 99% its the only way to be sure am i correct?

 

[flyinfinni]

Thats a good 850W PSU- you can get a full 850 W out of it (the efficiency works the other way- you get 850 from the PSU, but you pull 1060ish W from the wall.

Your CPU should run a 5870 or even 5970 fine. It might bottleneck at Tri-SLI, but then you'll be needing a lot of other stuff to run that as well.

Edit- yeah if you have a 60% CPU load and a 99% GPU load, you ain't CPU limited.

 

[welshmousepk]

a 3.3ghz quad is NOT going to bottleneck.

id say grab a 5970 after prices drop, even if you need a new case. if the benchies released thus far are at all accurate, then Fermi cards will be overpriced for their performance.

 

[tomaso1z]

Thats a good 850W PSU- you can get a full 850 W out of it (the efficiency works the other way- you get 850 from the PSU, but you pull 1060ish W from the wall. quotemsg]

i read wiki wrong yeah your right thanks for the spot, gonna have to do all my research again

would be cutting it fine with 600w of GPU's though maybe GTX470 rumoured @ 225w in SLI 450w would work nicely

 

[tomaso1z]

Thats a good 850W PSU- you can get a full 850 W out of it (the efficiency works the other way- you get 850 from the PSU, but you pull 1060ish W from the wall.

Your CPU should run a 5870 or even 5970 fine. It might bottleneck at Tri-SLI, but then you'll be needing a lot of other stuff to run that as well.

Edit- yeah if you have a 60% CPU load and a 99% GPU load, you ain't CPU limited.

read wiki wrong yeah your right thanks for the spot, gonna have to do all my research again

would be cutting it fine with 600w of GPU's though maybe GTX470 rumoured @ 225w in SLI 450w would work nicely

 

[shadow187]

Just wait for benchies. If an HD5970 offers better performance than a GTX470SLI at lower power, then that'd be great.

You only have to wait a couple more weeks. nVid or ATI, just wait.

 

[saaiello]

If i could id overclock a hexacore i7 980x @ 4Ghz (total 24Ghz) and have done with it for 3/4 years

Unfortunately 6 4 ghz cores does not equal 24GHZ. I cant believe no one else saw this lol. Each core is like its own processor they dont all combine and make a super high frequency chip. Instead they work as 6 fast processor all taking a bite out of whatever instructions it gets just as long as the software supports multiple cores. Now for software that doesn't support multi cores it has a turbo boost which will allow 1 or 2 cores to be overclocked temperature permitting.


Now onto your dilemma If your that dead set on nvidia then you already made up your mind so no need to post on here just wait til the 470 and 480 are released and get them. IMO you are better off with a 5970 over the fermi your CPU will never be able to keep up with dual 480s maybe if you could get a higher overclock but that is doubtful. The 600 series nvidia chipsets are the worst overclockers especially for quads like you found out. You will never be able to utilize the full potential of that processor in that board so if your dead set in keeping that QX your best bet would be to factor in a new motherboard with your video cards so you can really unleash the beast within that chip, you should have no problems getting that chip to 4 ghz with its unlocked multi and a decent water cooling but your board is limiting it and make you put way more volts into then needed. Well i think i gave you enough to think about for now.

 

[tomaso1z]

Unfortunately 6 4 ghz cores does not equal 24GHZ. I cant believe no one else saw this lol. Each core is like its own processor they dont all combine and make a super high frequency chip. Instead they work as 6 fast processor all taking a bite out of whatever instructions it gets just as long as the software supports multiple cores. Now for software that doesn't support multi cores it has a turbo boost which will allow 1 or 2 cores to be overclocked temperature permitting.


Now onto your dilemma If your that dead set on nvidia then you already made up your mind so no need to post on here just wait til the 470 and 480 are released and get them. IMO you are better off with a 5970 over the fermi your CPU will never be able to keep up with dual 480s maybe if you could get a higher overclock but that is doubtful. The 600 series nvidia chipsets are the worst overclockers especially for quads like you found out. You will never be able to utilize the full potential of that processor in that board so if your dead set in keeping that QX your best bet would be to factor in a new motherboard with your video cards so you can really unleash the beast within that chip, you should have no problems getting that chip to 4 ghz with its unlocked multi and a decent water cooling but your board is limiting it and make you put way more volts into then needed. Well i think i gave you enough to think about for now.

thanks for the explanation of 24ghz i was just speaking in-theory like, and yea i read about i7 turbo boost clocking just 1 core for single core apps, neat stuff.

As for cpu/board i could try swapping 680i for a 750i the reason for nforce is so not to loose my raid/windows installations but thats another dilemma.

 

[shadow187]

It would be a lot better for you to get a board that is a killer overclocker than to bottleneck you CPU with too much GPU. 2xGTX480 runs 600Watts out of your Power supply, plus your overclocked CPU runs about 130 you said. Leaves 100 watts left.

 

[saaiello]

thanks for the explanation of 24ghz i was just speaking in-theory like, and yea i read about i7 turbo boost clocking just 1 core for single core apps, neat stuff.

As for cpu/board i could try swapping 680i for a 750i the reason for nforce is so not to loose my raid/windows installations but thats another dilemma.

Well nforce chipset aren't that great in general for overclocking the 750 might be a lil better but if you really want to overclock you need a P45 motherboard.

 

[jonpaul37]

I agree with some people here and disagree with some people here.

Your CPU (if clocked at 3.33) will not have an issue pushing the likes of a 5870 at all. Case-in-point, my Q6600 (@ 3.0, 3.2 & 3.6) pushes the 5870 along just dandy, i also brought the 5870 beast to my friends house, he has an i5 750 @ 3.33, i saw no noticeable improvement on 5 different games...

CoD MW2
WOW
Star Trek Online
Fallout3
Dirt 2

As for overclocking the CPU, you are safe up to 1.5 volts so i would say 1.44/1.45 is a safe option. You are ok on load temps up about 65 degrees celcius, anything higher and you might want to back down...

 

[flyinfinni]

Unfortunately 6 4 ghz cores does not equal 24GHZ. I cant believe no one else saw this lol. Each core is like its own processor they dont all combine and make a super high frequency chip. Instead they work as 6 fast processor all taking a bite out of whatever instructions it gets just as long as the software supports multiple cores. Now for software that doesn't support multi cores it has a turbo boost which will allow 1 or 2 cores to be overclocked temperature permitting.


Now onto your dilemma If your that dead set on nvidia then you already made up your mind so no need to post on here just wait til the 470 and 480 are released and get them. IMO you are better off with a 5970 over the fermi your CPU will never be able to keep up with dual 480s maybe if you could get a higher overclock but that is doubtful. The 600 series nvidia chipsets are the worst overclockers especially for quads like you found out. You will never be able to utilize the full potential of that processor in that board so if your dead set in keeping that QX your best bet would be to factor in a new motherboard with your video cards so you can really unleash the beast within that chip, you should have no problems getting that chip to 4 ghz with its unlocked multi and a decent water cooling but your board is limiting it and make you put way more volts into then needed. Well i think i gave you enough to think about for now.

Lol- I didn't even notice that (I got stuck on correcting the PSU part and missed that entirely.) Good call.

tomaso1z- I would lean towards a single 5970 or GTX470 SLI if I were you (depending on benchmarks of the GTX470). You could probably do GTX480 SLI, but you'd be getting close to your PSU's max. With the other two, you'd be good on power and they'll both provide GREAT performance (again, most likely, but depending on benchmarks in a few days), and will be lots less money than 2 GTX480s (possibly + a PSU)