Am I Mad for Considering GTX465!!!!! (Multi GPU)

[cygone]

Good evening,

Ok, im in the market for some new GPUs, I have recently sold my 3xGTX260 216s and my Matrox Triple Head2Go. I have Approx £550 to spend on GPU hardware.

The new card must preform faster than that of the Tri SLI GTX260 setup.

Im only intrested in nVidia and NOT ATI (I will be using 3D Surround, bezel management and don't want to pay another £100 for an active display port adapter, SLI on 4xx series cards also scales alot better than CF does on 5xxx series cards).

My PSU, Case, Air flow/Water cooling are all up to the job of running Tri SLI anything. so that is not a consideration. I am running an X58 system on a board that supports an NF200 chip so I also don't have to worry about any x4 PCIe issues.

My i7 runs at 4.2GHz (can over clock to 4.4GHz if I could be bothered with the hassle of doing so), so CPU bottle necking will be limited.

Ok Prices in the UK as per writting. (for decent board partner - Asus / EVGA / Gigabyte - Standard Clocks)

GTX 460 1024MB - £187 (Gigabyte)
GTX 465 1024MB - £183 (Asus)
GTX 470 1280MB - £275 (Asus)

OK, so. I will be overclocking the new GPUs when I get them and will put them under water (not incorporated into budget) for GTX470s If heat becomes an issue.

GTX460

The GTX460 is a monster for overclocking, can overclock to approx 850Mhz, which gives a performance increase over that of a standard clock GTX470. However!!! This card is only 2-way SLI compatible, but a pair would cost only £374 . We know that Tri SLI GTX260 gives the same performace as SLI GTX285, and that a 768MB GTX460 is equal to a GTX285. From this we can assertain that a SLI GTX460 1024 setup, would be slightly quicker than Tri SLI GTX260 216.

GTX465

4 weeks ago, I could honestly tell you that I would never buy a GTX465 at the prices of £260, however that is all changed now that a GTX465 is CHEAPER than a GTX460 1024MB card. We know that a GTX465 is the same speed as a GTX460 1024. but allows for 3 way SLI. They dont overclock quite as well due to the GF100 rather then the GF104 of the GTX460s but will allow for faster frame rates when enabled in Tri SLI mode.

GTX470

Faster than the previous 2 cards of the GTX460 and GTX465. but costing 50% more. A tri SLI setup of these would put me way over budget so its a SLI setup only. I will not be adding a 3rd card in the future as I will just upgrade to a new architecture. These cards don't overclock as well as either of the GTX460s or the GTX465, which means that a heavilly overclocked GTX460 1024 is not a great deal slower than a heavilly overclocked GTX470.

So am I completely mad for considering a Tri GTX465 setup? What would you do if the decision was yours?

P.S

2* GTX460 - £374
3* GTX465 - £549
2* GTX470 - £550

 

[jonnyboyC]

no i would say your not mad, since the prices have dropped quite a bit , over in the state there down 30 40 bucks, and really makes them attractive again

but it's still hard for me to say the 465 is the right choice, I feel that most of the time, tri sli 465 would actually be slowing the dual sli 470, since scaling is pretty wimpy with the 3rd card, you may be only get 230% over a single card in sli vs 190% with a dual sli setup. the 460's are obviously good, but since your going 3d surround i don't think they'll have the chops

they either good for 2d surround or one 3d display

if you want 3d surround i'd just go with dual 470's the extra memory could help on multi-monitor quite a bit, and it'll most likely be right on par with tri 465, and less cards always means less hassle

 

[borisof007]

Well, you did the research, the costing, you have the cooling, and you hopefully shouldn't be bottlenecked.

I'd say that your decision is justified.

 

[cygone]

From the benchs i have seen, on a generic frame rate comparison, u get 50 FPS with 1 card, 95 FPS with 2, and about 130 FPS with 3, so yes I agree, TRI SLI scaling is NOT quite as good as SLI, but it sure as hell kicks the *** out of CF scaling !

 

[cygone]

Im after 3D surround, NOT 3D vision surround. As per a previous comment, just wanted to clarify. This is 3 monitors, working at the standard 60MHz range.

 

[jonnyboyC]

Im after 3D surround, NOT 3D vision surround. As per a previous comment, just wanted to clarify. This is 3 monitors, working at the standard 60MHz range.

ohh well nvm then lol, honestly one monitor any of these setups will give you ample performance, i just got one 460 yesterday, and i feel that maybe i should wait to sli them until, i go for 3d vision or the like, because they are already more then powerful enough for one 1080p monitor

 

[Mousemonkey]

Im after 3D surround, NOT 3D vision surround. As per a previous comment, just wanted to clarify. This is 3 monitors, working at the standard 60MHz range.

Is that what Nvidia are calling "Surround (2D)"? If you were to go for the GTX465's then depending on which ones you get there has been a bit an update on turning them into GTX470's, simply put some can and some can't.

 

[cygone]

Yeah im reading about that now, basically need the GPUs with 10 memory chips on them, (PoV - seems the best bet, gonna order one now, if it has 8 chips i will send back and get a board from a better partner)

 

[Mousemonkey]

I think Asus have even released an unlock utility but I think it only works on their cards.

 

[cygone]

as it happens, im reading about that now. Nothing to say u cant flash a 465 with the asus bios, even if it is not an asus board

 

[cygone]

Issue resolved, GTX470 are now £234 in the UK (Scan), these are for Zotac, but £80 saving across the 2 and its an easy choice.

Anyway, they are all reference boards anyway so its only the warranty that changes, 2yrs direct with (scan) and +3 yeah on registation back to Zotac.

Will now find the extra cash for a 3rd 470 in a month or so!! Good day to live in the UK for once

 

[BINARYGOD]

We know that Tri SLI GTX260 gives the same performance as SLI GTX285

Maybe I missed something about the performance gain of the 285 over the 280 - but when I first got my 260's, the only setup more powerful that three of them was three 280's - did the 285's really improve on the 280 enough that just two of them EQUALS 3 260's? You said "we know" - just wondering - how? (this isn't a challenge, I was just surprised)


ANYWAY - back on point - since your not worried about cooling or psu - given the history of 3 260's beating 2 280's and apparently equaling 2 285's, the best decision is to go with 3 470's... The 485 is only going to be a small performance gain over 480 and most of the work is going into cooling and power efficiency... Either grab 3 470's or wait for the 485 and grab two of them... of course, based on the past and based on the modest performance gains of the 485 over the 480 (based on possible leaked info/rumors) you probably are safe with 3 470's...


With MY mobo (79i ultra sli), using the third lane slightly cripples the setup from some of the performance enhancements that would benefits two cards - but obviously a third is a third card. To be clear, the third card DOES add overall performance but does stop the setup from taking full advantage of certain mobo/sli-specifc features of the n790iU - So I am mulling over replacing my own tri sli 260-216's with either 2 480's (or 485's if I wait longer) OR using 3 470's... I have loved tri sli so far, but I wonder what regular sli would be like with the beefier cards and the sli enhancements that I don't current have access too... Hmmmm - maybe I sell my 3 260-216's and use the "Spare" 285 I have and just grab another one and wait around for the 485 lol Sorry, not trying to hijack! On the other hands, my 285 NEVER oc'd like my 260-216's did (+100Mhz gpu & +200MHx on video ram - in EVGA PRecision)

EDIT - results here suggest that 3 260-216's would outperform 2 285's - http://techreport.com/articles.x/16229/7

EDIT 2 - Interestingly enough, 2 480's and 3 470's are pretty much neck and neck - and my current setup (3 260 216's OCed 100MHz on GPU and 200MHz on their ram) seems to get a p-vantage score that is about the same as 2 stock 480's... I was about to think about going for 2 480's - but now I think I will just wait for the 500-line lol

 

[jyjjy]

They dont overclock quite as well due to the GF100 rather then the GF104

Actually a good OC on the GF100 tends to be around 825-850mhz while a good OC on the GF104 cards tends to be 900-925mhz. However the GTX 465 and 470 both start at 607mhz while the GTX 460 starts at 675mhz. This actually translates into a 36-40% OC for the 465/70 and 33-37% for the 460.
Of course overclocking only compounds the GF100s heat/power issues, especially in a multicard setup, but that is another topic entirely.