GTX 470

[blazerboy]

Wondering if my system will bottleneck my new gtx 470.
Im running a phenom 2 X4 955 C3 Stepping @ 3.8 ghz getting about 49 C at full load on intel burn, and its stable.
4 gb Corsair ram Timings are on the 8 mark for latency ddr3 1600 mhz
an old seagate sata hard drive that works its only 160 gbs so i have to do with what i have.
Running Win 7 64 bit
500 watt power supply, but getting a 450 watt modular expansion solely for the video card, so wattage is not an issue.
MSI 785GM-E51 AM3 motherboard.


Wondering if the GTX 470 is the way to go or if there is a better option, motherboard will be replaced in probably about 8 months for probably a SLI x 4 ATX board.
Should i wait for the 570s to come out for a possible price drop, or should i go with the new 570s.
Price range is about 220-300

 

[reccy]

The 470 is a good buy even now, in the UK there has been a very decent price drop on these cards (from around £220 to £180) Not sure how well the ATI 6xxx series perform agaisnt it, or even the 570's if there out yet. Its upto you, i have 2x GTX470's and they sli and scale well. TBF not much stands in there way. Even Metro 2033 plays very well with most of the settings at there highest @ 1920x1080


Even thinking of getting a 3rd myself for the price drop

 

[blazerboy]

How well do they scale and do you have them overclocked because i have heard that the 470s overclocked, albeit on a good 470 chip, probably not on one of their low quality ones...that they are on par with a stock 480 if they are overclocked correctly and scaling on the 460s is better than one 480 and close to a 580 as well, so im guessing if thats true then the 470 is the way to go and will upgrade to a new mobo and another 470 later on, but may possibly wait for the 570s to see the price/performance and also the sli scaling because i do intend to sli them just when is the question. And by that time the 470s mite be too old for the new game engines out in say a year

 

[blazerboy]

Oh and I would rather go with SLI due to the fact that it can go up to quad rather than crossfire where its limited to 2, and even if it isn't there is barely any performance increase

 

[reccy]

To be honest, i see no need to overclock mine as they are performing perfectly. Everything i have chucked at them, albeit Batman AA with EVERYTHING turned on high including Physx, Mafia 2 with the same settings, Metro 2033, Sigularity, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty BO etc..

Overclocking these just to me causes more hassel for a slight FPS increase.

I think SLI 470's beat a 480, or at least there up there on performance. Even a single 470 finds itself amoung the top line of performance based GPU's out there.

My advise it to Sli the 470's and wait untill the 6xx line comes out, or the 5xx are cheaper/more lines available. With a 470 now costing below the £200 mark, its pretty much stands for itself in terms of bang for buck right now. (in my opinion)

thinking of getting a 3rd myself.

 

[lucas1024]

Oh and I would rather go with SLI due to the fact that it can go up to quad rather than crossfire where its limited to 2, and even if it isn't there is barely any performance increase

You can have 3x CF.

 

[reccy]

The Scale of 1/2/3 GTX470's

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-2-3-way-sli-review/5

 

[blazerboy]

3x crossfire but it is proved that CF scaling is not very good past 2 cards, albeit it works well with dual cards such as the 5970 but for 3 single cards like the 5870s theres hardly any increase. Then again I don't really look at expensive motherboard reviews either so maybe there are some good motherboards out there that can handle it, but for what i know it has to do with the drivers and not necessarily the motherboard. My only problem now is trying to find a good sli motherboard to work with the am3 platform, and I am not going intel due to the lack of money -.- believe me if i could i would but i can't afford that atm. Going to buy a new 42 inch plasma and a gtx 470 and im bankrupt all over again haha

 

[blazerboy]

ya scaling on the x58 board in sli is crazy good

 

[blazerboy]

will a single gtx 470 be good enough for playing such games as crysis and crysis 2 when it comes out at 1920 x 1080 res at high quality

 

[reccy]

3x crossfire but it is proved that CF scaling is not very good past 2 cards, albeit it works well with dual cards such as the 5970 but for 3 single cards like the 5870s theres hardly any increase. Then again I don't really look at expensive motherboard reviews either so maybe there are some good motherboards out there that can handle it, but for what i know it has to do with the drivers and not necessarily the motherboard. My only problem now is trying to find a good sli motherboard to work with the am3 platform, and I am not going intel due to the lack of money -.- believe me if i could i would but i can't afford that atm. Going to buy a new 42 inch plasma and a gtx 470 and im bankrupt all over again haha

That was my thinking, but in the end i bit the bullet and opted for the Intel X58 route, just a tad disappointed that i didnt buy into a better 3 way Sli motherbaord (meaning 16x16x16) as i think mine is 16x8x8 or 16x16x1 - Yes the difference between 16x and 8x is minimual and not noticable, but im a sucker for performance

 

[blazerboy]

will i get any performance increase for a 3rd 470, if my mobo will be x16x16x8x8x1
seeing as how the third would be x8

 

[reccy]

16x/16x/8x/8x?

You will lose some performance 16x to 8x, but its like really difficult to notice if at all reading reviews based on this scaling.

I believe from 16x down to 8x i think the descrease in performance is like 4%?? but dont quote me on that, cant find it at the moment.

 

[blazerboy]

what are ur temps on ur cards? And is it ok to keep the fans at like say 95% ? I really dont care about the noise I have 5 120m scythe fans blowing in my antec 300 case at i think around 38 db or so not too sure so its loud but i got used to it. My current readon 5770 is at always at 90% fan speed just to keep it nice and cool since i did a heavy overclock on it

 

[reccy]

I have left my fans on auto, and i have headphones on and cant hear them. They are pretty loud without them on at 100% but they never get to 100% fan speed.

My top GPU depending on what game im playing, but ive seen it go to 92oC once, i cleaned the case and all the fans, same game (Metro 2033) and it went down to 87oC

But on average i would say, around 85-88oC for the top card, and around 75-80oC for the bottom card.

Results may vary due to ambient temps and games. But the 470's have a limit threshold of 105oC, so anything below 95-100oC is to me acceptable, over 100 then its a bit of a panic..

 

[blazerboy]

alright that sounds good, i mean its hot enough to fry an egg on but who cares as long as it works haha. Do you think putting arctic silver on the heatsink would drop the temps down a fair amount? And would it void the warranty?

 

[reccy]

In the UK from overclockers, if the GPU is "modified" in any way, the warranty becomes void. If i get a problem, i send back to the place of purchase not the manufactuer.

Maybe different in different countries/companies. But why mess around with something which has been tested and verified to be acceptable by the manufactuer anyways?

 

[blazerboy]

because overclocking could change things, but im just hoping with fans fully blasted and with my ventilation in my system itll be ok, i doubt ill be able to leave it overclocked during the summer, i live in California and temps rise to about 120 F for a couple weeks at a time. Now with ambient temps like that im pretty sure an overclocked gtx 470 would melt

 

[blazerboy]

So i have decided to go with a GTX 470 for sure, then when the time comes to upgrade aka whenever i get more money after this christmas seasons splurging...Ill get a new sli mobo that supports tri or maybe quad sli. Then will get another gtx 470, and when the time comes again will purchase yet another one. Not going to add the 4th until games start incorporating quad gpus into their systems. My power supply will handle 3 gtxs overclocked thats no problem. But overall what do you think? Will it be pretty future proof? Or should i wait for the 570s? Then again when the 470s came out they were so unbearably expensive and I wont pay more than 250 for a single video card. Just dont have that kind of cash. Any good deals on 470s that you know about? The ones on newegg are slighty expensive at the moment