Gtx480 sli vs 700 series

[noorerino]

Hi,

I bought 2 gtx480's this summer ($200 ea) and after a week of my purchase...kepler gpu's came out. I've seen the bench's and gtx680 is slightly slower than gtx480 in sli. So here's my dilemma, since i just started school not so long ago, i wont be able to play games (sad) all year long...so i was wondering if selling my gtx480's would be a good idea and buy the 700series later on...I also have 2 gtx480 waterblocks since i intended to oc them. So what do you guys think? should i keep them or sell them?

i'd sell the gtx480 for 150$each or so, and the blocks for 100$ea (they're unused/brand new) so that's a total of 500$ which is just enough for the upcoming gtx780 assuming nvidia would keep its usual price map.

since gtx680 was just slightly (5-15%) slower than gtx480sli, i assume gtx780 would kick the gtx480 sli 's ass or if not, be on par.

thanks for you advices, much appreciate it.

 

[bystander]

You'll always be waiting if you are waiting on the next big thing. You should just wait until the 700 series comes along, then make a choice. For now, your 480's are fine.

 

[Penguinz]

If you're sure you won't be playing games, I'd say yeah sell them. Maybe keep just one without the water block if you find some time to play, but 2 water cooled ones would definitely be a waste if you aren't gonna use them.

 

[geofelt]

If I understand your situation correctly, you will not be needing the pc for gaming for some time.
If so, I say sell the GTX480 cards along with the waterblocks now. Go to ebay, and check completed auctions for what they are actually worth.

Graphics cards are constantly getting better price performance. The value of the GTX480 cards can only go down. The GTX680 is a top card now, but near the end of the year, we might even see better, AKA "son of kepler".

Today's cards use 28nm process, and run much cooler with low power. The need for water cooling is minimal.
As to overclocking, the graphics card vendors bin their chips, and put the most overclockable ones into factory overclocked cards so they can sell them for more. You might get lucky, but I don't think you get much by overclocking. Just spend the extra cooler money on a faster card in the first place.

And, so long as a great single card will do the job, I would avoid sli.
You save on the psu, motherboard, and cooling. You also avoid such issues as microstuttering, and games that do not benefit from sli.
Read this on microstuttering:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

 

[noorerino]

Best answer selected by noorerino.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey