NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 480 vs GTX 580

[loukur]

NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 480 vs NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 580? Is the 580 just about 3D?

 

[Helltech]

Both cards are capable of 3D, what is it exactly you are asking? The GTX 580 is far better, and I'm not just talking about brute performance.

 

[loukur]

NVIDIA's marketting for the 580 GTX makes it sound like it is all about 3D, somewhat diminishing the other cards. Of course that's all marketting. I am trying to figure out what the non-3D advantages are. And of course, just to make like simpler, NVIDIA just anounced the "GeForce GTX 560 Ti". I have not even started to fathom what that is all about.

 

[Helltech]

Well maybe we can shed some light on your situation. Are you looking to upgrade your graphics card? If so we need to know what resolution you game at, what your needs are (gaming, buisness, guda, graphics design), what your PSU, CPU, and RAM are.

 

[loukur]

Thanks!

It's a new build posted at http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/303861-31-decisions-decisions.

The NVIDIA cards are for gaming.

 

[Helltech]

Holy, dude, your budget is 5K? Wait for when the 595 is released (shouldn't be too long), and you could build a badass computer. If you don't want to wait with 5,000 I would get no less than SLI GTX 580's. To be honest, if I had 5,000 to spend on a computer I would be getting something along the lines of a SR-2 motherboard and Xeon processors.

 

[loukur]

Thanks. Lemme look that up. As for waiting, I'm replacing a Dell XPS that died. Don't have unlimited time. Running on a Macook Pro as a backup.

 

[loukur]

Okay, that looks like enough computer power to fly two or three space shuttles. I'd rather uncork windows with SSD and RAID.

 

[Helltech]

Thanks. Lemme look that up. As for waiting, I'm replacing a Dell XPS that died. Don't have unlimited time. Running on a Macook Pro as a backup.

Hmm, well I usually never say to wait but Intel will be releasing their new socket 2011 at the end of this year. Why not build a decent 1,000 dollar build (with a graphics card that you can reuse at the end of the year) and then spend the rest on new technology, that is what I would if I was going to spend THAT much money. Then sell the build you just made for 500 dollars or so (minus the GPU).

Ehh thats just what I would do, thats a lot of money to just dump into a computer without thinking about it.

Regardless, if your spending that much on a build, a GTX 580 is a much more intelligent decision than a GTX 480.

 

[loukur]

Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking about waiting for the 2011. I'll have to chew over the planned replacement as delay strategy.

Wait for the newest is advice I have gotten on the graphics card (wait for the 595, which looks like a real monster), wait for socket 2011 and the X68, chip set, etc. I also talked to one engineer who said, don't get the first iteration of the P67 boards, wait for the 2nd. Well, if I extended all that advice I would be waiting for the 2nd generation of the X68 boards. The waiting game can go on and on.

Personally, I prefer something proven. I keep gravitating towards the X58 chips sets--until I see the price of the i7 980x CPU chip. AIIEE! Bottom line is Windows is a horribly disk bound OS and I don’t think the CPU or a lot of the other speeds mean much until the cork has been taken out of the bottle. That’s the “why” behind my bias for SSD and RAID.

 

[Helltech]

If you don't think the speed means much you must not do many CPU intensive rendering tasks. .

I wouldn't wait that long, but 5 grand I would wait till socket 2011, thats just me. If not, just build a nice build now, 1366 mobo + processor, 12 GB of DDR3 ram, SLI 580s....

 

[loukur]

All computers wait at exactly the same speed.

 

[Helltech]

What does that have to do with this; when you are running a buisness, rending videos, when you can render a video in an hour with a high end fast (speedy) CPU, as opposed to 10 hours with a slow CPU? I'm just saying all that speed DOES mean something if you use it correctly.

 

[loukur]

It means Windows is disk bound.

 

[17seconds]

Sometimes people get confused by references to normal 3D gaming and graphics, which is actually 2D, and real 3D Vision with 3D glasses that lets you see depth in the monitor. I know you're not the kind to get confused by that... right?

Anyway, rock the GTX580, if you feel a need to upgrade later, get a second for SLI.

 

[loukur]

Yes, and I can't picture myself sitting with 3D glasses on to watch the monitor. The popular media producers have been trying to sell 3D for many years, and it has not caught on. Horror movies in the 1950s for example. I see a lot of movies are coming out with a 3D version (Avatar to name one). I also see 3D televisions coming out. Last, but not least, games are coming out 3D. I wonder if it all will stay popular, and become the next HD or will it fizzle like it has in the past.

On the topic og the 580, sounds like there is a lot more too in when compared to the 480--other than 3D. I like your idea of adding a second for SLI. I have that in my build. I wonder about waiting. Will I be able to match the cards? I know with the DDR3 the reccomendation is to get all the memory at once to guarantee the timing matches. I wonder what the downside of buying two video cards months apart. What if the 580 is no longer for sale. Does SLI work well with different cards?

 

[wolfram23]

Wow 5k budget? Geeze.

While waiting for the 2011 socket would definitely give the best PC possible this year, the older socket with an i7 980X would still freaking kill everything.

Throw in two 580s in SLI and it's just an absolute beast of a PC.