fanboy

I was hoping to run it in eyefinity lol.. as the other 5850 is coming next week so i don't have that extar power yet, but i did get to play BC 2  with the new platform in eyefinity with the one card and it did play much smoother as (silk smooth) over 775 socket but still can't reach med settings (smooth)yet without the other card.

Ah you may be OK with EyeFinity, overall its doesn't seem as its GPU limited because you can mess with the settings, like AA, and see virtually no difference in FPS, they're still low overall.  But with the GTX 480....I was getting capped 62 FPS.  Need to see if there's a toggle for the FPS cap now.  Saw a lot of similar comments on the Ubi forums with people seeing similar results.
 

NazcaC2

Chizow, how about this little test...

Run the same test but without the 280 and just use the single 480.  I'd like to see if there's a difference.

Sorry, which test were you referring to?  Cryostasis?  The first result is with just the 480 if that's what you mean, I chose 480 PPU in the NVCP and made sure there wasn't a load on it eyeballing Precision.  Just ran it again with the GTX 280 pulled (had it out for a diff fan test) and results look similar with only a 480 in the system:
 
AVG: 61.6
MIN: 39.1
MAX: 159.0
 

_Nite_

Chizow do you have Metro 2033? I'm curious how that game run, the performance for me on it is way worse than crysis because of all the PhysX effects.

Nope, sorry don't have that yet, was hopin it was bundled with the 400s but no such luck.  Next time it goes on sale at Gogamer I'll snag it, coulda had it for like $33 a few weeks ago.   As for performance being worst, have you tried disabling DoF?  I heard that tanks performance, otherwise it should run slightly better than Crysis I think.....don't think the PhysX is bogging it down as I heard the effects were kinda light.  I think some of the other guys with 480s have Metro 2033 though so they should be able to help you out more.
 

luv2increase

Looks good chizow!  Are you planning on going SLI?  I thought I remember you saying a few weeks ago that you planned on getting 2 x 470s.  I may be mistaken.

Thanks for sharing

Yeah I was leaning that way because of the heat and noise concerns.  Heat still has me a bit worried, 50-100W in the summer is noticeable imo, but heat + noise was something I wasn't willing to deal with.  But I did a bit more research and some sites did follow-ups on the fan noise issue that made me confident the GPU temp/fan noise issue wasn't any worst than with the 280s so I took a chance on the 480 and that's pretty much held up.  I was kinda hoping a single 480 would be enough to lift minimum FPS in 3D Vision so that I wouldn't need a second, but looks like that's not the case lol, so ya I will be going SLI.  If I had to do it over again I might've just gone with 2x470 as I think 2x480 may be overkill for 3D Vision @ 1080p, but better safe than sorry I guess.

Via Sin Dios

I cant wait to order mine monday , Chiz you said you were having problems with the 3d driver , is it working at all for fermi currently or is it just the newer drivers?

BTW , its so calm and nice around here now that fermi came out

Everyone can be friends again ?

Hmm is your Samsung 1080p or 720p in 3D?  If its 1080p....idk if a single 480 is gonna be enough.....but ya right now I think I'm having some problems with the 3D driver.  I'm using the 197.13 Stereo installed over top the 197.41 GPU.  I get the undetected stereo controller problem with the 197.41 stereo driver problems, I've already posted about it and its pretty annoying really.  There's like 3 components, the GPU driver, USB init/controller hardware driver, and the stereo GPU driver that all need to be the same version, unfortunately, they only update the USB init/controller driver every so often, and always afer the GPU/stereo driver.  Its working but performance is poor and I can't say for sure if its a Stereo driver problem or more of what I saw with a single GTX 280 in 3D Vision (really low FPS).
 

Thanks, Chizow.  When you said PPU, I had interpreted that as the Ageia PhysX card (with the GTX 480).  I misread your paragraph but understand now.  Overall, that's not much of a difference but it's interesting nonetheless.

fredbsd

Via Sin Dios
BTW , its so calm and nice around here now that fermi came out

Everyone can be friends again ?

I, for one, am happy about this.  Thanks to Chiz (and a slew of others) for sharing their experiences w/ the new Nvidia offerings.

Group hug everyone...go go.  :P

Haha pretty sure mankind rejected that version of the Matrix....
 

NazcaC2

Thanks, Chizow.  When you said PPU, I had interpreted that as the Ageia PhysX card (with the GTX 480).  I misread your paragraph but understand now.  Overall, that's not much of a difference but it's interesting nonetheless.

Ah np, ya pretty impressed with how well the 480 runs the tech demo by itself, its really not that much difference but its subjectively smoother with the dedicated PPU.

chizow

Via Sin Dios

I cant wait to order mine monday , Chiz you said you were having problems with the 3d driver , is it working at all for fermi currently or is it just the newer drivers?

BTW , its so calm and nice around here now that fermi came out

Everyone can be friends again ?

Hmm is your Samsung 1080p or 720p in 3D?  If its 1080p....idk if a single 480 is gonna be enough.....but ya right now I think I'm having some problems with the 3D driver.  I'm using the 197.13 Stereo installed over top the 197.41 GPU.  I get the undetected stereo controller problem with the 197.41 stereo driver problems, I've already posted about it and its pretty annoying really.  There's like 3 components, the GPU driver, USB init/controller hardware driver, and the stereo GPU driver that all need to be the same version, unfortunately, they only update the USB init/controller driver every so often, and always afer the GPU/stereo driver.  Its working but performance is poor and I can't say for sure if its a Stereo driver problem or more of what I saw with a single GTX 280 in 3D Vision (really low FPS).
 

its 1080p , it will be an upgrade to what i have now thats for sure and im pretty happy with my performance currently honestly , but im going sli down the road , as soon as i can afford to anyway.

Yeah probably the first good drivers for fermi will be uploaded with a new 3d cd , Ill look for Andrew from nvidia's posts on the nvidia 3d forum.

Wish me luck OP=D
*gets net, tazer and tranq dart gun ready* Tomorrow the UPS man will not escape with my shiny packagez!!! j/k but I am going to camp the door he is not getting away without a knock and an auto sticky note again with my card "time to get back to digging that deep hole"

thanks for sharing chizow!!!

Deathstroke44

if nvidia would have stuck with the 512 cuda cores, they would have fried there chips with the air cooling solution, no wonder they cut 32 cuda cores off..... hope that (if there is refresh) refresh sees the full 512..... id sub zero cool mine, but i just want the dam 512 cuda cores lol. Im a power junky i know.

Apparently there's BIOS mods out there to re-enable the 32SP, so you're more than welcome to try.   I think anyone who actually has one doesn't seem to care at all lol, these cards really don't need the extra 32SP and realistically, if cutting those 32 probably just results in the higher clockspeeds we're enjoying now.

I see you added some more info. Looks great chizow!

kram36

Hey chizow,

I see you're having a joyful day here, but if I could bother you for a moment. Just wondering if you have had adequate time to eval the two cards for a position on SC or Vanilla?

Sorry didn't get a chance to really check that out, I'll try to run some tests today, the SC is the primary so that'll make it easier as i can just disable SLI to run it by itself.  My gut so far is the SC does OC better as a result of EVGA's binning, it runs cooler at idle by a large amount (10C) with a monitor attached to both (so they're both in high perf mode) and under load the SC is only 1-2C warmer even though it has slightly worst airflow.  I'll test it out tonite more thoroughly, last night I was just running 775/1550/2000 because I know the vanilla is rock solid stable at that speed.  Was busy checking out the 3D games I was worried about in terms of performance and 2x480 in SLI makes all the difference, very pleased!

Nice gap between the two cards, should help a lot keeping the temps down.

mgon154


I have a feeling the SC will definitely OC better but that could depend. 

The only advantage to SC cards is a faster stock speed.  They don't have anything that can make them overclock further.  My GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SC can't go as far as my regular GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm.

I would this the bios would be different.

merc.man87

Excellent! Glad to see you got you a second gtx 480 for ultimate pwnage. If i can't get my 2 5850's work right with my newly acquired 5970, i might put them up  for sale and add a little extra and obtain 3 gtx 480's. Just a thought.

Heheh not quite ultimate pwnage, in this hobby there's always a bigger fish right around the corner until you run outta slots lol.   But ya that 5850x2 + 5970 set-up should be pretty fun, but as you may know one of the reasons I stick with Nvidia is because I'm much more familiar with their drivers and 3rd party tools so that its easy for me to diagnose and troubleshoot potential scaling/driver issues.
  

vegasr

Nice gap between the two cards, should help a lot keeping the temps down.

Ya its one of the reasons I upgraded to the Classified from my Asus P6T, dropped temps a good 5-6C on that interior/primary card.  Unfortunately the Classified's North Bridge cooler obstructs that top x1 slot so that you can't put a larger PCIe sound card in there....so I gotta spend more on an aftermarket cooler.   Right now my X-Fi is sitting on top of that 480 radiator and also dropping down its bandwidth to x8.
 

mgon154

Wow great job with the update chizow! The more I see the SLI scaling performance the more excited I get. I have a feeling the SC will definitely OC better but that could depend. I've got 2 Superclockers coming in a couple days so after seeing your experience with two that just gives me more confidence in going SLI with these 480's. Good job and also good frames you got! You're a winner.
 
I'm defintely interested in the OC'ng difference between the two cards. That was my concern before I decided to purchase two SC's. I'll be checkign back her.e

Yeah I'm really impressed with the scaling in both normal 3D and stereo 3D, from what I've seen all the SLI driver flags are the same.  GTX 280 SLI scaling was also very good, just with a new architecture and cards that are roughly 2x faster I would've expected to see more optimizations needed for good SLI scaling.  I'll definitely be interested in seeing your results with the SC too.  I've got a hunch they OC a bit better than the vanilla as well.
 

boredgunner

mgon154


I have a feeling the SC will definitely OC better but that could depend. 

The only advantage to SC cards is a faster stock speed.  They don't have anything that can make them overclock further.  My GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm SC can't go as far as my regular GTX 260 CORE 216 55nm.

Ya in the past I would've agreed, but JacobF has mentioned on more than a few occasions there are other differences this time around to ensure additional stability on the higher binned cards.  Could be a lot of things, higher voltage, diff memory timings, etc. in the BIOS, we just won't know until we get a volt mod tool or something.  I think there are some efforts to reverse engineer the various BIOS values but I'm not interested enough to mess with BIOS and warranty.

chizow

Didn't camp the UPS man today, but knew #2 was waiting for me, SC this time!


Fleet of video cards pic


Don't forget to peel off this piece of plastic. 


Ya....just didn't feel right having gone from SLI back to single card.  Complete again!


Just wanted to see what it looked liked stacked up. Pulled the 280 for now though, may put it back in for PhysX benches but didn't feel like fishing through more PCIe connectors just yet.


Some quick benches and temps:

1xGTX 480 @ 800/1600/1850 Vantage


2xGTX 480 SLI @ 775/1550/2000 Vantage


Temps/GPU/Scaling 75% fan - Very pleased with the scaling and temps, only 69C max during Vantage in SLI


1xGTX 480 - Heaven 8xAA 1920x1080p Extreme Tesselation

2xGTX 480 SLI - Heaven 8xAA 1920x1080p Extreme Tesselation


Demo was looped before and after bench, ~45 mins total and temps stabilized ~75-76C.

Also went ahead and checked out the main games that convinced me to go ahead and go with the 2nd GTX 480 in SLI for 3D Vision Performance.  Assassin's Creed 2 was locked at 60FPS, absolutely awesome experience.  GTX 280 SLI was generally 30-40FPS, sometimes it would hit 60FPS cap but only indoors, never in large cities.  A single 480 could hit 63FPS cap in 2D, but would Sync down to 30FPS in 3D Vision.  2x480 have both eyes capped at 60FPS and its just a brilliant experience.  BFBC2 was similar, ~40-45FPS with HBAO in 3D, 50-60FPS with HBAO off in 3D.  Dawn of War 2 almost always capped at 60FPS per eye. 

So overall I'm extremely pleased with the 480 SLI set-up, I think for anyone who was already running GT200 in SLI you really need at least 470 SLI to get that major upgrade feeling.  Similarly, anyone running a single GTX 200 or lower would see a very nice upgrade to a single GTX 400 card. 

Yeah looking how tight that is with the 280 GTX chizow, I may have to retire mine. I don't want any air restrictions in my box. Wonder how many folk in excitement of installing these cards and forgot to peel that sticker off the fan. Wonder if some of the "overheaters" sucked that into the volute of the channel, partially blocking their air delivery to the HSF on the card. hmmm. Remember the 102c guy here a few days ago?