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2x5870 or 2x 480gtx

Associate
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8 Oct 2006
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staffordshire
hi guys im upgrading my old 2 x 260gtx 's , im either thinking of going for 2 x 5870's or 2 x 480gtx 's , my immediate thoughts were to go for the 480gtx's as ive had far more to do with nvidia than ati and upon reading various reviews think the 480's are a bit more powerfull , what are your thoughts ?...........thanks in advance
 
Soldato
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6 Oct 2007
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480 SLI is faster than 5870 xfire, guess that's a good enough reason to go Nvidia, scaling is better with SLI and IMO SLI drivers are better than xfire drivers currently.

It's not all roses for the 480's, they run hotter than the 5870's and consume a lot more power.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,806
GTX470 SLI for the overclocked, value for money goodness or single GTX480 IMO.

EDIT: If your coming from heavily OC'd GTX260 SLI you may be dissapointed even with GTX480 SLI, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to upgrade from that setup, but if you do your definitely looking at GTX470 or 480 in SLI to make it seem worthwhile.
 
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Associate
Joined
24 Sep 2008
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642
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London / Belfast
SLI 480gtx is more powerful than crossfire 5870, however it costs about 25% more, consumes more energy and sounds like a lawnmower when gaming.

If that doesn't bother you, go for 480gtx sli, alternatively wait for the 6870 from AMD in 2 months or so.
 
Associate
Joined
17 Feb 2009
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261
2 months is nothing to wait for. ur 2x260 can serve u another 2 months no problem IMO.

im waitin for the new cards aswell and im going to update my 4890 in the summer.
 
Soldato
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Essex
definately the GTX480 sli option,

www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-gtx480-sli.html

sli just dumps on crossfire from a very high height.

Sure, you posted a review of overclocked Zotac 480 AMP! in SLI that costs what, £400 or £450 each? And stack it against £280 5870 in Crossfire. And the difference is still pretty small IMO.

480 SLI is faster than 5870 xfire, guess that's a good enough reason to go Nvidia, scaling is better with SLI and IMO SLI drivers are better than xfire drivers currently.

It's not all roses for the 480's, they run hotter than the 5870's and consume a lot more power.

That review stulid's quoted shows very good scaling in both setups. There's probably more driver issues with Crossfire though, judging from the amount of owners' complains. I would love someone proves better scaling of 480SLI though. They're obviously better because there's a difference of 15% between the two, but the scaling remains close to 80% with both multi-gpu solutions. AnandTech bench data confirms this too.


I'd go with either a single 480 or SLI 470s as Rroff suggested.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Oct 2007
Posts
22,261
Location
North West
GTX470 SLI for the overclocked, value for money goodness or single GTX480 IMO.

EDIT: If your coming from heavily OC'd GTX260 SLI you may be dissapointed even with GTX480 SLI, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to upgrade from that setup, but if you do your definitely looking at GTX470 or 480 in SLI to make it seem worthwhile.

Nearly 100% increase in minimum fps in crysis over 285 SLI, I would say in demanding and the latest titles 480 SLI will crush 260 SLI, overclocked or not.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/167?vs=159

Saying that I agree that 480 SLI is a bit too expensive and 470 SLI would be the better choice, more so if you overclock them.
 
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