Many Things. All GTX 480 Related. Now with pics of the cards!

[Jumper118]

Last Sunday i bought 2 of these legendary space heaters for a very good price. GTX 480's are very interesting to me as i have always heard the stories about them being hot. really really hot. This particular pair caught my eye because one of them was a reference asus card and the other was the same card, but with a gelid icy cooler.

 

Rig specs

i5 2550K@ 5ghz for single card testing and 4ghz for sli testing.

MSI Z77 Mpower

2X Asus GTX480 reference cards (one with gelid icy cooler)

Avexir Mpower 2400mhz cl10 @ 2135mhz cl10

Be Quiet Power Zone 650W (the sli bottleneck)

 

Pics

 

Temperature test.

Ambient room temp was ~18-20c during the tests  

stock clocks are 700/924

 

The Maximum Temps during all my tests:

stock GTX480 with reference cooler on stock fan profile:        85c (0.988v)

stock GTX480 with Gelid Icy cooler on stock fan profile:         56c (0.988v)

854/1125 GTX480 with Gelid Icy cooler on stock fan profile:  70c (1.120v)

750/1000 GTX480 with reference cooler 100% fan speed:     69c (0.988v)

 

First of all i will start with the single card results. For the single card results i have used the card with the gelid icy cooler as this allowed me to use higher voltages and give a good representation of what a gtx480 can really do when at its limit. I could keep my i5 at 5ghz for all these tests.

Cinebench 2003

Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench R15

Heaven 4.0

Valley 1.0

 

Valley 1.0 Basic Preset with the reference cooler card. i managed to keep it around 70c as it was a bit cooler today.

 

So, on to the SLI results. Now my psu is only 650W, i did try running my cpu at 5ghz with both 480's but it wouldn't boot. i didn't really want to break anything, so i decide to underclock my cpu to 4ghz on 1.2v. This has mainly impacted my 3D Mark scores, but you can still see the graphics score for the cards. i did mange to overclock the cards a small amount on the stock voltage, but i didn't really want my psu to cut out so i kept them  at what i thought was a conservative overclock. i did not run the Cinebench tests with 2 gpu's as these tests are cpu limited.

 

Heaven 4.0

 

 

Valley 1.0

 

3D Mark 13

Settings

Ice Storm 

Cloud Gate

Sky Diver

Fire Strike

All the scores

 

3D Mark Vantage P

 

Tomb Raider Maxed out.

 

Single Card (Gelid cooler)

Good Points:

Quiet and cool GTX480? WTF

Uses less power than SLI

Improved overclocking ability

 

Bad Points:

The none reference cooler dumps a hell of a lot of heat into your case. you need loads of airflow.

Gets its ass kicked by newer cards that use much less power

if you want to go sli, you will need to have at lest 2 slots between this card and a card below due to it being triple slot

 

 

SLI

Good Points:

Saves you heating bill on the whole house in winter

Great performance and good scaling, faster than the fastest gtx770's and 280X's with a mild overclock on stock voltage.

Dual card systems look beast

They are cheap

 

Bad Points:

Too much heat for gaming in the summer

Can cause high cpu temps if your case hasn't got a lot of airflow

Increased temps when in sli means any reference cards get very very loud

You'll need a 750W+ psu to run them in a fully overclocked system and 850W+ if your running an amd 8 core cpu.

 

 

 

[Wingfan]

never thoiught i would say this, but i want a 480!!!!

[MangoJuiceStain]

No love for my 460?

[Jumper118]

No love for my 460?

do a review on it. then we can see if we like it or not

 

i've added Valley 1.0 Basic Preset with a single card. 

[FloRolf]

10/10 - would buy my 780 instead again

Nice review though, but no pic of the card? (Or does my mobile internet just suck? ^^)

[WolfDeville]

I will never part from my 480's I am going to 3d print some brackets and have em displayed on the wall. I love them with all my heart.

[Thorium19]

I'm tempted at some point to buy a 480, just for the sake of having such a wonderous card. I'd probably never use it other than for benchmarks and to disprove console fanboys, but it's  still a great thing to have.

[Jumper118]

10/10 - would buy my 780 instead again

Nice review though, but no pic of the card? (Or does my mobile internet just suck? ^^)

my card reader had broken so i couldn't get anything off my camera. i will do that tomorrow when i get home as i sort of forgot about it. 

[flibberdipper]

I used to have a 480 a few months ago. It was probably the greatest card I ever owned. But I ended up getting a 580, and I don't like it as much, but it is a wee bit faster. I love the Fermi cards. :wub:

IT'S MINE NOW AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[flibberdipper]

Indeed. You need to run Furmark on it and try to caramelize a marshmallow with the exhaust. I was able to if the room was warm enough.

All in good time. Considering throwing it in my rig (when I get it going) and testing Windows 10 with it.

[KamiKatze]

Hm... You beat that guy with his GTX 465 3-Way SLI. I'm impressed.

[Jumper118]

Hm... You beat that guy with his GTX 465 3-Way SLI. I'm impressed.

did i? thats good to know. i know that i still had loads of headroom when they were in sli if i had a better psu as well

[FellTheSky]

the sli scores like a gtx 770 OC. But im actually afraid to even ask how much power draws from the wall with that overclock

[CowsGoRoar]

i5 2550K@ 5ghz for single card testing and 4ghz for sli testing.

Noob question. Why?

[D3MON]

remember this?
love my 480 but the power draw is more than my fx8, both together overclocked balls to the walls i drew 592.3watts from the wall, would love a second but I have better things to spend £80 on.

[Jumper118]

Noob question. Why?

because my psu ran out of power. i have 650w and the 480's are 250w each. that means i only had 150w for everything else and because my cpu is sandybridge its 95w out the box, so its probably around 150+w at 5ghz 

[D3MON]

because my psu ran out of power. i have 650w and the 480's are 250w each. that means i only had 150w for everything else and because my cpu is sandybridge its 95w out the box, so its probably around 150+w at 5ghz 

I think you'd of been okay with 4.5ghz, it's likely something else.

with an fx8 at 4.5ghz with lots of voltage and 1x 480 i drew 592.3watts from the wall so i could of got by with a 550w (in fact i have run with with a cx500w) it was the first thing i did when i got my corsair rm750w, they give it a 5 year warrenty, i wanted to give it a hard time on day 1.

going by that i could easily run another 480 on my 750w and pull 750w from the wall with the psu delivering around 675 to the system.

when i get my card out once in a while i usually run it at 700core/1000mem havent really tried more, its usually a full on leaf blower at 75% fan speed and 95*c, I dont understand why they used such a small fan considering the bigger fans from the 200 series also fits. the a heatsink is beautiful but the heatpipes are badly laid out restricting airflow. r9-290's are much better thermally.

[EllieTheFuzzy]

Am i safe to say the R9 290X/R9 290 is the spiritual successor to the 480?

 

similarities being that both are super powerful, And with stock coolers they both are major heat machines on the stock coolers which both have the fan at the back style on.

 

I wouldn't mind getting one on the cheap for my Dell, X5650 and GTX 480? :], would be kickass, doing it 2010 style~.

[Jumper118]

I think you'd of been okay with 4.5ghz, it's likely something else.

with an fx8 at 4.5ghz with lots of voltage and 1x 480 i drew 592.3watts from the wall so i could of got by with a 550w (in fact i have run with with a cx500w) it was the first thing i did when i got my corsair rm750w, they give it a 5 year warrenty, i wanted to give it a hard time on day 1.

going by that i could easily run another 480 on my 750w and pull 750w from the wall with the psu delivering around 675 to the system.

when i get my card out once in a while i usually run it at 700core/1000mem havent really tried more, its usually a full on leaf blower at 75% fan speed and 95*c, I dont understand why they used such a small fan considering the bigger fans from the 200 series also fits. the a heatsink is beautiful but the heatpipes are badly laid out restricting airflow. r9-290's are much better thermally.

i was running 2 480's on 650w not just 1. i can't measure the power draw but if i over volted them in sli then i could draw 600w just from the gpu's.

 

Am i safe to say the R9 290X/R9 290 is the spiritual successor to the 480?

 

similarities being that both are super powerful, And with stock coolers they both are major heat machines on the stock coolers which both have the fan at the back style on.

 

I wouldn't mind getting one on the cheap for my Dell, X5650 and GTX 480? :], would be kickass, doing it 2010 style~.

yeah pretty much. the X5650 is still a beast as well.

[EllieTheFuzzy]

I want to get a one with the original stock cooler, even if it would be heat machine, there is a beauty to the original 480 stock cooler, Like nowadays you get coolers that are all cool and

flash, but they don't really,....RAWR at you, they just go , "WHATS UP MAH DAWG LOOK AT DIS SHIZZLE RIGHT HERE" kind of way, 480's was just like "RAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR". 

 

same with the back bits on the 5970 i just love that little bit of the card, makes it look very exotic, like if you had it it LOOKED Like something special, again same for the 480.

 

Then again talking of graphics card coolers, i freaking love how the EVGA 580 looks o_O.

 

anyways keeping ontopic of the 480.

 

i wouldn't mind saving up some spare change and getting it for my Precision t3500 :3, even if i won't game with it it'd make a great back up PC.

[dizmo]

Just curious, how much did you end up paying for your GTX 480 with the stock cooler?
I have one I'll be looking to sell shortly, and I'm not entirely sure what to price it at. Seeing as you actually bought one, it'd be cool to see what you ended up dishing out for it.

[RevoltTrain]

I will never part from my 480's I am going to 3d print some brackets and have em displayed on the wall. I love them with all my heart.

Nice DP. Rhett and Link for life!

[WolfDeville]

Nice DP. Rhett and Link for life!

 Thank you, fellow Mythical beast!

[RevoltTrain]

 Thank you, fellow Mythical beast!

I believe you are the first Mythical Beast I have run into on the forums!

[WolfDeville]

I believe you are the first Mythical Beast I have run into on the forums!

 Ditto