Better Upgrade: 2x 580s or +1 480?

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vjcsmoke

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So I have a pair of GTX 480.
If I switch to 2x 580s I'd gain 20% performance, lose a bunch of heat, but have to eat at least $400 loss from selling off the 480s and waterblocks.
Or I can add another GTX 480 for Tri-SLI, gain about 30% performance, but add even more heat and power consumption to my rig. I'd also have to live in a sauna when I game. LOL. Thoughts?
 
First of all, do you really need that for your screen setup? If you are getting enough fps for your surround and are willing to "rough it" with slightly less filtering, next year's 28nm chips will bring a much larger performance jump than the small 20-30% bump you're looking at.

You'll be able to afford two 680s then too, and not asking "should I get another 580 or sell my 2 580s and buy 2 680s?" :)

edit: dunno how I left this out, 2x 580s are better obviously, they use half the power of 3x 480s :)
 
I'd wait for the next "true" generation to upgrade. Save the money now and will be less painful when you do. For a 20% increase for current games, I don't think it will be $400 worth.
 
In going from 3 480s to 3 580s I'd say that the performance increase is VERY noticeable, the heat and noise because of how my rig and office is setup don't even register with me.

It was worth it to me to help drive 3D Surround. If you're not stressing any games then don't bother.
 
I'd agree with heatlessun, If you were going to be watercooling your GTX 580s and since your running surround It's better to get the 2GTX 580s and the blocks for them. I'd imagine on water the 580s would be beasts and a 1Ghz gpu core clock or more could be attainable. That would be a very hefty performance boost especially in surround. Furthermore selling the 2 580s for the 2 680s would have higher resale value, if you keep the 480s or add a 3rd 480 then I'd imagine come 680 time they would be worth so much less you'd lose even more money reselling.

Let me throw a curve ball for you. Any chance you may wait until the GTX 595 may come out. I'm fairly confident that there will be a dual GPU high end card to compete with antilles, especially since someone let it slip that there are GTX 590 series coming. I gather there will be a 595 dual GF110 card.. It may be a good bet, perhaps 2 of those in a quad configuration. Just want to make sure you have everything in perspective before you decide.
 
I'd get the 580's and not another 480. 480's are out the door with all that heat!
 
Well since you bought 2 480s you are already in the bracket of "hardcore gamer" so you are likely the kind of audience that would notice any small performance increase.

I have 2 480's as well overclocked and based on the benchmarks they are somewhere around 10 percent slower in games and for me that doesn't justify the increased cost or dealing with selling the 480's.

I'm going to wait for the next generation when the performance should be quite a leap. The 580's are very attractive performance wise but I'm not even sure if my waterblocks would fit on the 580 and if they don't thats a deal breaker anyway.
 
I know where you're at... the logical part of you is thinking $400 for 15-20% more performance and a little less heat is retarded; the upgrade monkey in you doesn't care if it's 5% more performance, it wants 580s because they're shiny and new. I say there is a line between being "hardcore" and being a retarded monkey and this is a prime example of that.

I'd advise you to deal with your poor, slow water-cooled 480 SLI set up for a couple more months, than upgrade to a new architechture. From experience, going with a third 480 (I tried this on three occasions hoping drivers would improve), unless you can find one super-duper cheap, will only give you +20% more performance on avg., a whole lot more heat and driver issues in some games.
 
harmattan said:
I know where you're at... the logical part of you is thinking $400 for 15-20% more performance and a little less heat is retarded; the upgrade monkey in you doesn't care if it's 5% more performance, it wants 580s because they're shiny and new. I say there is a line between being "hardcore" and being a retarded monkey and this is a prime example of that.

I'd advise you to deal with your poor, slow water-cooled 480 SLI set up for a couple more months, than upgrade to a new architechture. From experience, going with a third 480 (I tried this on three occasions hoping drivers would improve), unless you can find one super-duper cheap, will only give you +20% more performance on avg., a whole lot more heat and driver issues in some games.
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Thanks for sharing your experience with adding that third 480. I was wondering how much it would help. I think I can pick up a 3rd GTX 480 for $350 on ebay but now I am thinking it wouldn't be worthwhile from what you're saying.

Lord_Exodia said:
Let me throw a curve ball for you. Any chance you may wait until the GTX 595 may come out. I'm fairly confident that there will be a dual GPU high end card to compete with antilles, especially since someone let it slip that there are GTX 590 series coming. I gather there will be a 595 dual GF110 card.. It may be a good bet, perhaps 2 of those in a quad configuration. Just want to make sure you have everything in perspective before you decide.
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A 595 you say? That does sound interesting. But it depends on how they implement it. If it has two true GF110s onboard... well that would be really tempting. But I am somewhat wary of Quad-GPU scaling because my last foray into that field with dual 5970s didn't work out so well.
 
vjcsmoke said:
A 595 you say? That does sound interesting. But it depends on how they implement it. If it has two true GF110s onboard... well that would be really tempting. But I am somewhat wary of Quad-GPU scaling because my last foray into that field with dual 5970s didn't work out so well.
Click to expand...

Currently the only reason I say GTX 595 is because a developer at Crytek said that nvidia want's crysis 2 to be optimized for all the features and amazing tessellation to be available on all of their GTX 580 and GTX 590 series cards.

I don't expect another high end single GTX 500 series card, and looked at AMD's current lineup and what made sense to me was a card to compete with Antilles a GTX 595. Dual GF110 GTX 570s in a sandwitched PCB's setup as before. I expect the 570s to be sexy and perform like a GTX 480 with BETTER TDP and power draw than a 470. Dual version slightly clocked down could make it just under the PCIE 300watt spec and allow a overclock to exceed the spec much like the Hemlock or Antilles will.

As far as quad, I would never get quad unless I saw multiple reviews that showed there were no scaling issues. The reason I suggested it is because I wanted you to be aware of all upcoming scenarios so that you can get the best upgrade for your money before the new 28nm chips come and if that may mean waiting another 30 days for something sexy then that's good as you invest the way I do, with water blocks etc..

Currently Hemlock is a disaster there and I just met a guy on my friends Ventrillo channel who has one and he has been telling me how he should have gotten dual GTX 480s long ago. he'd probably be willing to take those 480s off your hands but I'd have to ask :D

Ooh I just thought of another scenario for you. What about tripple water cooled GTX 570s. Even kyle hinted those would be out by Cayman launch December 13th or so. Granted youd probably have to wait for water blocks but I have a feeling the GTX 570 will use the same or similar pcb of a GTX 480. Maybe the 570s will let you break even on the money, with the 2 480s that you sell and then you can put an extra $349.99 for the 3rd 570 and have tripple 570s with WAY better heat and power draw than you would with a 3rd GTX 480.

Oh btw my prediction is that the GTX 570 will also offer 1.5GB of ram similar to the 6850/6870 BOTH offering 2gb ram. That's another reason I expect them to use the same pcb as the GTX 480 which may mean your waterblocks may be fine for them.
 
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A third 480 COULD be worth your while because you are using Surround. 3x SLI can scale pretty well depending on the game in 2D and in 3D scaling is extremely good even with 3 cards.

I went to 3 580s because I'm driving 3D Surround and that will take every bit of power you throw at it and produce noticeable results. And there are situations like Call of Duty Black Ops that doesn't work in 3D Surround or even 3D on one monitor using SLI and I'm playing on a single monitor and card for 3D and once again, it'll suck up all you can throw at it.

Another caveat would be PhysX, a 3rd 480 could give a nice boost to PhysX games as well.

Bottom line, if you are driving games in 2D and especially 3D Surround and like PhysX, 3 480s will produce VERY noticeable results. Moving from 2 480s to 2 580s less so but still something that'll make a noticeable difference once again in 2D and 3D Surround.
 
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