wondering about 480GTX

Sat May 01, 2010 12:22 pm

Is there any 480GTX stories out there yet ? like "it works as a dream with octane" ...or.."it melted when I renderd a 500 frame animation" ?

Curious because the store here now have the Zotac 480GTX in stock but the heat with the 480's is putting me of. Not sure if waiting for a EVGA or Gainward 480GTX matters when it comes to heat ? any input is welcome =)

/M

Sat May 01, 2010 1:01 pm

For my Octane seat at work I just got a EVGA Superclocked GTX480 and it is really fast. I've been batch rendering a scene with about 3 million triangles (almost all reflective and refractive materials) at 2560x1440 to about 750 samples in an average of 8-10 minutes per frame (average 4.5 megasamples/sec) (so far for 48 hours without a break; and for the next week most likely). With super simple scenes (I'm talking 15 gemstones on their own) I have seen up to near 20 megasamples/sec (basically realtime, even with the refractions). So yes the GT480 is fast. And yes it is hot. I touched the back vent and it was too hot to touch. But after two days nothing has overheated.

As you have most likely seen in other threads though, taking advantage of the upcoming multi-GPU and perhaps a GPU-X (coming soon) could get you more power with several cheaper cards. I got the GTX480 because I have to meet a deadline. If this project comes out well, we're considering getting several more and potentially thousands of CUDA cores... and an ice box to put it in too

radiance · Sat May 01, 2010 1:46 pm

I'd definately getting one, it's a dream to work on with octane.
The heat issue is really not much of a problem, just make sure you have enough cooling in your case and you're fans are clean... (eg you haven't got 2 centimeters of dust stuck over them.

Radiance

Sat May 01, 2010 7:06 pm

Well I am leaning towards go buy one tomorrow then, been browsing the web a bit and "Zotac" seems to be a good brand of Nvidia cards even though I never heard about them before.

Maybe I should activate my license then, it's allright to install and send the mail already now even though I have a ATI card currently ?

/M

Sun May 02, 2010 6:29 am

After two months of waiting, I just installed my GTX 480 and opened Octane for the first time yesterday. Everything is super fast and fluid. I have two monitors and my OS display seems unaffected while Octane renders. The card was well worth the price.

Sun May 02, 2010 12:23 pm

Yeah, Radiance is right, the heat probably isn't much of a problem. I checked my 480 again now after 3 days non-stop and it isn't any hotter, and I've had no problems.

Sun May 02, 2010 1:00 pm

It is good to hear no one is having heat problems, thanks for all the answers ! =)

/M

Tue May 04, 2010 2:58 am

Well I don't have a gtx480, but I do have 2x 470's. GrantI know these run much cooler than the 480's, but I can attest to their noise and the heat they do produce. Noise wise only my EVGA 470 tends to get really loud compared to the MSI. Might be something to do with the case and cooling. I've had them running for almost a straight 24 hours with no impact.

Tue May 04, 2010 9:45 pm

I planned to purchase a GTX 480, but as my computer can't host it, I have just ordered a Cubix Xpander pro2 box. As this represents the cost of two GTX 480, I will wait some more months to purchase High end graphic cards to put inside. I have orderer a GTX 260 as a temporary solution to leave my current graphic card free for the OS and benefit of a bit more video memory and a fluid UI behavior.

The good side of this necessary waiting for budget is that I have read these days that Nvidia could release around september a GTX 485, with all 512 cores enabled, a lower power consumption and a bigger cooling fan.

So, waiting a bit more may be a good idea if there is no emergency.

Thu May 06, 2010 3:10 pm

So when multi GPU support is available 2 X 470 would be better than a single 480, nearly twice the cores and memory from both cards would be available for rendering 3GB+/- correct? Or will we still only be able to use memory from 1 card and just the additional cores from the second GPU

I was going to order a single 480 today, my PS is only 750 and will only support one and I was going to use one of my 9800gt's for OS, but then I found Newegg has a special combo "today only" 2 x EVGA 470 + Corsair 950 PS for $709.98 US. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDeal ... mbo.390415

So for less than $200 more I can have almost 2 times 480 with a 950 PS, but can anyone confirm that a 950 PS is going to be enough power to support 2 x 470???