OTOY Forums

Attached is a new PC which I like to buy. - Suggestions are welcome -
Does it make sense to use the GTX 480 instead of GTX 470 ( both are with 1,5 GB )
What about the GTX 460 with 2 GB

Are there any other cards in the pipeline?


1 Proessor: Intel Core i7 980X, Hexa Core, 3.33 GHz
1 Prozessor Lüfter: Aktive Wasserkühlung ( Water Cooling )
1 Motherboard: ASUS RAMPAGE III EXTREME Core i7 mit USB 3.0/SATA3
1 RAM: 24 GB DDR3-RAM 3-Kanal (PC12800, 1600 MHz), Corsair Dominator
1 Harddrive: 240 GB OCZ SSD Revo-Drive, PCIe
1 Second Harddrive: 1000 GB WD Festplatte SATA III, 7200 rpm
1 Laufwerk 1: LG BluRay Laufwerk (lesen), DVD/CD lesen/schreiben

1 Graphic: EVGA GTX470 HydroCopper FTW
1 Second Graphic: EVGA GTX470 HydroCopper FTW
1 Card Reader: Card Reader 60 in 1
1 Sound-/TV Karte: Integriertes 7.1 Kanal High Definition Audio
1 OS: Windows 7 Ultimate, deutsch, 64 bit, installiert inkl. CD
1 Case: CM Cosmos Tower, Watercooling, passendes low noise Netzteil

Well if you have the money to spring for a GTX480, you might as well go ahead and get a GTX580. I have heard that they use less power, are quieter, and are faster. They might have the same issues that the current GTX460s have, in that until CUDA 3.2 is ready and Octane can use it you might not be able to use all of the cores and you might have the black line issue. On the next refresh of (Octane 2.3 v6?) all of these issues could go away. YMMV

the 470 is 1.28gb so its a little less Octane space. you might regret that.
if you have the money its probably better to go with a 1.5gb card.
probably 12gb is enough ram.
perhaps recycle those $ into 2xGTX580 instead.
2x aircooled 580 would be a fair bit quieter than 2x480 under render but of course not as quiet as watercooled.
You pay a quite bit extra for the water version of the 580 $700 vs $500 for air...
IMO unless you will be doing renders all the time, are into gaming or are very sensitive to noise the watercooled version is probably over kill for the 580 but then again I am poor.
watercooled 470 or 480 I understand
*possibly* add an el cheapo card like a GT430 for Octane display if you will use it for rendering a lot.
get a very good power supply too. - maybe 1200W.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will wait til the next release and the first tests with the GTX 580
The cores I need for other render stuff, that's why it is not so cheap. Gaming is not my goal
Defenitly the 12 GIG is enough; so I will check if the watercooled version is really worth to buy.

Burkhard