5870 Trifire vs 5970 Xfire vs GTX480 SLI Performance Heat and Noise?

[Mpyra]

Hello,
i am kind of sick of the heat and noise being produced by my 4870x2's crossfired (i was so so wrong when i said heat and noise were not issues), so i think it's time to finally upgrade to the latest generation of cards.

Now i am considering the setups in the title, but i am also open to some other alternatives such as 5970 Crossfire or 5970+5870 Trifire.

I could actually purchase 2x5970's for about the same cost as 3x 5870's and 2x480's (yes i am still buying used cards).

The 5970's are very energy efficient cards:

But are they that energy efficent(on stock clocks) that they could be as quiet as 3x5870's (also on stock clocks) at max load?

I am also consering the GTX480 cards, but they would need to be quieter and perform better than the 5870's trifire in order for me to choose them, does anyone have any experience with these cards?

I have struggled to find an reviews which compare the GTX 480 and HD 5970 as 1920x1080 resolution, the majority seem to focus on 2560x1600 which is not helpful seeing as vey few people are going toi game at that resolution and that the GTX480 has an obvious advantage in having almost twice the amount of memory per gpu to the 5970.

Why these reviews didn't use the XFX black or Sapphire Toxic versions of the 5970 is anyone's guess.

So it seems that i've kind of ruled out the GTX 480's, but i am really interested to know how the Heat Noise and Performance compare between the 5870 Trifire and the 5970 Crossfire.

 

[Rustyy117]

I wouldn't go for 2 x 5970's because quadfire doesn't scale well. And two GTX480's are gonna run hot and therefore loud. 3 x 5870'would be loud and hot aswell because the 3 cards would be so close together and therefore would heat up quickly.

Doesn't seem like your short on money so have you considered watercooling? It would take care of the noise and heat issues.

 

[jerreece]

If you do any measure of research and reading, you'll find quite quickly that the GTX 470/480's are loud and hot.

I just installed a single GTX 470 a few days ago, and it will run 90C while playing Bad Company 2. It hits 94C during Furmark benchmark. Having two of the GTX 480's in SLI with little breathing room between them is going to be fairly hot.

The ATi 5870's will run cooler, and use less energy. Ultimately though, you should look at benchmarks and consider over all performance. Your 2x 4870X2's are certainly no slouch.

 

[Mpyra]

I am also wondering what would happen when overclocking the different ATI combination's.

The the 5870's fell short of the 5970's performance wise could this be remedied by overclocking the 5870's?

Then who would stand on the best ground in noise and heat?

Generally speaking the 5970's are more energy for performance efficient, but is the cooler that much better than the one on the 5870's that it would not be any louder?

I would not be interesting in overclocking the 5970's at all, they would put out enough performance and minimising noise and heat would be a primary concern with that kind of GPU power under the hood of my computer.

Again, even if the 5870's perform worse the the 5970 crossfire, i would purchase them on the strength of their quietness alone, if they are in fact significantly quieter under max load.

 

[Mpyra]

I wouldn't go for 2 x 5970's because quadfire doesn't scale well. And two GTX480's are gonna run hot and therefore loud. 3 x 5870'would be loud and hot aswell because the 3 cards would be so close together and therefore would heat up quickly.

Doesn't seem like your short on money so have you considered watercooling? It would take care of the noise and heat issues.

Well i would disagree there, my 4870x2's scale phenominally well, better than alot of sli and crossfire single cards i've tried, id' need some kind of benchmarks to see what you are saying, i'm abit short of benchmarks in this area and would really appreciate it if you'd post them.

Also, with the heat option, on my motherboard the first and second crossfire slots are a large space apart, enough to fit a third double slot card in between, i have good eventialation in my case, so the ambient temp air temp inside will remain quite cool, but there would be no problem with heat transference due to proximity.

Watercooling is personally just too much hassle for me at the moment, at the end of the say, your still going to be cooling the radiators with air.

The 5870's however would experience an issue with heat transference due to proximity however, as the thrid slot is inbetween the first and second, i'm not sure that this is really an issue though is it? The extremeties of the graphics card are usually very very hot, but as long as the air is jetting through it cooling the internals i would not think that heat exchange between the cards would be an issue.

A specific amount of airflow takes a specific amount of heat out of the card, regardless of proximity, surely?

 

[Mpyra]

If you do any measure of research and reading, you'll find quite quickly that the GTX 470/480's are loud and hot.

I just installed a single GTX 470 a few days ago, and it will run 90C while playing Bad Company 2. It hits 94C during Furmark benchmark. Having two of the GTX 480's in SLI with little breathing room between them is going to be fairly hot.

The ATi 5870's will run cooler, and use less energy. Ultimately though, you should look at benchmarks and consider over all performance. Your 2x 4870X2's are certainly no slouch.

I actually have and in fact am aware that the GTX 400 series cards run quite hot, however, the temperature of the cards are not of concern to me as much as the heat to performance ratio.

All energy used by a graphics card is going to be converted into heat, what is important is that for the heat it's producing it is producing adequate performance.

Having a 200 watt graphics card is like having a 200watt heater regardless of how hot or cool the graphics card runs.

When talking about heat you really need to talk about performance per watt and this is admittedely poor on the GTX 400 series with a single card, but i was and am still curious about how this card compares to the 5970 and 5870 in cross and trifire configurations, as i have not been able to find many benchmarks for them for 1980x1200, fi you are aware of any i'd be very grateful for your sharing them.

However, i am more interested in these benchmarks for the 5870 vs 5970 in trifire and crossfire configuration.

You say that the 5870's will run cooler and use less energy, but isn't performance for energy usage markedly lower?

I am more concerned about how much noise the 5870's trifire vs 5970 crossfire would produce, if there is little to no difference than the more energy vs performance efficient card would be the obvious choice.

 

[Petey1013]

I'd be looking at the 480s simply because of how well they scale. And they overclock very nicely too.

 

[Somebody_007]

Just to clarify here fermi is not loud at all. It's quieter than most hard drives and quieter than ati stock coolers.

 

[Mpyra]

Just to clarify here fermi is not loud at all. It's quieter than most hard drives and quieter than ati stock coolers.

Hello, you are saying that a GTX 480 would run quieter than a 5970? and thus 2x GTX 480's would run queiter than 2x 5970's?

May i ask how you know this?

May i also ask, why is this the case? Surely the less efficient graphics cards should need more airflow to keep it cool?

 

[Mpyra]

I'd be looking at the 480s simply because of how well they scale. And they overclock very nicely too.

Benchmarks, please?

I really need some comparing the GTX 400 Series SLIed with the HD 5000 Crossfired and Trifired series at 1920x1200 resolution.

Power consumption (thus heat) and noise are my two primary concerns, overclocking comes secondarily.

 

[Petey1013]

You should be able to find 480 SLI benchmarks on here, hardforum, anandtech and hardware canucks, and a few other sites. Google is your friend.

 

[Petey1013]

As far as noise goes... the cards can get "noisey" at 75% and above fan speed, but I've only ever seen them go that high in furmark, and the noise isn't an annoying whine like some previous cards, and most of the ATI cards I've heard at extremely high RPMs, its just the sound of a fan moving a lot of air. You can't really hear the fan at all, just a louder whoosh of more air moving.

Here I was bored.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=23132&page=1
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/25/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/8
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-crossfire,2622.html

 

[Petey1013]

Also, good thing to keep in mind is that most reviews were done using the old drivers from release. The new ones all bumped performance pretty well.

 

[Somebody_007]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-470-480-review/13

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5970,2474-15.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/30297-nvidia-geforce-gtx-480-review-29.html

The benchmarks are kind of contradicting but you can definately conclude that fermi is quieter than a 5970.

Why? Maybe because ati can't make decent coolers, maybe fermi doesn't run hot and their coolers are simply underwhelming.

And about the scaling here are some dutch benchmarks but you should be able to understand

http://www.hardware.info/nl-NL/articles/amdnampoZGCa/Clash_of_the_Titans_3way_SLI_GTX_480_test/13

As you can see 480gtx's scale far better. And this is with beta drivers once you get the new drivers there will be a pretty significant improvement.

 

[Somebody_007]

Also, good thing to keep in mind is that most reviews were done using the old drivers from release. The new ones all bumped performance pretty well.

lol great minds think alike

 

[Mpyra]

As far as noise goes... the cards can get "noisey" at 75% and above fan speed, but I've only ever seen them go that high in furmark, and the noise isn't an annoying whine like some previous cards, and most of the ATI cards I've heard at extremely high RPMs, its just the sound of a fan moving a lot of air.
Here I was bored.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=23132&page=1
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/25/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/8
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-480-3-way-sli-crossfire,2622.html

While these reviews don't have the 5870 Trifire or 5970 Crossfire, it makes it more clear that the 5870 is a contender to the GTX 480 even when compared Crossfire and SLIed, so i should think that whether running a Trifire or Quadfire solution it would be better on all front of energy for performance, noise for performance and performance for cost.

You can't really hear the fan at all, just a louder whoosh of more air moving.

LOL, do you know anything about the mechanics of how sound sound is produced? Just the basic stuff about the movement of particles and so on?

Where do you suppose the noise generated by a fan comes from? Could it be, the movement of air? LOL

Okay, it would be best if you could compare the noise to another graphics card you've heard, i've personally heard GTX 275's, 280's, 295's 585o's and 4870x2's, have heard and can you compare to any of these?

 

[Rustyy117]

Well i would disagree there, my 4870x2's scale phenominally well, better than alot of sli and crossfire single cards i've tried, id' need some kind of benchmarks to see what you are saying, i'm abit short of benchmarks in this area and would really appreciate it if you'd post them.

Also, with the heat option, on my motherboard the first and second crossfire slots are a large space apart, enough to fit a third double slot card in between, i have good eventialation in my case, so the ambient temp air temp inside will remain quite cool, but there would be no problem with heat transference due to proximity.

Watercooling is personally just too much hassle for me at the moment, at the end of the say, your still going to be cooling the radiators with air.

The 5870's however would experience an issue with heat transference due to proximity however, as the thrid slot is inbetween the first and second, i'm not sure that this is really an issue though is it? The extremeties of the graphics card are usually very very hot, but as long as the air is jetting through it cooling the internals i would not think that heat exchange between the cards would be an issue.

A specific amount of airflow takes a specific amount of heat out of the card, regardless of proximity, surely?

Well seems as though QuadFire scales better than I thought, here's a review: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5970_CrossFire/2.html

I disagree about watercooling, yes you are cooling radiators but you could use some 20DB fans (very quiet) compared to stock air cooling which can reach 60DB+ Also temps will be reduced alot, my HD5850's went from 70C under load to 39C and thats with a heavy overclock.

You would have some heat and noise issues with 3 x 5870's because the top 2 cards would be starved of air and therefore would have to rev up the fan speed to get enough air through the heatsink.

 

[Rustyy117]

@Somebody what hard drives are louder than a GTX470/480?

 

[Rustyy117]

I am looking for reviews comparing the GTX 480's SLied with the 5870 Trifire and 5970 Crossfire, i have not found any on any of those sites and i have scoured google as best i can time allowing.

Hey *** you, you illiterate, learn to read and recognise what i am asking for, don't presume to call me lazy without reason, i use google for everything, you think i enjoy having to sift through the percentage of trolls, retards, magniloquents, presumptous pomposties and vainglorious who populate the average internet forum?

Chill out, People are trying to help you out here (For free) so if you don't like the answers then jog on.

 

[Somebody_007]

@Somebody what hard drives are louder than a GTX470/480?

Well since all the benchmarks are contradicting I can't really say for sure. But according to guru3D 480s top out a 45decibels at 0.75m and according to toms a caviar black is 46decibells at 1m(I think that's their standard distance). And then I also have my own experience where I can always here my HDD seeking over my GPU(470) fan.

 

[Rustyy117]

Links please?

 

[Mpyra]

Chill out, People are trying to help you out here (For free) so if you don't like the answers then jog on.

Hey hey, before this gets out of hand, i just don't take well to being called lazy, because i am anything but, that's probably the greatest insult anyone could deliver to my persona and my responce barring the use of profanity made that clear without crossing any kind of major anger threshhold.

Thankyou and i am appreciative of your and everyone elses help, but i do prefer to use google and forums are a last resort for me.

 

[jerreece]

Just to clarify here fermi is not loud at all. It's quieter than most hard drives and quieter than ati stock coolers.

Except that my single GTX 470 (reference model) cranks up it's fan to a louder noise level than my GTX 260 SLI setup did.

*shrugs* I'm just making a statement about a real life situation I experienced a couple days ago.

And besides, I haven't heard a hard drive in my system for.... how many years now? Can anyone tell me for how long hard drives have been quieter than every other component in a PC system?

 

[Guest]

One question, if you can afford to run dual 5970, or tri 5870 or sli 480, then why oh why would you run it on anything other than 2560 or greater resolution.

Anything less and all you need is a single 5870 for perfectly playable framerates in all games ever made, or a 480gtx for metro in DX11 if you want all the eye candy,

What a waste 1920x1080, NOOB!!!

 

[jerreece]

I am looking for reviews comparing the GTX 480's SLied with the 5870 Trifire and 5970 Crossfire, i have not found any on any of those sites and i have scoured google as best i can time allowing.

Hey *** you, you illiterate, learn to read and recognise what i am asking for, don't presume to call me lazy without reason, i use google for everything, you think i enjoy having to sift through the percentage of trolls, retards, magniloquents, presumptous pomposties and vainglorious who populate the average internet forum?

Hmmmmm.....

Maybe this thread should get closed before it turns into a personal flame war.

Mpyra - If you want help from others, you should be quite a bit more respectful.