i7 980X O.C. on Air with dual GTX 470s

Looking good thusfar - trying to decide if I want a high multi with lower blck or low multi with higher blck. Either way, it's taking 1.4v in bios for me to stay Prime stable at 4.5GHz. Being old school, I like seeing more blck.

My P6T Dlx V2 is running nicely thusfar as well after a bios update to support the Gulftown CPUs. I considered an upgrade to the Rampage III, but will probably hold off given how well things are going.

My CPU score from Vantage is just stupid - 77K!!! (Umm...yeah, I forgot to turn Physx off)

The dual GTX 470's, which are not overclocked at all, are keeping the inside of my case nice and toasty. While the temp and heat thing may be a bit overrated, these certainly run significantly hotter than their ATi counterparts.
I also have a pair of reference 5850's, and a single GTX 480 (this one hasn't been opened). Dual GTX 470's is a significant performance boost over a single GTX 480, but the 5850s run cooler and overclock very well. Hmmm, decisions...decisions..

I am a bit curious how my Vantage P score will respond to dual 5850's at 1000/1250 or so.. Will probably do a swap and see how it goes. Also curious to see if my idle and load temps on the 980x will drop at all with cooler running video cards; and by how much. Guessing at least 5c.

With CPU vcore at 1.4v and Prime95, I'm hitting ~80c which is about as high as I'd like to see. I'm also in Germany where typical A/C doesn't exist.

Here's a screenie



3003B288 Batch 980X for those interested.

Hey Matt...nice work so far, but your CPU score is "too good to be true"....at least in comparison to other scores ranked at the bot etc... this is due to PhysX using the GPU power in the CPU tests. You need to disable PhysX (I disable in the nV control panel) for the scores to be "official"

OH yeah, duhhh.

I should have turned that off. Geez, I'm a knucklehead.

There we go.. More like it. I was expecting a CPU score ~40K.

Interesting results with the Heaven Benchmark.. 1900x1200 resolution; standard settings for everything else.

With 980X at 4.5GHz

MSI GTX 470 SLi Config: Physx off (if that matters), and stock clocks on both
FPS: 76.3
Scores: 1921
Min FPS: 39
Max FPS: 162.7

Here's one more Heaven run with both GTX 470s mildly overclocked to 650 core in Afterburner beta 5 - no change to memory clocks.
FPS: 80.4
Scores: 2024
Min FPS: 40.2
Max FPS: 171.4

HD 5850 in Crossfire (clocks 850/1250)
FPS: 65.4
Scores: 1647
Min FPS: 23.8
Max FPS: 177.0

HD 5850 in Crossfire (clocks 1000/1250)
FPS: 72.3
Scores: 1820
Min FPS: 24.5
Max FPS: 192.9

Does the Heaven Benchmark have some preference to Nvidia GPU versus ATi? I'm just a bit suprised with the results, especially with the dual 5850s clocked to 1000/1250. Or maybe Nvidia GPUs just handle tessellation that much better.

I do have a EVGA GTX 480 that I haven't opened or installed yet, but I know a pair of GTX 470's in SLi is going to beat it by a good margin across the board. Still undecided on the single GTX 480 vs SLi GTX 470's.. Anyone care to share their opinion?

Also had about a 2-3c drop in CPU idle and load temps with the 5850's over the GTX 470's - so not as much as I figured, but not far off either.

Nvidia GPU's handle tesselation MUCH better than ATI at this point, yes.

A piece of advice, either modify teh auto fan profile to ramp up more quickly and aggressively, or just start out 70-75% fan. You will likely never see above 85C taht way (though in SLI maybe the top card will).

Thanks dude, I do have a fan profile built in Afterburner that runs 70% at 70c and 80% at 80c...and so on..

looks pretty good to me. good job