The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

If he can get it for the reduced price, it's at least worth a look. But for overall performance and longevity, 2 cheaper ATi cards in Crossfire can achieve similar performance for the same price or cheaper. Of course the GTX580 does have the single GPU performance guarantee.

 

Russ: Tell him to wait. The GTX580 is a decent card for the money, but in two weeks' time, the AMD alternative to it is released, and it will very likely be better, both in performance and value.

 

Estuansis & sammorris,
Thanks for the feedback. He's not much of an Ati/AMD graphics card fan, so I think he will buy it now, while he can save the 10%. At least that's what he said. He said that liked the fact that they had been tested in a 50C room for 100 hours, without any failures, and that weighed heavily in his decision!

Thanks again guys,
Russ

 

50C? That's some scorching desert like conditions LOL!

 

Russ: Sadly there are too many people like that. His loss I suppose.
The irony is geforce GPUs are far less reliable long-term than AMD GPUs.

 

@omegaman7,
Yup! That's over 120F, and pretty warm.

@sammorris,
Time will tell. Personally I have only seen one nVidia GPU fail, and that was a long time ago with an EVGA 9500GT in a poorly ventilated case.

Russ

 

Ventilation is nowt to do with it really, the hotter they are, the shorter their lifespan, which is not something that affects Radeons, which is a plus point for starters.
The older and simpler geforces aren't so bad, but the G80/G92 were particularly bad for failing, there's precious few of either left now, as most of them have all bit the dust, meanwhile the old X-series Radeons are all still operational, despite being 1-2 years older. The GTX400/500 series will be problematic too as they run very hot (though the 580 admittedly less so than the 480). The GTX470/480 run at 95ºC under load at max fan speed, so there is no room for error. Conasidering 75ºC used to be the failure point for the old geforces, you can see my concerns.

 

I don't like seeing any component exceeding 70C. I've seen my GTX 260 breach it once. I believe the Geforce 210 also floated around 70C. Though that's a very cramped case, and a joke of a fan LOL! The 210 should be very happy in it's new well ventilated home Until the day when it inevitably dies.

 

Is true. GeForce cards are prone to early deaths far more than Ati.

 

Well...the chipsets certainly are

 

For much the same reason I believe, i.e. they overheat. They put out so much heat that they calibrate the sensors to read wrong so you don't realise just how hot they run. All well and good until you realise that nvidia's stand of manufacture can't withstand temperatures that high.
I still remember how proud I was of my PC when I was running it unknowingly with a dustbunny in one of the cards, it started lagging in Defense Grid, and I discovered that GPU1 was running at 109ºC. More than two years old and well over the boiling point of water (and bear in mind I only noticed this due to it starting to throttle back, so it had been running over normal levels for ages). The fan speed had been far higher in games for the last 3-4 months. That level of heat, for that long, at that age. Still plays games daily, no ill effects to report

 

Poor card. That's like the blazes of hell LOL! I'd probably water cool that beast

 

Yeah Nvidia GPUs usually start artifacting if and when they start overheating. At which point the card is destroyed. Not seen an Nvidia card throttle for heat before, but my X850XT has on more than one occasion. But yeah that card has a mediocre cooler and runs hotter than my 5850s and it's what, 3 1/2 years old now? And it still runs perfectly. Currently sitting in my friend's dad's PC for L4D and doing quite adequately. Just re-TIM'd with Ceramique like 6 months ago. I swear that thing is a tank.

Also lol I love dual GPU. BC2 is so pretty with AA.

 

my brothers 9800GT (rebaged 8800GT) is still running perfectly fine. OCed and all.

 

I wonder if a lot of the failures are due to inadequate cooling. I blame myself for the premature demise of the MSI board I have in the HTPC. The case is very sharp, aesthetically speaking. But the airflow is a joke. Leaves much to be desired. But, the board is being replaced today Not sure what to do with the airflow just yet. I think it'll be fine through the winter, then I can combat it. Since the new board has no need for an add on graphics card, it should run substantially cooler

 

Personally the only reasons I'd ever WC a gpu would be for looks, noise and if I ever decided to run it at full load 24/7.

 

Not

Not for longevity eh? I would

With blazing temps like that, its almost necessary...

 

The 9800GT isn't that old really, it only came out the same month the 4870 did.
I don't really consider watercooling for longevity, as there are inherent risks in fitting aftermarket coolers to things, and obviously all the risks with watercooling also apply.

 

its a rebadged 8800GT, its yonks old, 3870old haha. All they did was add a new bios.

 

Water, air. Simply cooling a component to an agreeable temperature should logically increase its lifespan. When a car overheats, it takes life out of the engine