Is there a 4870 / GTX260 w/ about same noise as 8800 GT?

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:33 am

Hello,

Today I decided to take a look at graphics cards (GTA4 is stressing my 8800GT quite a bit..). I'm looking for something more powerful than my Palit 8800 GT Sonic, while not increasing the overall noise.

Right now I can say that the video card is responsible for a big portion of the noise my PC is making. The CPU cooler is a TRUE with an S-Flex E, there is a Noctua P-12 on exhaust, and a Kama Bay with stock fan in the front. The PSU is an Enermax Modu 82+. The hard drives are suspended 2x Seagate 7200.11 250 GB single-platter drives. It's generally very quiet (maybe not as quiet as the majority here, though..). When the 8800GT's fan ramps up I can hear a definite increase in noise.

I looked at the Gainward / Palit 4870, Zotac GTX260 AMPÂ², Sapphire Toxic 4870.. And the reviews for them always mention "noise" as a minus of the card. The "reference" 4870's are also not so good at silence, I think; also on these forums I can see that there can be problems replacing their coolers with an Accelero.

So; I would like to ask for your advice for a video card which is noticeably more powerful than a 8800 GT so it should be worth the upgrade.. I think there's not enough difference between a 8800 GT and a 4850. On the other hand, I'd prefer it not to be more noisy than the Palit 8800 GT Sonic. Here in Turkey most video cards have the distributor's warranty sticker on the cooler screws, so replacing the heatsink/fan will void the warranty (something I definitely don't want).

Thanks in advance for the replies!

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:05 am

Asus GTX260 with reference cooler has been tested for quiet solution:'
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article870-page1.html

samuelmorris · Post by **samuelmorris** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:45 am

The HD4870's noise is made solely of turbulence, and isn't that obtrusive, but is far from silent. The GTX260 is meant to perform much better, but I'm not sure how long that lasts in games. I just have my doubts about a 21dB card not overheating after a few hours in games, or more likely, ramping up the speed.
I'd advise against the Accelero for cards like these, they put out a lot of heat compared to cards like the 8800GT and HD3870. The HR-03GT, HR-03GTX or T-Rad2 from Thermalright seem to be quite popular though, as you get to choose a nice fan to put on them. The Zalman VF1000 also did an admirable job of cooling an 8800GTX in EndPCNoise's gamer PC, and that has a similar power output to the 260.

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:07 pm

Hello again,

thejamppa: I saw that review and was quite impressed by the quietness of the cooler.. I then went on to check the price in Turkey; it turned out that only one store is offering them and they're selling for 540 $ (including tax). This is quite a bit more expensive than the other GTX260's in Turkey. I was thinking about the Zotac GTX 260 AMP!Â² version (with 216 units), but some users told me it was not quiet.

However, I've learned that a new generation of GTX 200 cards (built with 55 nm technology) will arrive early next year, maybe as soon as January. Those cards should produce less heat to deal with; and they will probably be more quiet than the current ones.

samuelmorris: Hmm, you're probably right. I think the Accelero wasn't designed with these beasts in mind. I don't have much knowledge about the other heatsinks you mentioned; but I will try to learn more about them. I'd much rather have a card that performs well "out of the box".

Have you had any experience with slowing down the 4870's fan? I guess that could get dangerous, though; users in a hardware forum I frequent usually tried to increase the fan speed to prevent overheating.

I think I'll wait for the 55 nm GTX 200's. In the meanwhile, if anyone here can mention a 4870 or GTX260 model which is not too noisy with its stock cooler (except the ASUS; hideously expensive here), it would be welcome. Info on the Sapphire 4870 Toxic and Zotac GTX 260 AMP!Â² are especially welcome

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:27 pm

pixel wrote:Today I decided to take a look at graphics cards (GTA4 is stressing my 8800GT quite a bit..).

If you want an increase in performance in GTA IV you really need to look at upgrading your processor as that's what seems to limit performance in this particular game. Even a current top end graphics card can't run this game in full detail at the moment.

Getting a high clocked Quad Core processor is more likely to significantly improve performance in the PC version of GTA IV than a new graphics card.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

Have you patched the game as that improves performance?

Have you got the newest Nvidia 180.84 beta graphics driver?

Disabling the replays ingame is supposed to improve performance too.

The game auto configuration settings are over optimistic. The ones it suggested for my PC (E8500@4ghz, 2gb ram, Nvidia GTX260, XP Pro Sp3) were like a slideshow and virtually unplayable.

The 8800GTS 512mb in my brother's PC runs GTA IV fine once the settings are tweaked. Textures on medium, render quality high, equal numbers for vew distance and draw distance (try between 30 and 40 for both) and a shadow density of 2 works much better than the automatic settings.

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:09 am

Hello,

Thank you, WR304, for the reply!

GTA4 is an important reason behind looking for a new video card, but it's not the only one. The 8800 GT is not a snail when it comes to speed, but I've got a 22" LCD and in games like Crysis (& Warhead) and GRID too I'd rather be able to up the graphics settings a bit. I'm also benchmarking from time to time (we have a comparison list at a Turkish hardware forum I frequent) but I'm not buying the video card to run benchmarks, that's for sure. It would just be an added benefit.

I think I can get GTA4 to run better (with help of your advice too) and hold the video card upgrade until newer cards hit the market - which will probably use less power and be more silent. At least, I hope so.

My processor is an E8400 C0 (the first revision), running at 4 gHz. I see that you also have a 4 gHz processor, an E8500 in this case. Don't you also have a feeling that this game should not be "limited" by a 4 gHz Core2 Duo??

I'm now looking at the link you posted. The game patched itself throught the Rockstar Social Club, IIRC, but I'll check. I've got the "BigBang 2" drivers loaded, I don't regard "beta" drivers too highly - they might break something while fixing another thing.

I'll take a look at disabling replays. I, too, was surprised when I saw the "auto configuration" settings - I thought "I didn't know a 8800 GT would be THIS good"..

I'll tweak the settings when I get home. Thank you for the message. I still think, though, that this game could have been better "optimised" for the PC - it shouldn't be like a slideshow on a E8500@ 4 gHz and a GTX 260.

(By the way - I would like to know what brand the GTX 260 is, and how quiet it runs! If it's not quite silent, please see below:)

I guess I could do with 2x AA in GRID, and I finished Crysis & Warhead anyway. I can also do without benchmarking for a while. I'll probably hold on the upgrade.

Thanks everyone!

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:14 pm

Most recent games really benefit from the faster GTX260 card. Compared to my old Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb card GRID and Crysis Warhead run much better with the new card and allow you to use higher settings at smooth frame rates.

GTA IV wouldn't even run until I'd updated the graphics driver, along with uninstalling anything that might possibly be blacklisted by Securom, updating DirectX and installing .net 3.5 etc etc. After all that it worked fine and ran stably though.

Although the graphics don't look amazing there is quite a lot going on in the background within the city (traffic, pedestrians etc). When Quad Core processors actually get to work with multi threaded programs that take advantage of all four cores they are quite a bit faster than a Core 2 Duo. Have a look at these encoding comparisons for example where a 3.2ghz Core i7 processor was twice as fast as an E8500 @3.16ghz in Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8. Most of the time games aren't multi threaded so you don't see the same sort of jump in performance.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/1 ... 5-review/8

Edit: Saw this chart - the minimum framerate for the Core 2 Quad QX6850 @3ghz is 7fps higher than with a Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4ghz.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6695 ... rs/?page=2

The game runs ok once you realise that the settings need to be turned down. The view/ draw distance settings are what really kill the framerate. You can enable High textures with a GTX260 which look nice but that causes a lot of slowdown.

Grand Theft Auto IV PC DX9 - High textures look better but the framerate was a bit sluggish

I've got a Leadtek GTX260 192 at stock clock speeds with the fan turned down to 30% (1000rpm approx) at idle through Rivatuner. I've been quite happy with the stock cooler at that setting.

There are a few threads about the relative noise of GTX260 cards here:

viewtopic.php?t=50254&start=0

viewtopic.php?t=50860

.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:45 pm

another look at gta 4 performance vs cpu
PCGH

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:23 am

Thank you for the replies about the CPU power!

Wow, I didn't think there would be THIS much difference between dual- and quad-cores. I was thinking along the lines of "4 gHz should be enough for anything" - obviously wrong.

The bad thing is; Nehalem has arrived and I'm planning to get a Core i7 processor once there are better / cheaper choices here in Turkey. Because of this; getting a Core2Quad right now would not be very reasonable for me.

I've (almost certainly) decided on the Zotac GTX260 AMPÂ²! with 216 units. I'm waiting for the price to drop a bit. That card should be enough for a good while. On the other hand; I've heard that 55 nm GTX200's could arrive as early as February, so waiting might be the better option. Well, it seems like I'll just wait and read news and reviews..

(BTW: I've tweaked the graphics settings a bit; but did not notice a significant improvement in framerates. I guess I'll play a bit further with the settings..)

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:18 pm

Did you try a newer graphics driver? If you're still using the 180.48? driver then moving to the 180.84 driver might give you a few FPS improvement in GTA IV.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_180.84_beta.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x ... _beta.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x ... _beta.html

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:53 pm

Another set of benchmarks for GTA4 vs gpu

Is there a 4870 / GTX260 w/ about same noise as 8800 GT?

Is there a 4870 / GTX260 w/ about same noise as 8800 GT?

Re: Is there a 4870 / GTX260 w/ about same noise as 8800 GT?