Just another GPU value chart

Very interesting read, thanks for putting it together. So If I understand it correctly a 690 doesn't give you the best value, a 650 Ti wins?
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For Me it's this monster...

GeForce GTX 590 2488.3 $699 - 3.56

Now I don't know if You used the dollar amount listed on the wiki or not, but that's what I did, rounded up since it was so close.

Now I don't know how much the PC uses, but My last bill was foe $40.44 and the average cost per Kwh was about $0.0502266666666667 and I used 434.0 Kwh last month for the whole house and yeah that's what My bill shows, not like I can do anything about that or that I'd want to, I'd be nuts if I did.
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Ok, disclaimers:

Yada yada YMMV yada yada prices are subject to change yada yada not a reflection of RAC yada yada batteries not included yada yada and all the other stuff you guys already know far better than I.

Ok, disclaimers:

Yada yada YMMV yada yada prices are subject to change yada yada not a reflection of RAC yada yada batteries not included yada yada and all the other stuff you guys already know far better than I.

Here's the problem: The GFLOPS numbers are NOT a reflection of SETI production. I know that sucks, but it's true. So saying "not a reflection of RAC yada yada," is necessary and true and can't be stressed enough. It makes the comparison deceptive even if you didn't intend to deceive anybody.

I own four 660Tis and six 560Tis and I can tell you that the 560Tis are faster at **SETI** number crunching despite the 660Tis greater price and twice as much RAM. The TDP numbers are likewise deceptive if you're going to throw the 6xx into "boost" clock speeds or overclock them like all the utilities are designed to let you do.

Your comparisons are great, it's just that the "benchmark" isn't useful as a proxy for crunching SETI, so why compare this way?

The 660Ti is not quite the equal of a 560 (I own three) despite certain people's insistence that their shiny new GPU is superior to someone else's one year old "vintage" GPU. The 600-series ARE better... at playing new games.

The only reasonable basis for crunching comparison would be something like Fred's tool.

Ok, so it isn't perfect, and ok, so we don't have a perfect list of every GPU model, but look here anyway:

FRED'S LIST

What I see on that list is pretty doggone reflective of what I see in daily use, and we all know that the TDP figures are the worst kind of misinformation for OC, SC, SCC, Ultra, and Classified cards as the power consumption goes-up geometrically as clock speeds are increased.

Of course, I'm assuming that the cards on that list that I don't own are also reflective of what their owners see in real life use.

It looks like to put this whole debate to bed I'm going to have to build a "standard machine" and put every card I own in it, with a kill-a-watt meter on the system, and use Fred's tool (or something) to get a meaningful comparison that everyone (except for those *convinced* of something already; they can't be helped) can agree is a meaningful comparison.

The problem is that I'm not going to buy a 480,580,680,590, or 690 to make the comparison.

I can only do 460, 470, 560, 560Ti, 560Ti-448, 660Ti, and 670 comparisons and I can't do any of it until sometime in January.

Should I even bother, or do you all think it would just lead to another argument? What would you say is an acceptable *MINIMUM* processor, board, PSU, & RAM to remove those arguments? I don't want to take the time to do it if nobody is going to believe the results.

EDIT: The information I can provide by doing that is already pretty accurately reflected in Fred's list with the exception of power consumption. Is it worth the time, money, and effort?

DOUBLE EDIT: And then what version of the application do I use?

That's an extra ~$150 over a 3 year period. But ignore that for a moment and have another look at the above Watts and costs in the second chart. Both GPUs cost ~$800 over a 3 year period. That looks like a tie to me, if both cards are similar in RAC. How did you come to the conclusion that the 560 TI is better? Have I missed something?

If you are serious about wanting to do this, then yes, I for one would find it very useful to see real world results. I've understood for some time that benchmarks and specs are only a baseline for comparison between different models, and the saying your mileage may vary (considerably) often applies. If you were to do this, you would provide a lot of useful real world info to those of us looking to upgrade our systems to a more efficient GPU. I cast my vote for Yes, Please.
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If a 670 has an RAC of ~33k and a 560 TI has an RAC of ~26k, why isn't a 660 TI producing ~33k? It's not the apps, so what is it?

If you were to do this, you would provide a lot of useful real world info to those of us looking to upgrade our systems to a more efficient GPU. I cast my vote for Yes, Please.

@Horacio
Thanx for the reply. OK I kinda get why the memory bus could come into play when running multiple WUs. But the link tbret provided to Fred's forums shows the 660 TI slower than the 560 TI at (what I think is) a single task. Could something else be coming into play? Like ROPs or something?

You're forgetting that the other card continues to run also, so it has to "save" enough power over some time past break-even to break even. It's not just 16%, it's also that 16% + what the card is consuming while it "catches-up" at a very slow rate.

I'm saying that by the time the 600 catches the 500, the 500 has pulled away again. It isn't like the 500 stops to let the 600 catch-up.
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Alex,

I have been occupied; sorry about that.

The numbers in Fred's list are the "optimum" numbers. As you probably know, it tests one, two, three, four work-units running simultaneously and then reports the optimum number of simultaneous tasks and the average speed of a work unit under those conditions. So, yes, those are the "equivalent" work unit times, not an actual single work unit. Fred's tool will let you do the one at a time test if you want, it's just that most of us really want to know how to set the variable of 1/2/3/4 in order to get the most productivity from our cards, so it's written to tell us that.

The 200-series cards are going to be running one work unit at a time and the Fermis, mostly, are optimized at three at a time, as are most of the Keplers, but maybe there's a 2-at-once number in there for some model.

That doesn't mean that the average user is going to run multiple instances at a time. I have no idea what the average user will do.

Talking about the "boost" and the power readings all over the place, I think either we're confusing two things, or we're using different words to talk about the same thing.

"GPU Boost" is a feature NVIDIA added to the Kepler cards (I'm not sure that the re-badged cards... the 600-series that are really just renamed 500-series... have "GPU Boost" or not). You can go to NVIDIA's website and watch a video about GPU Boost if you'd like, but it's mostly telling "gamers" how much more wonderful their gaming experience will be due to this automatic clock adjustment. You should know that the 600 series cards are "throttled" from the factory and by using "Precision X" you can raise the target voltage of the Boost feature beyond the TDP specification for the card.

So... what's the difference in that and turning down the clocks and voltage on a 560Ti to make it "appear" that you are saving electricity?

Your point is well-taken about the power consumption of the 500-series cards, and that's part of why my favorites of what I own are the 670s. They are burning about the same juice as a 560Ti and doing more work. I really like mine a lot because they exhaust the heat, unlike our Gigabyte overclock 560Tis that dump it in the case.

If I have an objection to the 660Tis it would be their cost. As a gaming video card they may be worth every penny, I don't know. As a cruncher, we can do better on an initial cost/"credit" basis.

Once you throw-in the cost of electricity and try to compute a "cost of ownership" then you start solving for multiple variables and you really can make almost any argument you (or I) want-to by just setting the calculation up to bias the result.

The first thing you have to do is determine whether your "value" is in the card + its electricity cost; or if you'd rather look at the "value" from a RAC perspective. The result of the calculation is necessarily going to be different.

I was recently able to purchase an EVGA GTX 560Ti-448 Classified Ultra for $150 after a $30 rebate. That card is not anything I would have bought last year when they were "new!" and expensive, but at $150...it is a screamer. It bests my 950MHz Gigabyte 560Ti and embarrasses the SC 660Ti I paid $300 for.

In our comparison, if I set the price variable on that card at $150 and we compare that to a $300 SC 660Ti the whole aesthetic of the comparison changes, if the ultimate result doesn't.

Eventually the 660Ti will save enough electricity to "best" the 560Ti-448 in total cost of ownership.

Eventually.

"In the long run."

In the long run we're all dead.

Here's something we aren't even considering: You know you can generally tell, relatively, how much electricity a card is consuming by how much heat it generates.

Jason has worked magic on the applications for SETI@Home by making the hardware produce as much useful work as possible (the higher RAC for optimized apps is apparent). The cards get much hotter using the optimized applications. They are burning more electricity and doing more work.

That's why one of my questions is "What application do we use to make the comparisons?"

I don't mean to sound argumentative. I'm only trying to expose the issues involved in making these multi-faceted comparisons.

Take another example - Can someone buy two 660s and not have to buy a new $200 power supply to run them, but would have-to with two 560Tis? Can we figure-that into the RAC/dollar? Sure, it's legitimate. Where do we stop doing that? How about with air conditioning consumed or heating oil not-consumed?

That's why I tend to focus on "RAC" per initial dollar, because the comparison is as free of all that ambiguous stuff as possible.

And that, my friend, is the reason I'm just not a huge fan of cutting-edge in general, and I'm a detractor from the 600-series fan club in specific.

I realize other people may prioritize differently and I think that's great that we all aren't identical clones.
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Some great information and incite! All of the information in this thread is helping me decided which direction to take my crunchers next.

@ tbret, could you run the optimum number program on your 470 to add the data to Fred's list?

I'm away from my main rigs and am trying to figure out if I should finish setting up a water cooled 3x 470 rig or dump the 470s in favor of maybe one 690. I already have the cards and blocks, but would still need to buy the rads, pump and fittings.


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