Ultimate NV 3x480 vs ATI 3x5870 showdown! 2 builds

hello everyone. this thread is about 2 of my builds i made in paralell. both are 90% complete.
First the description
both have i7 930 ocd to 3.8
i do not use more then 1 hd at a time so both have 1 hd (seagate)
nv:
3 gig ram
x58 ud 5 gigabyte mobo
corsair 1000 psu
3x gtx 480
lian li pc-a05nb (my faw case with psu upfront! really nice)
ati:
6 gig ram
850 corsair psu
evga x58 micro
1x 5970 (bios flashed to 5870 clocks)
1x 5870 so just like normal 5870 trifire
LIAN LI PC-V351A


both on 2560x1600 monitor

Now the idea behind:
i starded both just to see which one would end up being better in terms of end user experience not just frames when comparing apples to apples (and i feel even though one is a 2 pcb system it still has 3 gpus so the comparaison is FAIR).
I tried to have both builds as small as possible (but with regards to airflow as making it more cramped would just kill the efficiency), as silent as possible (and not just silent but stable, so every system can handle endless hours of furmark and prime 95 without overheating) and both had to look ok (i'm to lazy to spend time on cable management and stuff since once the case is closed we dont see that anyway). keep in mind the aesthetics are very important, but the rigs look ugly cause they are not yet finished, once done they will look noothing more then just a case with a nicely mounted radiator on top. P.S: the 480 rad on NV build will be mounted horizontally abothe the case whereas the ATI 360 rad are mounted directly onto the case.

now to watercooling parts:

gpus all have ek blocks. nv got acetal + nickel ati gpt copper
heatkillers v3 for cpu
ati has nb watercooled as well
NV has 2 120 radiators inside and one 480 on top
ATI has 2 360 rads on top (always wanted to do that)
NV has dual d5s with ek dual top and 150 res.
ATI has a single d5 and a swifttech res for the moment, i am still looking into improving that.

both builds use noctua 120mm 1200 fans (dang those are expensive at 20 apiece!) and NV has a 180mm silverstone on the side

I did not do an in deph description since most of u know pretty well the parts i am using so no point. now to the most important, PICS:

NV
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/9089/dsc00460ws.th.jpg
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/2...c00459u.th.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7...00458pj.th.jpg
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/5...c00457j.th.jpg

ATI
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/4...00456dq.th.jpg
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/5...00455di.th.jpg
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/6...00454kn.th.jpg
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/7114/dsc00453it.th.jpg




Sooooo.
i did not yet have time to properly bench them so i will just give my impressions.
both builds are quiete, noctuas are the best and when undervolted dont produce any extra noise like many other fans (i have schytes, silenxs and others here) , and d5 when u slow em down a bit are inaudible. i tried ddcs but they are way too noisy even at 3k rps (as low as it spins).the silverstone 180 fan was a pleasant surprise as it gives good cfm and low noise. corsair psus are nice but i still have to replace the fans with adjustible ones to have a quiete system as this is the one component that stics out in tems of noise (no, the fans are great, i just want even quieter). ATI ended up a bit smaller and sleeker, but not much. but deffinetly a looker.

Now that i'm done with hardware, lets talk about running em.
i had ATI for a bit longer and i can say that my build was rock solid, no driver issues 'especially since i flashed the bios with higher 2D clocks on 5970) and great performance across the board. some games like metro and crysis were unplayable at native res maxed, but BFBC2 rocked (NV sux here, still long load times). overall i am under a very good impression cause of hassle free performance in many games even though some games clearly had issues at that res.And ATI has regular driver updates and as far as i'm concerned (a long timeNV user) doing a better job here.

NV needs more power to run and dissipates more heat in to the room then ATI for relativly the same performance. some games run better (the above mensioned), some worse so no clear winner here. I dont play many games anyway, it's just a hobby (building PC that is), the mane game i play is "internet explorer". as for drivers i ran into few issues with tri sli, not going to talk bout that right now, but i feel ATI 3 gpu solution worked better.

OVERCLOCKING:

now, 480 can go from 700 to 850 24/7 stable with a v bump, but i need a bigger psu (1250 enermax is on its way).
ATI can go to 900 24/7 with a v bump as well and i did not try any further for 24/7 settings to be honest. if it were 3 5870s i would take em to 1000 24/7 easy, but 5970 maxes out round 950.

nv is a better clocker and performance scales better for some reason wit oc, but i'll get to comparing FPS later on, when i find the time.

all in all if i had unlimited budget (which i do :p) and had to pick one regardless of price i would go for ATI since it perfoms just as well, dumps much less heat in the room (really important 4 me), is smller, and i find has better driver support now.


i am a bit biased cause when i was putting my NV rig together a 4-way classified mobo died on me, taking out my HDD, so i'm a bit pissed, but when i get it back from rma i might try 4 way sli (i have 2 spare 480s lying around just in case. why? like for example i almost killed my x58 micro with 2 480 when i was putting my WC loop apart when i spilled liquid ALL over :eek: the board and gpus (so i pannicked and go 2 more while they were drying out). luckily after blow drying and wiping it all worked flawlessly. maybe that was cause i'm using Fluid XP coolant? it says it's not conductive, is it?anyhow no issues there.
so as u can see i had more issues with NV wc loop. and i had a small leak on my 120 rad as well, had fluid all over my corsair 1000!


maybe a more indeph review incoming later.

Comments please