# RX 480 trade for GTX 970



## iero (Mar 21, 2021)

Good evening, new member here, just registered to ask a question.
I have a main system with  a 3060 folding already. I had a secondary system with an Ryzen 3 2200g, without a dGPU,
so last week bought a 4 year old MSI Gaming X RX 480 4GB with a broken fin, for 100€, a good price given the current GPU situation.



post images
Since then I've been folding during the day, cause the imbalanced fan, rattles a lot and above 28~30% fan speed it is quite audible and
I can't have the pc running during the night, since it is located right next to my bed.
All this time I've been looking for a trade with an Nvidia card, in order to use the CUDA advantage, trying to achieve better efficiency and
avoid having to buy replacement fans.(the card is a hassle to open up without a screwdriver with magnetic tips - which I do not have)
I now have two offers.
1) A GTX 970 4GB Gainward Phoenix,
2) A GTX 970 4GB GIgabyte Windforce 3x OC
According to  FOLDING.LAR.SYSTEMS an RX 480 has a PPD of 360K at 225W, but I'm getting an avg PPD of 350k for an avg of 92W with my Gaming X.
Today I had 2 (7h to complete) WUs at an estimated 428K PPD - an +21% avg according to the chrome web extension.
Given the info, charts, stats, etc from FOLDING.LAR.SYSTEMS and the web a GTX 970 should be better suited than the RX 480 for folding, right?
If that is true, should I trade my 480 for an 970, and if yes, with which of the 2 cards?


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## phill (Mar 22, 2021)

Welcome to the site @iero 

I'd personally stick with the 970 if I'm honest but I wouldn't personally consider either of the two cards there..  I think the MSI Gaming X cards are amazing (never had one by the way) and they have some great performance and brilliant cooling...  

Gigabyte and Gainward (prefer Gainward over Gigabyte) but I would like to bet that neither of them are as good as the Gaming X, I'd be very surprised to be honest if that wasn't the case...

Right now as I'm sure you are aware, trying to buy a GPU is a nightmare..  Have you considered taking the fan out that is damaged and then strapping a 120mm fan to it instead?  It would save you some cash and might be worth trying to hold on for a bit longer until it's a little bit easier to buy a normal GPU....?

Just my 2p worth


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## Jacky_BEL (Mar 27, 2021)

I would also suggest to replace the fans on the card.
You can try to get them of another MSi card with the same cooler.


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## pavle (Mar 27, 2021)

Naughty, but I'll suggest it - the simplest way to fix your fan is:
I counted the blades - there used to be 14. Just break the blade directly across the fan axis of the broken one and the fan will be balanced again - no need to buy another graphics card.


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## iero (Mar 30, 2021)

Since English is my second language, I must have not been clear enough. I had had the 480 with the broken fin. I traded it with a WindForce x3 OC GTX 970 after all, for the CUDA bonus to PPD. But unfortunately the card ramps up to 100% for no reason, even though MSI afterburner and GPU-Z show no change in rpm or %fan speed. So i'll trade back to my gaming x 480, and probably gonna break another fin to balance out the fan hub.


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