Nvidia GTX 580 Reviews

[AffenJack]

i bet the only reason the 580 consumes 10% less is because it has a much better cooler.
lower temps = lower power consumption, we all know that...
so id love to see somebody switch heatsinks on a 480 and 580 or compare both cards with either one of the two heatsinks

There's a difference, but not a big one at same temperature.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-22.html

[railer]

I'd only buy this if I had more money than brains. Shouldn't take long for that anyways, but still

I just want to ask are you getting more dumber with time or more wealthier? I have a direct interest in your answer as I'm getting older too

[Pantsu]

I think people are tired of the name game already. With 15~20% extra performance and basically no new features, not even hd audio bitstreaming support like on gf104, the gf110 hardly deserves a 500 moniker. Yet most people seem to just let it pass because it's Nvidia and that's what they do.

As for the 5970, I'm inclined to agree that it's not as good a solution as a single GTX 580. Crossfire support is flaky at best, and minimum framerates suck according to reviews. The fact of the matter is that it's outdated now, soon to be replaced, and not a good buy unless with considerably lower price. I see it can be had for 390€ in Germany, while the cheapest GTX 580 are around 450€. Now that's a price low enough for a 5970 that makes you reconsider buying a GTX 580. And I suppose that's the idea too, AMD dropped the price for a few SKU just to make GTX 580 look worse, even though the 5970 stock will be sold out in no time.

[WaterFlex]

Nice performance. Will wait some numbers 580 vs 6970.

[NaMcO]

i bet the only reason the 580 consumes 10% less is because it has a much better cooler.

That and the fact that it has 200,000,000 less transistors than GF100 eh?

[Pantsu]

Was there really an official number of transistors? Last I heard they were both ~3 billion, and Nvidia didn't give any more specific number. And since GTX 580 didn't drop any support afaik what exactly was in those now supposedly missing transistors?

[zalbard]

Was there really an official number of transistors? Last I heard they were both ~3 billion, and Nvidia didn't give any more specific number. And since GTX 580 didn't drop any support afaik what exactly was in those now supposedly missing transistors?

There was, yep, 3.2B vs 3B.

[Sam_oslo]

Was there really an official number of transistors? Last I heard they were both ~3 billion, and Nvidia didn't give any more specific number. And since GTX 580 didn't drop any support afaik what exactly was in those now supposedly missing transistors?

I'm not sure about the details on micro-level, but I guess they have taken out some of Tesla-like functions. Those function in original GF100 was meant to come handy for GPGPU, but then it got hot and power hungry. But I'm not sure, and trying to find out more about it.

[xdan]

I don't think they cut any functions, they've just reorganized the transzistor arangement they use third type of tranzistors, and they used less tranzistor because some of them were in excess.. I mean i think they cut some leakege tranzistors

Thus the trick to making a good GPU is to use leaky transistors where you must, and use slower transistors elsewhere. This is exactly what NVIDIA did for GF100, where they primarily used 2 types of transistors differentiated in this manner. At a functional unit level we’re not sure which units used what, but it’s a good bet that most devices operating on the shader clock used the leakier transistors, while devices attached to the base clock could use the slower transistors. Of course GF100 ended up being power hungry – and by extension we assume leaky anyhow – so that design didn’t necessarily work out well for NVIDIA.

For GF110, NVIDIA included a 3rd type of transistor, which they describe as having “properties between the two previous ones”. Or in other words, NVIDIA began using a transistor that was leakier than a slow transistor, but not as leaky as the leakiest transistors in GF100. Again we don’t know which types of transistors were used where, but in using all 3 types NVIDIA ultimately was able to lower power consumption without needing to slow any parts of the chip down. In fact this is where virtually all of NVIDIA’s power savings come from, as NVIDIA only outright removed few if any transistors considering that GF110 retains all of GF100’s functionality.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/n...orce-gtx-580/3

[JohnZS]

I wonder if and when OC versions and custom versions appear whether it would be upgrading from a Single PCB GTX 295 to one of these puppies.
The noise is what impresses me most and the performance appears to be good too
Must admit the extra VRAM will come in handy for me in GTA IV and EFLC!
John

[Pantsu]

I wonder if and when OC versions and custom versions appear whether it would be upgrading from a Single PCB GTX 295 to one of these puppies.
The noise is what impresses me most and the performance appears to be good too
Must admit the extra VRAM will come in handy for me in GTA IV and EFLC!
John

http://www.guru3d.com/news/sparkle-g...0-and-calibre/

Besides the Sparkle card only Evga waterblock version is custom, the rest are afaik reference boards, though some might have meager OC clocks.

[Mechanical Man]

There was, yep, 3.2B vs 3B.

No, nVidia has not given official amount of transistors other than ~3B for both GF100 & GF110.

[Olivon]

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: The SLI Update - AnandTech

[saaya]

There's a difference, but not a big one at same temperature.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-22.html

5-15W... and every chip comes binned to a different voltage which results in differences...

then again, on the other hand the 580 has more sps and is clocked higher... so even at the same temperature it consumes less, with more logic enabled at higher clocks... so there really is an improvement chip-wise... cool...

could also be the pwm... but i think its identical for 480 and 580 right?

thx for the link, and good job hwcanucks!

I think people are tired of the name game already. With 15~20% extra performance and basically no new features, not even hd audio bitstreaming support like on gf104, the gf110 hardly deserves a 500 moniker. Yet most people seem to just let it pass because it's Nvidia and that's what they do.

As for the 5970, I'm inclined to agree that it's not as good a solution as a single GTX 580. Crossfire support is flaky at best, and minimum framerates suck according to reviews. The fact of the matter is that it's outdated now, soon to be replaced, and not a good buy unless with considerably lower price. I see it can be had for 390€ in Germany, while the cheapest GTX 580 are around 450€. Now that's a price low enough for a 5970 that makes you reconsider buying a GTX 580. And I suppose that's the idea too, AMD dropped the price for a few SKU just to make GTX 580 look worse, even though the 5970 stock will be sold out in no time.

idk man... read the bittech review... at 2560x1600 with aa the 580 is notably faster and gets playable fps, especially min fps, while the 480 just doesnt cut it...

its still "only" 20-30% up there as well, but its the 20-30% that was missing to have it playable with a 480... so idk... for a 2560x1600 gaming rig a 580 sounds great... you no longer need sli or xfire...

the only thing is that availability right now is 0, and everybody claims itll be bad at best... and ati has a competing card around the corner, supposedly... so... even if i WANTED to upgrade, id HAVE to wait anyways, and by the time i could buy it, the 6900 is probably going to be out heh...

That and the fact that it has 200,000,000 less transistors than GF100 eh?

idk... do you think that makes a big diff?
doubt those transistors were used a lot to begin with, otherwise nvidia wouldnt have cut them off, cause they want more perf, not less with gf110...
not used a lot = dont add to power consumption...

[zalbard]

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: The SLI Update - AnandTech

Higher temps than 5970... Almost as much noise.
Not very good scaling at 2560 either, hmmm... 6870 definitely has better scaling.

[ajaidev]

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: The SLI Update - AnandTech

5970 CF is missing!!

[Pantsu]

Ryan said in the comments they didn't have two 5970 to use.

[highoctane]

I only use max details and filtering, if i wanted to deal with anything less I would play games on consoles. I myself used an 8800GTX on my 3007wfp. Is card fashion it would only give me 30-40 fps in games, that is ok for single player games, but not good at all for multi-player games. Later I switched to dual GTX 285s and they gave me 60-80 fps which made multi-player games playable without AA, but i don't use that for multi-player anyways. Now a days I like to keep the frames around 70-100fps for online play.

I'm not taking issue with your personal preference in regards to what you need/want/like simply that line about "People that run 2560x1600 need dual gpu" is an exaggeration because we all don't "need" nor do I personally want to deal with a multi gpu config to game at 25x16 even with an x58 mb and a crossfire ready amd board.

If a game is good its enjoyable to me just the same without high shadows or uber reflections whether I'm playing a multiplayer games online or a single player game.

[xdan]

Sparkle GTX 580 at 509$ and with the promo code 10%(it has too) it cost's 459$.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187125
460$ sounds much better...

[Periander6]

the only thing is that availability right now is 0, and everybody claims itll be bad at best...

Who is everybody? Charlie? Let's see what we have atm.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...iption=gtx+580

Nine models, all in stock at newegg.

http://ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=gtx+580

Eight models, 5 in stock at ncix. This is anything but the paper launch/no cards till 2011 charlie claimed.

[Chumbucket843]

idk... do you think that makes a big diff?
doubt those transistors were used a lot to begin with, otherwise nvidia wouldnt have cut them off, cause they want more perf, not less with gf110...

lopping off 200M transistors is probably a lot simpler than what they actually did to fermi. maybe they found a way to do the same thing with less logic? i dont really know and there is very little information available that can offer insight into that subject.furthermore, the number of gates is not a good measurement of area because speed affects transistor size. if fermi were designed for half of the original clockspeed it could be half the size and an even smaller fraction of the power. there are so many other things i could list that they might have changed but they would only go unanswered.

i have a hunch that the power circuit was improved. the ammeter and current limiter allows them to use a more efficient power circuit because peak current will be much lower. intel did something similar with montecito. it has 64 clockspeeds which saved them a lot of power when performance wasnt needed.

not used a lot = dont add to power consumption...

with leakage it does not matter if the transistors are being used or not. the power is still being consumed. dynamic power involves switching which is affected by activity. i would bet that the majority of g100 and gf110's power consumption comes from leakage, and more so than other chips.

[c22]

has anybody actually run gf100 and gf110 side by side at the same clocks and compared performance?
im curious how much those tweaks boost performance and in what situation...

Somebody did.

http://nvision.pl/GeForce-GTX-580-GF...etails-18.html

[Lanek]

I wonder if and when OC versions and custom versions appear whether it would be upgrading from a Single PCB GTX 295 to one of these puppies.
The noise is what impresses me most and the performance appears to be good too
Must admit the extra VRAM will come in handy for me in GTA IV and EFLC!
John

Evga have annonced 4 models ( 2 OC in reality, package differs)
*EVGA GeForce GTX 580: 772MHz core, 1544MHz shaders, 4008MHz memory
* EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Superclocked: 797MHz core, 1594MHz shaders, 4050MHz memory
*EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition: Same as Superclocked but with a CoD: Black Ops style fan shroud and a poster. This model does not include the actual game.
*EVGA GeForce GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2: 850MHz core, 1700MHz shaders, 4196MHz memory

Pricing:

1.
GTX 580 - 479.90 EUR
2.
GTX 580 Superclocked – 495 EUR
3.
GTX 580 Call of Duty :Black Ops edition – 499.90 EUR
4.
GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper – 695.90 EUR ( lol, to the + 100 EUR for a waterblock, get an EK or other instead )

[kgtiger]

My apologies if I have missed it, but has the "Evga GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper" been reviewed yet?
I have read it's not yet released.

[E30M3]

Higher temps than 5970... Almost as much noise.
Not very good scaling at 2560 either, hmmm... 6870 definitely has better
scaling.

6870 is very slow card compared to 580
so 2x580 will suffer from lack of cpu power.
but despite this 580 SLI is doing it very well

But what happens to AMD here??
it is quite unplayable on AMD Hardware

[IMG][/IMG]