NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTMetro 2033
The first recently added game on our list is 4A Games’ Metro 2033, their tunnel shooter released earlier this year. In September the game finally received a major patch resolving some outstanding image quality issues with the game, finally making it suitable for use in our benchmark suite. At the same time a dedicated benchmark mode was added to the game, giving us the ability to reliably benchmark much more stressful situations than we could with FRAPS. If Crysis is a tropical GPU killer, then Metro would be its underground counterpart.
If BattleForge is an average game for the GTX 580, then Metro would be an outstanding game. Compared to the GTX 480 it’s 23% faster at 2560, falling off at lower resolutions. While the difference isn't earthshattering, it’s big enough that even at 1920 it’s just enough to push the framerate in to a more comfortable range. CrossFire/SLI push the envelope further, bringing the framerate up to playable levels at 2560, and increasing the spread at 1920. And finally at 1680 with lower settings we can finally crack 60fps with 1 card, but it’s going to take a GTX 480, 580, or 5970 to do it.
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Pantsu - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
A good article, and a good conclusion overall. Much better that the fiasko that was the 6800-article.I do lament the benchmarking method AT uses though. Benchmarks like the Crysis Warhead one are not really representative of real world performance, but tend to be a bit too "optimized". They do not reflect real world performance very well, and even skew the results between cards.
carage - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
No DOLBY/DTS HD bitstream = epic fail as far as HTPC usage is concerned.Thank you nVidia for failing again this round.
Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Yes, you must be one of the only two persons in the world that was considering the most powerfull GPU on the planet for a HTPC setup.carage - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
And somehow you still buy into the argument that mid-end offerings at half the price has more features than the top of the line card?nVidia has been doing this since 6800 era...
QuagmireLXIX - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - link
And I am the other :) What some people don't see is that someone may only want 1 desktop to do everything well.buildingblock - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I'm impressed that my local hardware dealer here in the UK has no less than 5 GTX 580s in stock today. It also includes, yes in stock, the first overclocked 580 the Palit Sonic which has a 835 Mhz CPU up from 772, 4200 memory up from 4008, and 1670 shaders up from 1544. All this for about 5% more than the price of the standard Palit GTX 580.buildingblock - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I meant 5 different makes of GTX 580 of course.mapesdhs - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Are you near Bolton by any chance? ;D
If not, which company?
Btw, shop around, the Sonic is 30 cheaper elsewhere.
Ian.
buildingblock - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I was looking at a standard Palit GTX 580 for £380, and the Sonic version for £398. These were about the best prices I could find today.nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
But how far it can go depends on its counterpart, the HD6970.