NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTCivilization V
The other new game in our benchmark suite is Civilization 5, the latest incarnation in Firaxis Games’ series of turn-based strategy games. Civ 5 gives us an interesting look at things that not even RTSes can match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.
Civilization V continues to vex us for a couple different reasons. For all the DirectX 11 bells and whistles it uses, it’s definitely CPU limited at times. And on the other hand, adding a second GPU definitely helps, but only for AMD, as NVIDIA even with a Civilization V SLI profile is gaining practically nothing. Finally, those GTX 480 and 580 numbers aren’t wrong – it really does get faster at higher resolutions for reasons we can only assume are due to the triangles getting larger and easier to rasterize and/or cull.
In any case the GTX 580 still manages to nearly top the charts at 2560, as in lieu of good SLI/CF scaling, the biggest single GPU is worth having. Ultimately we appear to be CPU limited at this resolution, which for reasons unknown doesn’t bode well for the 5970. Meanwhile at 1920 the picture gets turned on its head, with the GTX 580 effectively tying the GTX 480 here while at the same time AMD’s mutli-GPU configurations pull ahead.
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StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I would have called them the 6750/6770 personally... Or at the very least the 6830/6850.There were also some architectural changes in the GTX 580 as well.
slickr - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Whats real and whats not real for you?6850 and 6870 are essentially more shaders, rops and higher clocks with few architectural improvements.
It will be same for the 6900 series.
GTX 580 again is same as the above, few architectural improvements, higher shaders, textures and clocks.
Credit must be given where its due and even though this was supposed to be the 480, its still a great product by its own, its faster, cooler, quieter and less power hungry.
ninjaquick - Thursday, December 2, 2010 - link
Umm, 6850 and 6870 are DECREASES on all but ROPs and Clocks. The architecture is only similar and very much evolutionary:numbers are: Universal Shader : Texture Mapping Unit : Render Output unit.
5850: 1440:72:32
6850: 960:48:32
5870: 1600:80:32
6870: 1120:56:32
So, 5-10% slower and 33% component shrink, which is to say ~1.4x perf increase per shader. So a full blown (6970) NI at an assumed 1600 shaders like the previous gen would be the rough equivalent of a 2400 shader evergreen when it comes to raw performance, so 1.4 to 1.5 times faster. It can be safely assumed that the shader performance will be higher than 2 5830s in CFX. 2 5830s are about 30% faster than a GTX 580.
That is theoretical performance based on a lot of assumptions and Ideal drivers. My point is NI is not a ground up redesign but it is a vastly superior and vastly different architecture to Evergreen.
boe - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
I can't wait to see a comparison with the 6970. I don't know which will win but it will help me decide which to get - I'm still using a 4870 so I'm ready for something new!The other thing that will help me decide is card options. The 4870 had some very nice "pre-silenced" modified cards right after release. The 6870 already has some "pre-silenced" cards on the market. The factory standard 580 is pretty loud although it is quieter than the 480 by far. I'm hoping there will be some modified 580's on the market with much quieter but at least as effective cooling solutions.
Will Robinson - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
This is a much better effort than GTX480.Cooler,quieter and faster.
AMD will have a tough fight on their hands with Cayman XT versus this new part.
StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Can't wait for a price war, something that seemed to be missing with Fermi and the 5xxx series.Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Let's hope so. This way both fanbois camps will win when it comes to how much lighter their wallets will be after their purchase (in some cases their parents wallets - only children act like fanbois).B3an - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
I -wish- only children acted like fanboys. The fact is that a lot of these guys are well into there 20's and 30's.They really are pathetic people.
mino - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Well not that it was hard to beat 480 ... that part was not ready for prime time in the first place.dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, March 18, 2015 - link
...lol, facepalm.