NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTWolfenstein
Finally among our revised benchmark suite we have Wolfenstein, the most recent game to be released using the id Software Tech 4 engine. All things considered it’s not a very graphically intensive game, but at this point it’s the most recent OpenGL title available. It’s more than likely the entire OpenGL landscape will be thrown upside-down once id releases Rage next year.
Wolfenstein ends up getting CPU bound rather quickly, particularly with multi-GPU in the mix. Only at 2560 can these cards really get out and stretch their legs, and even the 480 SLI is likely approaching the cap. With that in mind the GTX 580 ends up splitting the difference between the GTX 480 and 5970 – the 5970 is around 17% faster than the 580, followed by the 580 being about the same difference from the 480.
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spigzone - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Any 'bandwagon' here belongs to Nvidia.mac2j - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Actually the new ATI naming makes a bit more sense.Its not a new die shrink but the 6xxx all do share some features not found at all in the 5xxx series such as Displayport 1.2 (which could become very important if 120 and 240Hz monitors ever catch on).
Also the Cayman 69xx parts are in fact a significantly original design relative to the 58xx parts.
Nvidia to me is the worst offender ... cause a 580 is just fully-enabled 480 with the noise and power problems fixed.
Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
If you think that stepping up the spec on the output ports warrants skipping a generation when naming your product, see that mini-HDMI port on the 580, that's HDMI 1.4 compliant... the requirements for 120Hz displays are met.The GF110 in not a GF100 with all the shaders enabled. It looks that way to the uninitiated. GF110 has much more in common with GF104.
GF110 has three types of tranzistors, graded by leakage, while the GF100 has just two. This gives you the ability to clock the core higher, while having a lower TDP. It is smaller in size then GF100 is, while maintaining the 40nm fab node. GTX580 has a power draw limitation system on the board, the GTX480 does not...
What else... support for full speed FP16 texture filtering which enhances performance in texture heavy applications. New tile formats which improve Z-cull efficiency...
So how does displayport 1.2 warrant the 68x0 name for AMD but the few changes above do not warrant the 5x0 name for nVidia?
I call BS.
Griswold - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
I call your post bullshit.The 580 comes with the same old video engine as the GF100 - if it was so close to GF104, it would have that video engine and all the goodies and improvements it brings over the one in the 480 (and 580).
No, GT580 is a fixed GF100 and most of what you listed there supports that because it fixes what was broken with the 480. Thats all.
Sihastru - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
I'm not sure what you mean... maybe you're right... but I'm not sure... If you're referring to bitstreaming support, just wait for a driver update, the hardware supports it.See: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-580-revi...
"What is also good to mention is that HDMI audio has finally been solved. The stupid S/PDIF cable to connect a card to an audio codec, to retrieve sound over HDMI is gone. That also entails that NVIDIA is not bound to two channel LPCM or 5.1 channel DD/DTS for audio.
Passing on audio over the PCIe bus brings along enhanced support for multiple formats. So VP4 can now support 8 channel LPCM, lossless format DD+ and 6 channel AAC. Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio bit streaming are not yet supported in software, yet in hardware they are (needs a driver update)."
NEVER rely just on one source of information.
Fine, if a more powerful card then the GTX480 can't be named the GTX580 then why is a lower performing then the HD5870 card is ok to be named HD6870... screw technology, screw refinements, talk numbers...
Whatever...
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
To set the record straight, the hardware does not support full audio bitstreaming. I had NV themselves confirm this. It's only HDMI 1.4a video + the same audio formats that GTX 480 supported.B3an - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
You can all argue all you want, but at the end of the day, for marketing reasons alone, NV really didn't have much of a choice but to name this card the 580 instead of 485 after ATI gave there cards the 6xxx series names. Which dont deserve a new series name either.chizow - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
No ATI's new naming convention makes no sense at all. Their x870 designation has always been reserved for their Single-GPU Flagship part ever since the HD3870, and this naming convention has held true through both the HD4xxx and HD5xxxx series. But the 6870 clearly isn't the flagship of this generation, in fact, its slower than the 5870 while the 580 is clearly faster than the 480 in every aspect.To further complicate matters, ATI also launched the 5970 as a dual-GPU part, so single-GPU Cayman being a 6970 will be even more confusing and will also be undoubtedly slower than the 5970 in all titles that have working CF profiles.
If anything, Cayman should be 5890 and Barts should be 5860, but as we've seen from both caps, marketing names are often inconvenient and short-sighted when they are originally designated......
Galid - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
We're getting into philosophy there. Know what's a sophism? An argument that seems strong but isn't because there's a fail in it. The new honda 2011 ain't necessarily better than the 2010 because it's newer.They name it differently because it's changed and wanna make you believe it's better but history proved it's not always the case. So the argument of newer generation means better is a false argument. Not everything new ''gotta'' be better in every way to live up to it's name.
But it's my opinion.
Galid - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
It seems worse but that rebranding is all ok in my mind as it comes the 6870 comes in at a cheaper price than the 5870. So everyone can be happy about it. Nvidia did worse rebranding some of the 8xxx series into 9xxx chips for higher price but almost no change and no more performance. 9600gt comes to my mind...What is 9xxx series? a remake of a ''better'' 8xxx series. What is GTS3xx series, remake of GTx2xx, what is GTX5xx, .... and so on. Who cares? If it's priced well it's all ok. When I see someone going at staples to get a 9600gt at 80$ and I know I can get a 4850 for almost the same price, I say WTF!!!
GTX580 deserve the name they want to give it. Whoever tries to understand all that naming is up to him. But whoever wants to pay example 100$ for a card should get performance according to that and it seems more important than everything else to me!