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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donjuancarlos - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Along that line it's shoo-in, not shoe-in. :)Ryan Smith - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!Thanks for the heads up, Don.
Troll Trolling - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
You guys made my day.samspqr - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
more important, where it says:"Both the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 6870 CF are worthy competitors to the GTX 580 – they’re faster and in the case of the 6870 CF largely comparable in terms of power/temperature/noise."
it should say:
"Both the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 6870 CF come out on top of the GTX 580 – they’re faster in nearly all benchmarks, and in both cases largely comparable in terms of price, power and temperature; 6870CF is also comparable in terms of noise, while 5970 comes out significantly louder."
DominionSeraph - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
No, it should say, "Both 6850 CF and GTX460 SLI blow everything else out of the water given that they're practically giving away the highly overclockable 6850's for ~$185, 1GB GTX 460's for ~$180 AR, and 768MB GTX 460's for $145 AR."DreamerX5521 - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
by looking at the test results, I guess 6870CF is a better choice than a single 580 in term of performance/watt, price (about the same), temperature, noise, etc..Kim Leo - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I noticed that as well, a little surprising I did expect a bit more considering all the hype, but then again it's built on the Fermi.I'm not sure what's up with the pricing? Do they think that there will be a market for GTX480 when Cayman comes and with the GF110 out?
Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
If you can live with the sub-par minimum framerates that plagues so many games with CF setups.JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Amen. I'm a 5850 CF user (and 4870X2 before that), and I can tell you I'd much rather have a single GPU and forget about profiles and other issues. But then, 30" LCDs need more than a single GPU in most games.B3an - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
30" monitors dont need anything more than a high-end single GPU for most games. 99.9% of PC games are playable maxed out plus AA at 2560 res with just one of my 5870's in use, of with my previous 480. Theres only a handful of games that need dual GPU's to be playable at this res. Mainly because most games are console ports these days.And the OP is wrong, 6870 CF is not any better than the 580 with temperature or noise. 580 being better under load with noise, better with temps at idle, but only very slightly hotter under load.