NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTThe Test
For our look at the GTX 580 we will only be looking at single card performance. As a measure of promotion for their OEM partners, NVIDIA would only make a second GTX 580 available to us if we also agreed to review a high-end gaming system. Because the high-end system was completely unnecessary for a GPU review we declined NVIDIA’s offer, and as a result we were only offered 1 GTX 580 which you’ll be seeing here today. We will be looking at SLI performance once we can acquire a second GTX 580 farther down the line.
For our testing we’ll be using the latest version of our GPU benchmark suite, which was introduced back in our Radeon HD 6800 series review two weeks ago. We’re using the latest drivers from both AMD and NVIDIA here – Catalyst Hotfix 10.10d for AMD, and Forceware 262.99 for the NVIDIA cards.
Finally, as we mentioned earlier, AMD doesn’t have a direct competitor to the GTX 580. The closest competitors they have are dual-GPU setups in the form of the closeout 5970 and the 6870 in Crossfire. Meanwhile NVIDIA has cut GTX 470 prices so far to the bone that you can pick up a pair of them for as much as a single GTX 580. Two slightly crippled GF100 cards versus one GF110 card will not be a fair fight…
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Asus Rampage II Extreme |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | OCZ Summit (120GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 6870 AMD Radeon HD 6850 AMD Radeon HD 5970 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 5770 AMD Radeon HD 4870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 262.99 AMD Catalyst 10.10d |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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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.