NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, still one of the toughest game in our benchmark suite. Even 2 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” One of these years we’ll actually be able to run it with full Enthusiast settings…
Right off the bat we see the GTX 580 do well, which as the successor to what was already the fastest single-GPU card on the market is nothing less than we expect. At 2560 it’s around 16% faster than the GTX 480, and at 1920 that drops to 12%. Bear in mind that the theoretical performance improvement for clock + shader is 17%, so in reality it would be nearly impossible get that close without the architectural improvements also playing a role.
Meanwhile AMD’s double-GPU double-trouble lineup of the 5970 and 6870CF both outscore the GTX 580 by around 12% and 27% respectively. It shouldn’t come as a shock that they’re going to win most tests – ultimately they’re priced much more competitively than the GTX 580, making them price-practical alternatives to the GTX 580.
And speaking of competition the GTX 470 SLI is in much the same boat, handily surpassing the GTX 580. This will come full circle however when we look at power consumption.
Meanwhile looking at minimum framerates we have a different story. AMD’s memory management in CrossFire mode has long been an issue with Crysis at 2560, and it continues to show here with a minimum framerate that simply craters. At 2560 there’s a world of difference between NVIDIA and AMD here, and it’s all in NVIDIA’s favor. 1920 however roughly mirrors our earlier averages, with the 580 taking a decent lead over the GTX 480, but falling to multi-GPU cards.
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Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
At this point it makes no sense to get rattled up about the 580. We must patiently wait for the 69x0 cards and see what they can bring to the table. I heard rumours of AMD delaying their cards to the end of the year in order to do some "tweaks"...nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Delaying is something good because it indicates that Cayman can be very big, very fast and...very hungry making it hard to build. What AMD needs is a card that can defeat GTX580, no matter how hot or power-hungry it is.GeorgeH - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Is there any word on a fully functional GF104?Nvidia could call it the 560, with 5="Not Gimped".
Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I guess once GTX470 goes EOL. If GTX460 had all it's shaders enabled then the overclocked versions would have canibalized GTX470 sales. Even so, it will happen on occasion.tomoyo - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
My guess is there will be GTX 580 derivatives with less cores enabled as usual, probably a GTX 570 or something. And then an improved GTX 460 with all cores enabled as the GTX 560.tomoyo - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Good to see nvidia made a noticeable improvement over the overly hot and power hungry GTX 480. Unfortunately way above my power and silence needs, but competition is a good thing. Now I'm highly curious how close the Radeon 69xx will come in performance or if it can actually beat the GTX 580 in some cases.Of course the GTX 480 is completely obsolete now, more power, less speed, more noise, ugly to look at.
7eki - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
What we got here today is a higher clocked, better cooled GTX 480 with a slightly better power consumption. All of that for only 80$ MORE ! Any first served version of non referent GTX 480 is equipped with a much better cooling solution that gives higher OC possibilites and could kick GTX 580's ass. If we compare GTX 480 to a GTX580 clock2clock we will get about 3% of a difference in performance. All thanks to 32 CUDA processors, and a few more TMU's. How come the reviewers are NOW able to find pros of something that they used to criticise 7 months ago ? Don't forget that AMD's about to break their Sweet Spot strategy just to cut your hypocrites tongues. I bet that 6990's going to be twice as fast as what we got here today . If we really got anything cause I can't really tell the difference.AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
32W less for 15% more performance, still on 40nm, is a big deal.7eki - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
32W and 15% you say ? No it isn't a big deal since AMD's Barts GPUs release. Have on mind that GTX580 still consumes more energy than a faster (in most cases) and one year older multi GPU HD5970. In that case even 60 would sound ridiculosly funny. It's not more than a few percent improvement over GTX480. If you don't believe it calculate how much longer will you have to play on your GTX580 just to get your ~$40 spent on power consumption compared to a GTX480 back. Not to mention (again) that a nonreferent GTX480 provides much better cooling solutions and OC possibilities. Nvidia's diggin their own grave. Just like they did by releasing GTX460. The only thing that's left for them right now is to trick the reviewers. But who cares. GTX 580 isn't going to make them sell more mainstream GPUs. It isn't nvidia whos cutting HD5970 prices right now. It was AMD by releasing HD6870/50 and announcing 6970. It should have been mentioned by all of you reviewers who treat the case seriously. Nvidia's a treacherous snake and the reviewers job is not to let such things happen.Sihastru - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Have you heard about the ASUS GTX580 Voltage Tweak edition that can be clocked up to 1100 MHz, that's more then 40% OC? Have you seen the EVGA GTX580 FTW yet?The fact that a single GPU card is in some cases faster then a dual GPU card built with two of the fastest competing GPU's tells a lot of good things about that single GPU card.
This "nVidia in the Antichrist" speech is getting old. Repeating it all over the interwebs doesn't make it true.