NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580: Fermi Refined
by Ryan Smith on November 9, 2010 9:00 AM ESTFinal Thoughts
Even though NVIDIA is only launching a single card today there’s a lot to digest, so let’s get to it.
Since the GeForce GTX 580 arrived in our hands last week, we’ve been mulling over how to approach it. It boils down to two schools of thought: 1) Do we praise NVIDIA for delivering a high performance single GPU card that strikes the right balance of performance and temperature/noise, or 2) Do we give an indifferent thumbs-up to NVIDIA for only finally delivering the card that we believe the GTX 480 should have been.
The answer we’ve decided is one of mild, but well earned praise. The GTX 580 is not the true next-generation successor to the GTX 480; it’s the GTX 480 having gone back in the womb for 7 months of development. Much like AMD, NVIDIA faced a situation where they were going to do a new product without a die shrink, and had limited options as a result. NVIDIA chose wisely, and came back with a card that is both decently faster and a refined GTX 480 at the same time.
With the GTX 480 we could recognize it as being the fastest single GPU card on the market, but only by recognizing the fact that it was hot and loud at the same time. For buyers the GTX 480 was a tradeoff product – sure it’s fast, but is it too hot/too loud for me? The GTX 580 requires no such tradeoff. We can never lose sight of the fact that it’s a high-end card and is going to be more power hungry, louder, and hotter than many other cards on the market, but it’s not the awkward card that the GTX 480 was. For these reasons our endorsement of the GTX 580 is much more straightforward, at least as long as we make it clear that GTX 580 is less an upgrade for GTX 480, and more a better upgrade for the GTX 285 and similar last-generation cards.
What we’re left with today is something much closer to the “traditional” state of the GPU market: NVIDIA has the world’s fastest single-GPU card, while AMD is currently nipping at their heels with multi-GPU products. 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. If you have a board capable of supporting a pair of 6870s and don’t mind the extra power it’s hard to go wrong, but only if you’re willing to put up with the limitations of a multi-GPU setup. It’s a very personal choice – we’d be willing to trade the performance for the simplicity of avoiding a multi-GPU setup, but we can’t speak for everyone.
So what’s next? A few different things. From the NVIDIA camp, NVIDIA is promising a quick launch of the rest of the GeForce 500 series. Given the short development cycles for NVIDIA we’d expect more refined GF10x parts, but this is very much a shot in the dark. Much more likely is a 3GB GTX 580, seeing as how NVIDIA's official product literature calls the GTX 580 the "GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB", a distinction that was never made for the GTX 480.
More interesting however will be what NVIDIA does with GF110 since it’s a more capable part than GF100 in every way. The GF100 based Quadros and Teslas were only launched in the last few months, but they’re already out of date. With NVIDIA’s power improvements in particular, this seems like a shoo-in for at least one improved Quadro and Tesla card. We also expect 500 series replacements for some of the GF100-based cards (with the GTX 465 likely going away permanently).
Meanwhile the AMD camp is gearing up for their own launches. The 6900 series is due to launch before the year is out, bringing with it AMD’s new Cayman GPU. There’s little we know or can say at this point, but as a part positioned above the 6800 series we’re certainly hoping for a slugfest. At $500 the GTX 580 is pricey (much like the GTX 480 before it), and while this isn’t unusual for the high-end market we wouldn’t mind seeing NVIDIA and AMD bring a high-intensity battle to the high-end, something that we’ve been sorely missing for the last year. Until we see the 6900 series we wouldn’t make any bets, but we can certainly look forward to it later this year.
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knutjb - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I agree guys it should be a 485 not a 580.The 6870 is a sore spot on an otherwise solid refinement. Curious to see its SLI performance. $559 on Newegg this am.
dtham - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Anyone know if aftermarket cooling for the GTX 480 will work for the GTX 580? It would be great to be able to reuse a waterblock from a GTX 480 for the new 580s. Looking at the picture the layout looks similar.mac2j - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
In Europe the GTX 580 was launched at 399 Euros and in response ATI has lowered the 5970 to 389 Euros (if you believe the rumors).This can only bode well for holiday prices of the 6970 vs 580.
samspqr - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
it's already listed and in stock at alternate.de, but the cheapest one is 480eurthe only 5970 still in stock there is 540eur
yzkbug - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I moved all my gaming to the living room on a big screen TV and HTPC (a next next gen console in a sense). But, Optimus would be the only way to use this card on HTPC.slatr - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Ryan,Would you be able to test with Octane Renderer?
I am interested to see if Octane gets throttled.
Thanks
Andyburgos - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Ryan:I hold you in the most absolute respect. Actually, in my first post a while ago I praised your work, and I think you´re quite didactic and fun to read. On that, thanks for the review.
However, I need to ask you: W.T.F. is wrong with you? Aren´t you pissed off by the fact that GTX480 was a half baked chip (wouldn´t say the same about GTX460) and now that we get the real version they decided to call it 580? Why isn´t a single complain about that in the article?
If, as I understand, you think that the new power / temperature / noise / performance balance has improved dramatically from the 480, I think you are smart enough to see that it was because the 480 was very, very, unpolished chip. This renaming takes us for stupid, is even worse than what AMD did.
/rant
AT & staff, I think you have a duty to tell off lousy tactics such as the Barts being renamed 68x0, or the 8800 becoming 9800 then GTS250 as you always did. You have failed so badly to do that here that you look really biased. For me, a loyal argentinian reader since 2001, that is absolutely imposible, but with the GXT460 and this you are acomplishing that.
+1 for this card deserving an indifferent thumbs up, as Ryan graciously said, not for the card itself (wich is great) but for the nVidia tactics and the half baked 480 they gave us. Remember the FX5800 (as bad or worse than the 480) becoming the 5900... gosh, I think those days are over. Maybe that´s why I stick with my 7300 GT, haha.
I respectfully disent with your opinion, but thanks for the great review.
Best regards,
Andy
ViRGE - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Huh, are we reading the same article? See page 4.chizow - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I'd have to agree he probably didn't read the article thoroughly, beside explicitly saying this is the 2nd worst excuse for a new naming denomination, Ryan takes jabs at the 480 throughout by repeatedly hinting the 580 is what Fermi should've been to begin with.Sounds like just another short-sighted rant about renaming that conveniently forgets all the renaming ATI has done in the past. See how many times ATI renamed their R200 and R300 designs, even R600 and RV670 fall into the same exact vein as the G92 renaming he bemoans......
Haydyn323 - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Nvidia has done no different than ATI has as far as naming in their new cards. They simply jumped on the naming bandwagon for marketing and competetive purposes since ATI had already done so.... at least the 580 is actually faster than the 480. ATI releasing a 6870 that is far inferior to a 5870 is worse in my mind.It should indeed have been a 485, but since ATI calls their new card a 6870 when it really should be a 5860 or something, it only seems fair.