NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 590: Duking It Out For The Single Card King
by Ryan Smith on March 24, 2011 9:00 AM ESTCompute
Moving on from our look at gaming performance, we have our customary look at compute performance.
Our first compute benchmark comes from Civilization V, which uses DirectCompute to decompress textures on the fly. Civ5 includes a sub-benchmark that exclusively tests the speed of their texture decompression algorithm by repeatedly decompressing the textures required for one of the game’s leader scenes.
In the game world Civ5 benefits significantly from SLI and CrossFire. For our texture compression test however AFR is more a liability than a benefit. This doesn’t impact the game in any meaningful manner, but it’s an example of how SLI/CF aren’t always the right tool for the job. Unfortunately for both parties, with as few compute applications as there are today, almost none of them benefit from SLI/CF.
Our second GPU compute benchmark is SmallLuxGPU, the GPU ray tracing branch of the open source LuxRender renderer. While it’s still in beta, SmallLuxGPU recently hit a milestone by implementing a complete ray tracing engine in OpenCL, allowing them to fully offload the process to the GPU. It’s this ray tracing engine we’re testing.
SmallLuxGPU only currently supports ray tracing with one GPU, so all of our results are effectively proxies for what would be if the GTX 590 only had one GPU. Not surprisingly overclocks do wonders here, and NVIDIA’s strong compute architecture gives them an easy win. SLI/CF performance will become more important here when we upgrade to LuxMark for our next iteration of our benchmark suite, as LuxMark can handle multiple OpenCL drivers.
Our final compute benchmark is a Folding @ Home benchmark. Given NVIDIA’s focus on compute for Fermi, cards such as the GTX 590 can be particularly interesting for distributed computing enthusiasts, as two GPUs should be able to quickly retire work units.
Folding@Home doesn’t directly benefit from CF/SLI at all. However by dispatching one WU to each GPU it’s possible to double effective performance. With that taken into account the GTX 590 is quite an effective cruncher, particularly when we start looking at overclocking.
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TalonP - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
First paragraph:"It really doesn’t seem like it’s been all that long, but it’s been nearly a year and a half since NVIDIA has had a dual-GPU card on the market. The GeForce GTX 295 was launched in January of 2009, the first card based on the 55nm die shrink of the GT200 GPU."
Well, shit. I thought Jan 2009 was TWO and a half years ago. I MUST GET BACK TO THE FUTURE!
strikeback03 - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
It was on the market after its launch. so if it disappeared somewhere at the end of 09/beginning of 10 that would match the "year and a half since on the market"RedemptionAD - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Are there any reviews with such a setup out yet, or is it even supported? Maybe even a 3x or 4x setup? If it was a 4x 6990 setup or 590 setup could it rule the world?cjl - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
You can't go over 4 GPUs, so you can only SLI/CF two of the dual GPU cards.Nfarce - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
I'll be going with two 570's for the same price, thanks. And I can spread that pain at $350 per purchase over two months instead of one big $700 plunkdown.buildingblock - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
"....However the noise results are nothing short of remarkable – if NVIDIA can dissipate 350W+ of heat while at the same time making 5-7dB less noise, then it starts to become clear that AMD’s design has a serious weakness. The ultimate question is what did NVIDIA do right that AMD did not?...."I can't see anyone tolerating the noise level of the 6990. But the 590 is barely noisier than a 580. So an easy win for nVidia if you really need/can afford one of these monsters.
cactusdog - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Ya, even the 6970/6950 are hot cards. Very disappointing after a very cool and silent 5870. I think AMD had a problem with the chips and never intended for them to be so hot. Maybe they had to crank up the power to get them to run right? idk...........Romulous - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
This card might be good for those people out there who love to cram as many GPUs into one box as they can and run folding at home.smigs22 - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Major bias with the OC listing in the charts... the OC version is not enough... but a 20+% OC is included versus the other standard configs... and the lousy flip switch OC mode of 6990... not around 940/1400+ that other sites have attained.... that offers 6970CF+ performance :s ...Why dont they show 5870/6950/6970 CF & 470/480/570/580 SLI etc with appropriate 20%+ overclocks to put these cards in their place... especially with price vs performance.... the 2gb 6950s also having the ability to be flashed into 6970s too... not bad CF for price...The second fastest single card out there.... but still a beast and its kept its idle power within reason... i think its time for 28nm tech asap... as the carbon taxes on these bad boys will be horrendous...lol
BrightCandle - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
When you do the 3x monitor review can you please include last generations top end card (5970) for comparisons. Eyefinity and co is really where it is at with this monster graphics cards and in my experience the 5970 just doesn't have the horse power to play well at 5760x1200. I would really like to see how much difference these new cards and their increased RAM actually makes.50% performance compared to last generation at 2560 is OK, but do they get even more distance with the higher resolution?