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GTX 580 Review

Soldato
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It's a nice enough card but anyone with a GTX 480 upgrading to this is a bit crazy, especially if their 480 clocks well. Though for a refresh only around a 10% performance increase isn't that impressive.
 
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This limitor for voltage is not looking good for overclockers.....
limit2_small.jpg
 
Soldato
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The 5970 is old now this card will not be up against the 5 series. this card will be up against a much faster single gpu in cayman and a much faster dual card in antilles. This for me is one of the reasons its out now. This will be like all cards before it, good if the price is right compared to its competition. Have to admit i like nvidias prices atm they seem spot on.
 
Soldato
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In case it gets taken down:



Seems like around 15-20% improvement over the GTX480, on average (at least at 2560-res where CPU limitation is likely to be minimal). So about what was expected there...

I'm not keen on this "auto down-clocking" when running furmark or OCCT and load goes above 300W though... Also, the 835Mhz max stable overclock is a little disappointing - we will have to see what other cards get, but that isn't much above what the average GTX480 is capable of on stock cooling (both of mine will do 825Mhz for example).



edit - nice to see that the noise level is significantly reduced though.
 
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Caporegime
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Although it is a nice card it really is only a gtx485.

Reasons?

It's pre overclocked by 10% over the gtx480.

In that review the max overclock no matter what volatge was 898Mhz so hardly much better than gtx480's and people with a gtx480 at 850Mhz will have closed the performance difference due to the gtx 580 being overclocked.

Here's a rough exel spreadsheet I knocked up

gtx580.jpg


Since the gtx580 gained 7.4% in performance from a 8% overclock it is no better/worse than a gtx480 with its scaling.

As you can see from the chart, the gtx580 is 15% better on average than a gtx480 however clock for clock it is only 5% faster.

So, it's cooler, quieter and generates less heat and assuming you have a gtx480 which overclocks as well as the gtx580, it is only 5% faster on average and in some games, slower.

And those people thinking that with a water block and extra voltage you might get 900Mhz or even 1000Mhz are going to be disappointed by the max 300W limit which will limit your overclock long before temps are an issue. Unless somebody does a workaround if possible?
 
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Soldato
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I looked at a couple of the benches at it's about 15% to 18% better then the GTX480 but uses less power. What is striking is the die size is still a whooping 520mm that's about the same size as the GTX480 so this is still an expensive chip to make all be it more efficient this time around.
 
Soldato
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He got 890Mhz core with extra volts and auto fan, temps got a bit out of hand, easily corrected with a custom fan profile, memory overclocking is up there with the AMD cards now.
 
Caporegime
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He got 890Mhz core with extra volts and auto fan, temps got a bit out of hand, easily corrected with a custom fan profile, memory overclocking is up there with the AMD cards now.

Really? I would have thought that the fan would be on 100% if the card has hit max temperature and is thermal throttling?

And what about that 300w max limit on the draw? As you increase the volts and overclock that is seriously going to kick in.
 
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