GeForce GTX 590 Key Features Revealed

An Exception · 24 Mar 2011 at 23:55

Loowi_ashley said:
I'm not going to over volt so not worried about blowing it up, all the reviews show the 590 being the quicker of the 2, is the 6990 faster when overclocked then or am I reading the wrong reviews?

Might want to hang fire on the 590 purchase, as it's looking increasingly worrying as more reports are filtering in.
This is the worst card launch I can remember, did Nvidia not do any testing prior to shipping to AIB's?

"It's not about the cooling SKYMTL, the PWM is too weak, just as it is on the GTX 570. Two GTX 590 died the same way here, one in our test lab and one in a demo system of a reseller, both not overclocked or overvolted; Nvidia says some faulty components not found on retail parts caused it, but both us and TPU had retail package GTX 590's."

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4791289&postcount=37

An Exception · 24 Mar 2011 at 23:57

Loowi_ashley said:
1920*1200

Don't know why your going dual GPU tbh...

An Exception · 25 Mar 2011 at 00:05

From Nvidia:

"In the web release driver of GeForce GTX 590, we have added some important enhancements to our overcurrent protection for overclocking. We recommend anyone doing overclocking or running stress apps to always use the latest web driver to get the fullest protection for your hardware. Please note that overcurrent protection does not eliminate the risks of overclocking, and hardware damage is possible, particularly when overvoltaging. We recommend anyone using the GTX 590 board with the reference aircooler stick with the default voltage while overclocking, and avoid working around overcurrent protection mechanisms for stress applications. This will help maintain GTX 590's great combination of acoustics, performance, and reliability. NVIDIA has worked with several watercooling companies to develop waterblocks for GTX 590, and these solutions will help provide additional margin for overclocking, but even in this case we recommend enthusiasts stay within 12.5-25mV of the default voltage in order to minimize risk."

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2947

Looks like water-blocks are pointless for this card as it doesn't look like it helps much (if at all) to improve reliability when overclocking, so why anyone would want to void warranty to fit a water block to a card that will likely fail is beyond me.
What's more worrying though is that cards are dyeing at stock and not just when overclocking.

Shayper · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:35

So just to clarify, the 6990 is better overall, if Iwere to put it under water and clock it? Or would I just get the same crossfire issues as with my 6950's?

Rroff · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:43

Has anyone seen any evidence of other brands other than Asus going up in smoke? seen a few reports of problems with the Asus cards.

TheRealDeal · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:45

The 6990 as it stands is better full stop and water will only increase the advantage as overclocking a gtx590 comes with a risk that may mean your card will melt. This may change but release cards are not to be overclocked as when they say at your own risk this time it really will mean you are gambling.

Shayper · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:48

TheRealDeal said:
The 6990 as it stands is better full stop and water will only increase the advantage as overclocking a gtx590 comes with a risk that may mean your card will melt. This may change but release cards are not to be overclocked as when they say at your own risk this time it really will mean you are gambling.

Cheers thanks, any thoughts on the driver issues? Might trifire with one of my 6950's

Final8y · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:50

Rroff said:
Has anyone seen any evidence of other brands other than Asus going up in smoke? seen a few reports of problems with the Asus cards.

All i know of is 5 review/bench/demonstration cards blowing atm.

TheRealDeal · 25 Mar 2011 at 02:58

Shayper said:
Cheers thanks, any thoughts on the driver issues? Might trifire with one of my 6950's

From what i have seen trifire is working good. There are reviews out there with trifire looking the business but there are also people that can't get it working which is strange. I prefer to think if it works and then someone can't get it working its pebkac tbh as anything i have experienced on a pc is usually fixable.

Shayper · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:01

True, although if you had my driver issues and been through all of the issues you would agree it ain't pebkac

Final8y · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:02

TheRealDeal said:
From what i have seen trifire is working good. There are reviews out there with trifire looking the business but there are also people that can't get it working which is strange. I prefer to think if it works and then someone can't get it working its pebkac tbh as anything i have experienced on a pc is usually fixable.

Sometimes it really is an issue of hardware/BIOS/driver combinations that users cant fix.

TheRealDeal · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:03

What kind of driver issues are you having. I only seem to get driver issues from beta drivers.

TheRealDeal · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:06

Final8y said:
Sometimes it really is an issue of hardware/BIOS/driver combinations that users cant fix.

Yea i know the sort but for me this kind of error is usually not bad and can be fixed easily. I assume you mean flashing textures and all that kind of glitches with games. There are other bugs like core and memory clocks not being correct but thats usually fixed pretty soon and not a worry.

Final8y · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:11

TheRealDeal said:
Yea i know the sort but for me this kind of error is usually not bad and can be fixed easily. I assume you mean flashing textures and all that kind of glitches with games. There are other bugs like core and memory clocks not being correct but thats usually fixed pretty soon and not a worry.

No not those.

There are hardware incompatibilities that will give problems & can not be fixed, its rare but it does happen.
An easy example is ram sticks that are not totally compatible with some motherboards & the same can go for any hardware combination including gfx cards.

TheRealDeal · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:17

Its not happened to me in 10 years of pc gaming. I hope it never happens as i could spend weeks,months and hopefully not a year lol as not fixing a problem on my pc has not happened yet. Most problems are usually fixed after a day as if i can't fix the problem a reinstall of windows usually does the trick.

tommybhoy · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:18

Rroff said:
Has anyone seen any evidence of other brands other than Asus going up in smoke? seen a few reports of problems with the Asus cards.

Sweclockers blew up 2(just to check would you believe for the 2nd one :eek:

), 1 from asus and 1 from zotac.

Final8y · 25 Mar 2011 at 03:33

TheRealDeal said:
Its not happened to me in 10 years of pc gaming. I hope it never happens as i could spend weeks,months and hopefully not a year lol as not fixing a problem on my pc has not happened yet.

Indeed as no 2 people walk the exact same path through life the same goes for hardware.

The fix is not always in your hands & is totally dependent on others to fix if at all.

1900xt/CF on 2 makes of asus AMD 939 motherboards would give faint interference lines on screen in sync with CPU Load, unfixable motherboard design flaw, no problem when used with the DFI,MSI motherboards i had.

1 set ATI drivers would not install with multi GPU if more than 4GB of system ram was installed, it effected everyone.

A set of OCZ ram sticks would crash ATI drivers on 3 brands of motherboards without fail even tho they passed memtest & Prime every time. changed mem brand & not a single driver crash since.

The list goes on.
All those examples ether needed a hardware combination change or fix by the makers=no user error.

Shayper · 25 Mar 2011 at 04:03

Basically I get nowhere near the performance I should be getting with dual cards, mostly less than a single card, because the gpu utilisation will not go above about 60% on each core. There are ways of fixing it but they are so roundabout like using radeon pro or reinstalling every game. Neither of which I really want to do, when I pay this much for a setup I expect it to work first time. These issues are documented both on these forums by other people and elsewhere, and the reason is that the new architecture apparently needs different instructions which the driver team are working to make 100% compatible with games, a possible reason why we haven't seen 11.3 yet. This information is on Anandtech if you want a look

straxusii · 25 Mar 2011 at 07:42

In terms of performance this round is a tie, 6990 is louder and cheaper and doesnt spark, 590 is quieter (especially when it's dead

)

[Death] · 25 Mar 2011 at 07:48

well i was waiting on rls, guess i will get another 580 to go with my 1 already and sli, cheaper and will be faster