Reviews - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 graphics card review

[Parm]

Am I the only one who's not getting page 2 loading properly? http://prntscr.com/15v0v
Well, it's still a toaster. But what surprises me is how well it does in the bang for buck table compared to other high end cards.

Something wasn't quite right. All fixed now though.

[Tattysnuc]

Am I the only one who's not getting page 2 loading properly? http://prntscr.com/15v0v
Well, it's still a toaster. But what surprises me is how well it does in the bang for buck table compared to other high end cards.

Works fine in Firefox 3.6.9 in a resolution of 1440x900 on W7

[jim]

heh - in my Blue Peter ducting adventures I just saw 92C on my CF 5870s

My record is 105 on CF 4870s

Sadly, it shut down before I could do any better.

[Tunnah]

wonder how long it'll be before we see a card that beats 460 SLIs for the same price

[this_is_gav]

I don't see the problem with heat at 90c+. Even if it didn't exhaust the hot air out of the case, it's not like it's pumping 90c around your case - it'll be more like 40-50c when it leaves the heatsink. Probably a 2-5c raise above case ambient when it hits your next hot-running component. Say the the ambient of most cases will be around 30c, by the time it melts into that ambient air temp it would hardly heat your case up at all. Given that not cleaning your intake filters for a week or 2 will raise you temp by 5c or so, in the grand scheme of things, it makes sod all difference.

I've never bought into that particular theory.

If you'll have a full-height card blocking the fan intake, then you've a valid reason for pausing before you hit the 'checkout' button, but otherwise, I think it's a lot of hot air... pardon the pun.

I've said this about ATI cards in the past, and it holds true here too. In my opinion, if it's stable, it's fine. That's all that matters.

[jim]

Long-term, it's a bit of a concern though. Nobody wants their card to burn out after the warranty period ends.

[sadbuttrue]

Apparently they haven't fixed the idle issue when running dual monitors at different resolutions. In this scenario the card, just like the gtx480, runs in full performance mode consuming an extra 70watts and producing 20c more heat at idle (which means the fan spins faster and louder). I doubt this is a driver problem, as they would have fixed the gtx480 by now.

£400??!? The 6970 will almost certainly retail for ~£350, with the 6950 coming in at ~£300. Granted, we don't yet know the performance difference, but power/heat/noise are clearly going to be in AMDs favour.

The core temp is rather meaningless tbh. It could run at 200c and still produce less heat inside the case than a card running at 50c. The figure to be concerned about is power consumption, as most of this is turned to heat.

[this_is_gav]

Long-term, it's a bit of a concern though. Nobody wants their card to burn out after the warranty period ends.

Well, the hotter the component, the less you'd expect it to live, yes, but it's not like it's the first card to run at such an extreme. It's not even the first from Nvidia. Just look the FX/5-series.

How long do you judge the life of a card before the warranty becomes irrelevant? My old ATI 9800 is still in use in a system I built for someone else, and it was hardly frugal. The fan died a couple of years ago due to it getting clogged up, but even with that (despite zero thermal management on the R300 to my knowledge) once the fan was replaced it still runs fine to this day.

Manufacturers have always pushed the boundaries. It's not like they've suddenly started pushing them a bit further, just that the boundaries have moved as the materials, processes and tolerances have improved.

[jim]

£400??!? The 6970 will almost certainly retail for ~£350, with the 6950 coming in at ~£300. Granted, we don't yet know the performance difference, but power/heat/noise are clearly going to be in AMDs favour.

AMD is fairly irrelevant, since their product isn't even out yet. If nVidia need to re-evaluate once the 6970 is out, I'm sure they will do.

[Terbinator]

Unless I'm being completely ignorant, surely this will drop down too the GTX 480 price sooner rather than later as they're still buying the same amount of chips/wafers as before hand?

If so, where would that leave it in relation too performance/pound if it were to drop too around £330 ?

[Nate007]

Strange how you ommited the 6870 crossfire as 2 x 6870's are cheaper and FAR Faster then the 480 , 580 and 5970.
The real winner here is the 6870x2 as it scales much higher then even 2 5870's for less then

Even 2 GTX 470's out perform the GTX 580

[Terbinator]

I think we already knew that the 5970, 6870CFX and 470SLi would outperform the GTX 580...

[Li4m79]

Naming this card the 580 is such a cynical move by NVIDIA. This isn't a next-gen card, it's just a tweak on the 480. This should have been called the 490. But I guess the same could be said of the 6870 from AMD. Oh well. Yawn. Next please.

Not really, look at the 8800 > 9800 > 250 (all pretty much the same card, few extra knobs on and but renamed)

[jim]

That doesn't mean nVidia aren't cynical. It just means they're always cynical.

And that, my friends, it something we call "a fact".

[Robscure]

Walmart GTX 499

Note: (in American this company always makes their prices end with .99p, they call it a bargain... the joke is funny, apply it to Tesco or Argos)

Well it isn't funny anymore since I had to explain it, now is it? Maybe it wasn't funny to begin with, but it made me smile, so it was worth it and I'd do it again!

[Jimbo75]

I think we already knew that the 5970, 6870CFX and 470SLi would outperform the GTX 580...

Most of us figured that a balls-to-the-wall 460gtx Press Edition would beat the 6800's, but that didn't stop them from being included in reviews.

There is a very disturbing lack of consistency around right now.