Introducing Nvidia’s GTX 580 – Fermi Improved!
We would like to reintroduce Nvidia’s “Tank” as the GTX 580, and this time we present a much leaner, meaner and faster machine – all the while improving on the thermals, power draw and noise of the reference GTX 480. The Tank refers particularly to Nvidia’s flagship GTX 480 which is equipped to handle any gaming situation at high resolution and with maximum details and with maximum filtering and anti-aliasing applied.
Nvidia advertises their new high-performance GPU as “the World’s Fastest DX11 GPU” and we now bring you the details of our performance showdown with the reference GTX 480, the Galaxy SuperOverclocked GTX 480 (overclocked to identical GTX 580 overclocked speeds), the reference Diamond HD 5870 and the reference HD 6870 to see if we can verify Nvidia’s claim. On top of that, we also overclock our reference GTX 580 even further to see how it scales in 23 modern games. Here is the brand new reference GTX 580 (lower image) compared with the reference GTX 480 released back in April of this year.
Nvidia released its long awaited GeForce GTX based on its brand new Fermi DX11 GF100 architecture back in April of this year, six months later than AMD’s own DX11 Cypress video cards. This new Fermi GPU – Graphics Processing Unit – a term originally originated by Nvidia is a continuation of their strategy since their G80 which launched over three year ago to create a General Purpose Processor – co-equal with the CPU – that also renders amazing graphics. The culmination of Nvidia’s efforts with their new DX11 Fermi architecture, the GTX 480, their flagship GPU – up-until-this-moment – is the fastest single GPU with the caveat that it runs rather hot and the cooling solutions based on the reference design are rather noisy.
Just over six weeks ago, we introduced a new refined ‘Tank’, the Galaxy GTX 480 SuperOverclock on a mature process, which Galaxy calls “the fastest GTX 480 card in the world.” This overclocked GTX 480 is already the “fastest single GPU video card” in the slower-clocked reference version which we covered in this review. We found that the new Galaxy GTX 480 SOC is not only super-fast, but it is also 30 dBA quieter than the reference version and is also 30C cooler thanks to its impressive and well-engineered 3-slot design and Arctic-Cooling VGA cooler – and all for a suggested etail price of $489. Well now, enter the completely redesigned Nvidia Tank – at $499 suggested etail pricing. Best of all, the GTX 580 is designed to be faster and more efficient than even the super-overclocked GTX 480s.
We saw AMD introduce their new line up, HD 68×0 series to replace HD 58×0 series in our review last month here. We found out that the “Barts” GPU it is based on is only a mid-range launch so far with the HD 6870 only slightly faster than the HD 5850; the best part is that it replaces it for less money. We will use HD 6870 and HD 5870 to show you where the GTX 580 fits in relation to them and we also await for AMD’s high end “Cayman” HD 6900 series to be released on December 13, 2010. An evaluation such as this one can only give you the equivalent of a “snapshot” of a moment in time and we shall attempt to determine the value of this new video card in relationship to the others and what we can probably expect going forward.
AMD’s Take on GTX 580 – ABT’s interview with Stanley Ossias, Director, Mobile Discreet Graphics Product Management at AMD
AlienBabelTech was fortunate to interview Stanley Ossias, Director, Mobile Discreet Graphics Product Management at AMD this morning right about the time the GTX 580 NDA ended. We are going to bring you the full interview with Mr. Ossias later this week, but we will summarize his response in our conclusion.
The Competing Cards
The Galaxy GTX 480 SOC (top) is a massive 3-slot design with a heavy backplate to keep it cool; contrast it with the reference GTX 480 (center) and GTX 580 (bottom) and you can see it pictured also with the HD 5870 (right) and HD 6870 (left) which we are all going to benchmark for you.
Nvidia’s new GTX 580 now comes with a MSRP of $499. So we need to answer the question: Is it worth the $150 premium over the $350 or so dollars that one would currently spend for AMD’s top single-GPU video card – a HD 5870? Even AMD’s dual-GPU in a single video card, the HD 5970, is now dropping in price from over $600, now down to around $500 although it has always been in limited supply. AMD is aggressively preparing for Nvidia’s new Tank in much the same way that Nvidia met AMD’s new HD 68×0 series – with sharp price drops on their current cards as both companies bring out refreshed product lines each on the 40 nm process.
To properly bring you this review, we are using our reference Diamond HD 5870 (850/1200 MHz) as well as our reference stock-clocked AMD HD 6870 (900/1050 MHz) which we put through their paces this week with the very latest WHQL drivers – Catalyst 10-10. We have already tested similar combinations many times using our older video cards but shall not include them as this review only concerns the performance of the fastest of the fast single-GPU video cards.
You will see us pit our HD 5870 and the HD 6870 against the new GTX 580, both stock and overclocked, and also against the reference GTX 480 and versus our overclocked-to-the-max Galaxy GTX 480 SuperOverclock in 24 modern games and in 2 synthetic benchmarks generally using 1920×1200 and 2560×1600 resolutions. Since we are using the fastest of the fast single-GPU video cards, it makes sense to test them at the highest resolutions and with the most demanding settings. Since we are matching the top single-GPU video cards to each other in a performance showdown, we do not include the dual-GPU HD 5970, nor CrossFire, nor SLI configurations.
Is the GTX 480 SOC worth $499 which is about $150 more than its rival, AMD’s HD 5870? And what about overclocked versions of the GTX 480 which are also priced about $500?
We have already analyzed and compared the reference GTX 480 and the HD 5870 performance at all levels, many times since last April, and we definitely can announce a performance winner – the GTX 480, despite its high TDP and noise levels as well as higher price. Now we are going to look at Nvidia’s much more refined and quieter version of Fermi’s GF100 which they have reworked into GF110. We set it against the reference and super-overclocked GTX 480 as well as two of AMD’s fastest single-GPU cards, the HD 5870 (850/1200 MHz) and the brand new HD 6870 (900/1050 MHz), to see if the new GTX 580 is worth its price premium as the new “fastest single-GPU video card”.
It is very important to note that we overclocked our SuperOverclocked Galaxy GTX 480 as far as it will go – from the reference 700/1848 Mhz to 850/2004 MHz – to exactly match the overclocked-as-far-as-it-will-go GTX 580 from 772/1848 MHz to the *same* overclock of 850/2004 MHz to give you a good idea of performance increase with core scaling between the old and the new GPUs. In this manner, we can see the architectural improvements of the GTX 580 over the GTX 480 more easily,
Before we do performance testing, let’s take a look at the GTX 480 and quickly recap its new DX11 architecture and features of the original Fermi GF100 which we covered in our reviews of the GTX 480, published here, here and here. Senior Editor BFG10K reviewed GTX 470 here and here and Senior editor MrK covered GTX 465 here.
We also recently examined the performance of Galaxy’s GTX 480 SuperOverclock and we also reran GTX 480 against stock and overclocked versions of HD 5870, HD 6870 and HD 6850 here just a few weeks ago.
Specifications
The GeForce GTX 580 was designed from the ground up to deliver exceptional tessellation performance, which is a key component of Microsoft’s DirectX 11 development platform for PC games. Tessellation allows game developers to take advantage of the GeForce GTX 580 GPU’s tessellation ability to increase the geometric complexity of models and characters to deliver far more realistic and visually rich gaming environments. You will soon see that the clocks of Nvidia’s GTX 580 are clocked far higher than the reference GTX 480 version and that we were also able to go even further than the reference core clock that Nvidia set for the GTX 580 while still remaining cool and quiet.
Here is the specification chart for the GTX 580 at a glance; right away we notice its lower TDP of only 244W and that the new GPU now supports the new HDMI 1.4a connector standard.
Needless to say, the new Fermi GF110 GTX 580 brings a lot of features to the table that current Nvidia customers will appreciate, including improved CUDA’s PhysX, 2D and 3D Surround to drive up to 3 LCDs with GTX SLI and Tri-SLI, superb tessellation capabilities and a really fast GPU in comparison to their GT200 series and even their GF100 GTX 480 series. Let’s see how Nvidia breaks down the enhancements of their new GTX 580 to the reference GTX 480 in terms of performance.
While the GTX 480 and GTX 580 share the same SM configuration, the newer GTX 580 has improved performance on a clock-per-clock basis by improvement in two key areas. The new GTX 580 now supports full FP16 texture filtering and new tile formats that increase efficiency of up to 5% or more in many cases over the GTX 480. Besides that, Nvidia has increased the clock frequencies and the number of CUDA cores in the GTX 480 from 480 cores to 512 in the GTX 580 and there are also more texture units and SMs all operating more efficiently.
Beauty is more than skin deep
The GF100 Fermi GTX 480 was completely re-engineered at the transistor level into the GF110 GTX 580 and there are now about 200,000 less transistors for a total of about 3 billion total in the GF110 GPU. Through a complete Fermi redesign on a mature process on TSMC’s 40 nm, the GTX 580 achieves higher clockspeed than the GTX 480 with less power. In other words, Nvidia increased the CUDA core count from 480 to 512, upped the clock speed and lowered the power requirements. This has lead to an amazing reduction in noise from the VGA cooling fan that now brings it into a lower db range than GTX 285! In fact, our own ears tell us that the GTX 580 is now about as quiet as the HD 5870 – both cards do not suffer from the loud and sometimes startling “spin up” of the GTX 480 when it is under load in a game. How have they achieved this?
Nvidia’s new vapor chamber
Vapor chamber cooling is not new to the PC world and AMD Graphics first began shipping video cards with vapor chamber coolers in 2007 and has continued to develop them on every product generation since, including the $180 Radeon HD 6850. However, this kind of cooling is new for Nvidia’s GTX 580.
The GTX 580 employs a custom sealed copper vapor chamber to efficiently remove heat from the GPU. It then dissipates the heat by blowing the GPU-heated air through a large dual-slot heatsink and out the back of the video card and thus out of the PC case. But there is more to quietly cooling a hot GPU than a vapor chamber.
Nvidia has redesigned the GTX 480’s reference fan completely. The new GTX 580 fan has been re-engineered to produce a lower pitch and tone that is less noticeable to human hearing. Not once in the past week did this reviewer notice the noise coming from the GTX 580 – in sharp contrast to the GTX 480 which would sometimes be quite noticeable during a game. In fact, the GTX 580 features a new fan speed control algorithm that is adaptive; it smooths the ramp up and down of fan RPMs that are far less noticeable than the GTX 480’s. This improved programmable fan controller has enabled fine-grained and continuously variable control which handles multiple fan profiles simultaneously that respond instantly to the temperature changes and it is also found in competing Radeon products own internal micro-controllers.
To add to the SLI experience, even the cover of the GTX 580 has been redesigned so that its cover is angled so as to offer better airflow between the cards in tight SLI configurations.
Can you tri-SLI your GTX 580?
Tri-SLI is supported by GTX 580 and there is improved scaling for SLI with GTX 580. There are also recently more compelling reasons besides increased performance to consider GTX 580 SLI which includes being able to experience Nvidia’s multi-display 2D/3D Surround. You will also require a less powerful PSU to run your GTX 580 SLI than with powering GTX 480 SLI. And because of its cover’s new angled design, a GTX 580 can be used in SLI configuration with another GTX 580 and still get decent cooling in many X58 motherboards that currently overheat using two GTX 480s in SLI. Also, by using the latest GeForce 260 drivers, each card can keep its own unique clocks or they can be set asynchronously. Because of severe time constraints on this article, SLI will be examined in depth in a further article as well as 3-panel 2D Surround versus Eyefinity.
New Power Monitoring Hardware – or no more Furmark!
In order to stay below the 300 W power limit imposed by the PCIe specification, NVIDIA has added a power draw limitation system to their card. When either Furmark or OCCT are detected, sensors measure the incoming current and voltage to calculate the total power draw. If the power draw exceeds a certain predetermined limit, the GTX 580 will automatically downclock to avoid damage to hardware component. After the power draw drops back to safe limits, the GPU returns to normal clocks much the same as in thermal management.
Because of this, we will no longer use Furmark for showing power draw and will return to using games to illustrate real world situations. Currently, this power management only switches on when Furmark or OCCT are detected and it should not limit overclocking unless Nvidia extends this management to regular PC games. Evidently this works by having the GeForce driver detect the program and treat it as a virus; but we have found a workaround and we shall update the Power Section of this evaluation later on by completely maxing out the power draw, probably for the last time in our testing as Nvidia responds to this with better security measures.
Let’s flip the GTX 580 0ver and check out the other side:
As a total package, the new GTX 580 looks (and sounds) great! Let’s show you the results of our one week’s test drive, shall we? We will put it to the test in 23 PC games and in two synthetic tests. But first, head to the next page to check out our test bed configuration.
Amazing review guys, I wonder if I can evolve my GTX 480 to 580 using EVGA’s RMA process. I need maor powah!!!
I think this is the best GTX 580 review I’ve seen on the net! And I’ve read almost all of them. Thanks for testing so many game titles and especially DX9 titles. I still run XP, so it’s important for me to see how the card did in them. Most reviews only have one or two DX9 games tested, some don’t have any. After reading this review I made up my mind about getting this card. Thanks!
Oh, and I forgot to ask: please use same titles when reviewing the upcoming HD 6970. Thanks!
I had 3 580 GTX’s in my system using a Core i7 980x, and it crashed during minesweeper.
How did it go with the step up program?
Thanks for the kind words. And I generally use the same titles and same settings for the high end cards.
I will be very busy for the next few days.
A very comprehensive review.
It seems that Nvidia has upped its game. I’ve always preferred single GPU solutions over SLI or Crossfire, as have many others, although right now this is out of my budget. It exceeded expectations – cooler and faster. I wonder what AMD’s response will be like.