Introducing Nvidia’s GTX 580 – Fermi Improved!
Metro 2033
Metro 2033 is the “Crysis” of 2010. It is a very demanding game on any PC with the very latest DX11 visuals. Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel “Metro 2033” by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010. The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine and there is some doubt if the games engine is related to the original XRay engine used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
The Metro 2033 story takes place mostly in post-apocalyptic Moscow’s metro system but occasionally the player has to go above ground on some missions and to search for valuables. Metro 2033‘s locations reflect the dark atmosphere of real metro tunnels but in a much more dangerous and lethal manner. Strange phenomena and noises are frequent, and mostly the player has to rely only on their flashlight to find their way around in otherwise total darkness. Even more deadly is the surface as it is severely irradiated and a gas mask must be worn at all times due to the toxic air.
Last month, THQ released an official benchmark for Metro 2033. It is available when Steam updates the game and it includes a quality benchmark that provides minimum/maximum/average framerates, and you can adjust many graphics settings including PhysX, AA, DOF and tessellation, and the number of runs. Our presets are set to maximum (very high) with 1xAA and no PhysX nor DOF enabled.:
Here is our first chart at 1920×1200 as 2560×1600 proves too demanding without turning off most of the visuals that make this game really impressive. We test at very High settings with AA and DOF off except as noted.
Let’s test at the same settings, now at 1680×1050.
All of our cards struggle with Metro 2033 with the aggressive settings that we used except for the GTX 580 and our highly overclocked GTX 480. Metro 2033 is tessellation-heavy and it appears to take advantage of GF100/GF110 tessellators better than the Radeon’s single one and HD 6870 still brings up the rear which is not unusual considering it’s low $240 pricing – less than half that of the GTX 580.
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.