Introducing Nvidia’s GTX 580 – Fermi Improved!
Overclocking
When it first launched, it was wrongly assumed that the GTX 480’s high thermals and high TDP would limit overclocking. However, the maximum temperatures achieved with “worst case” FurMark showed temperatures in the upper 90s C with thermal throttling coming into play at 105 C. Clearly the GF100 GPU was built for high thermals and gave us good overclocks; the reference GTX 480 clocked +150 MHz on its core, from 700 MHz to 825 MHz and the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC – thanks to its outrageous Arctic-Cooling VGA cooler – clocked to 850 MHz with stock voltage. Now we have a much cooler running GF110 GPU and we want to overclock it further from its 772/2004 MHz clocks.
This editor has his own set of criteria for overclocking the GTX 580 and the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC further.
- Voltage is kept stock. Not many people are willing to boost voltage on a five-hundred dollar video card.
- It must be 100% stable and continue to scale with each increase of any clock.
- The fan must stay on automatic. No one wants a fan at 80%.
Enter the Galaxy Xtreme Tuner overclocking tool and notice the overclocked settings that we achieved with GTX 480:
Here are our GTX 480 clocks: Reference >> Galaxy’s OC >> new OC:
- Graphics Clock – 700 MHz >> 760MHz >> 850 MHz
- Processor Clock – 1401 MHz >> 1520MHz >> 1700 MHz
- Memory Clock – 3696 MHz >> 3800MHz >> 4004 MHz
Now we use the same Galaxy Xtreme Tuner to set our maximum GTX 580 overclocks:
Here are our GTX 850 clocks: Reference >> the new OC:
- Graphics Clock – 772 MHz >> 850 MHz
- Processor Clock – 1544 MHz >> 1700 MHz
- Memory Clock – 4004 MHz >> 4004 MHz
An overclock of +150 MHz over the reference GTX 480’s core – from 700 MHz to 760 MHz with Galaxy’s overclock, then to 850 MHz – brought us some solid performance increases, earning it the title of the “World’s fastest GTX 480” in our last review. By pure coincidence, we got the same maximum overclock with our GTX 580 so that you were able to compare both cards very closely at clock to clock which does show the GTX 580’s solid performance advantage from architectural improvements and enabled parts.
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.