GTX580 reviews thread

[blastingcap]

Can't be stuck on it now that NV dropped it (I wrote about this in the thread already... few sites used it for GTX580 reviews.) NV is apparently pushing HAWX2 in its place, and HAWX2 is at least a NEW game, even if it's a crappy one by metacritic standards. So I say: keep HAWX2 in the benchmarks runs but not if it's only like, 5 games, that's too much skew. But keeping it in might encourage AMD to improve its geometry and especially tessellation. They seriously need to get their act together on that front, as their 85% DX11 marketshare won't save them forever, only delay the inevitable, esp if next-gen consoles come out soon with DX11 support.

Are you still stuck on FC 2?

It is not a terribly popular game any longer and if a site only reviews 6-10 games, it is not likely to make that list because of all the new games .. not for any other reason. Back in the day, it made HardOCP's list and the other sites that have dropped it due to it getting older; especially if your site only reviews new games.

i think you should replace FC 2 with H.A.W.X. 2 on your imaginary "list" - for now - since AMD really doesn't want us to review it until they get a new driver out for it .. but then i will do a short article on the game when that happens and show the improvement; and if they get it out this week, i will add the new results to my GTX 580 review. Fair is fair


Anyway, i got to get back to work .. i still haven't finished proofing my article.

 

[Toonces]

I still haven't seen these in Japan yet.

Edit: Ok, they're going for around the same price as a 480 was last week. Not bad.

 

[ronnn]

HWC is taking advantage of the implicit trust gained by readers of more reputable sites. As I said above, there are various reasons to do this and my objective was to bring this different relationship to light.

I apologize to the moderation and any disinterested readers for the thread derailment.

I learned something here, thanks. Have wondered about Hardware Canucks as they do seem to slip into glowing sales talk a little quicker than other sites. Haven't really noted any company bias, but haven't been watching.

If the 580 is the 480 done right, lucky for amd it took a year - as performance and acoustics are very good. Another year and the 28mm low power version looks like the next mainstream killer.

 

[dmcowen674]

Not impressed. Nvidia's newest, most advanced, top of the line card is slower than a year old card. *yawn*

 

[formeremployee]

What is wrong with driving HW sales? People need to buy HW and a good review should help them make a better decision about what to buy.

I'd assume most classify computer hardware as a 'want', not a 'need'.

An unbiased review will corollary generate hardware sales, of course. However, if hardware sales are the causatory purpose of the review then a reader might be lead to believe that review to exhibit bias. It is understandable though; the existence of computer hardware review websites is predicated on the physical existence of said hardware. It is in the self-interest of these sites that the manufacturers continue to make products.

However, the purpose marketing is to improve sales of a product in order to increase profits for a corporation. The 'promotion' part of the marketing mix (or '4Ps' for the business students). Any review that takes the promotion of a product, in relation to increasing the profits of a corporation, as an evaluative aspect would exhibit bias in the eyes of many. But this, again, is individually subjective.

 

[apoppin]

I'd assume most classify computer hardware as a 'want', not a 'need'.

An unbiased review will corollary generate hardware sales, of course. However, if hardware sales are the causatory purpose of the review then a reader might be lead to believe that review to exhibit bias. It is understandable though; the existence of computer hardware review websites is predicated on the physical existence of said hardware. It is in the self-interest of these sites that the manufacturers continue to make products.

However, the purpose marketing is to improve sales of a product in order to increase profits for a corporation. The 'promotion' part of the marketing mix (or '4Ps' for the business students). Any review that takes the promotion of a product, in relation to increasing the profits of a corporation, as an evaluative aspect would exhibit bias in the eyes of many. But this, again, is individually subjective.

Computer HW has become a "need"; not on the level of food/clothing/shelter but certainly at least as important as the phone. Communication is a need and the PC enables it better than anything.

A review is done to evaluate and generally compare HW so that the reader may have information to make a more informed choice on what they want to BUY. So, yes, the review does drive sales of HW. Good HW as opposed to So-so or poorly made HW and thus it is a service *primarily* for the readers of the review.

It also serves the manufacturer of GOOD HW; those with shoddy parts generally get the reviews they deserve. And if there are issues with an otherwise great part, the reviewer may catch it and help out the manufacturer with valuable feedback.

As to ABT, we are very picky and we allow companies whose products are solid to advertise on our site.

 

[bryanW1995]

i still don't like having to be connected the Internet to play a SP game
-but then my site is not all about me

i wouldn't run H.A.W.X. 2 when it was a stand-alone benchmark (also because you have that DRM in the benchmark also). However, when Ubi sent us the DVD of the full retail game, it became a legitimate benchmark

It is my 24th benchmark game. i get games that i cannot even play; i made sure that our other senior editors got Black Ops, MoH, Civ V and F1 2010 so that we can get reviews out for these games before they get old.

What is wrong with driving HW sales? People need to buy HW and a good review should help them make a better decision about what to buy.

Getting "free stuff" from many companies should make one less biased. The thing you have to remember is that i only promise to be "fair" to my vendors; my first responsibility is to our readers.

About the "free" thing .. i put well over 120 hours into that GTX 580 review; at $5 an hour, working another job, i could just buy one myself. It is not "working for HW", i assure you. If i didn't LOVE my work, i simply couldn't do it.

you probably could tell by my tone, but I wasn't criticizing you, I was pointing out the absurdity of formeremployee's statement. Anybody accusing you of being an nvidia shill would need to have his head examined. I'd bet that even dave baumann used an 8800gtx back in the day!!

 

[bryanW1995]

I'd assume most classify computer hardware as a 'want', not a 'need'.

An unbiased review will corollary generate hardware sales, of course. However, if hardware sales are the causatory purpose of the review then a reader might be lead to believe that review to exhibit bias. It is understandable though; the existence of computer hardware review websites is predicated on the physical existence of said hardware. It is in the self-interest of these sites that the manufacturers continue to make products.

However, the purpose marketing is to improve sales of a product in order to increase profits for a corporation. The 'promotion' part of the marketing mix (or '4Ps' for the business students). Any review that takes the promotion of a product, in relation to increasing the profits of a corporation, as an evaluative aspect would exhibit bias in the eyes of many. But this, again, is individually subjective.

well, by your earlier statement you clearly were implying that HC is shilling for ncix and that their main reviewer was at best untrustworthy. Sorry, but but most tech sites that runs a large amount of reviews can't afford to buy everything that they review. AT probably could if they had to, but why would any of the major players risk the HUGE pr hit from pissing off somebody this big? HC on the other hand has a decent site but they're definitely a smaller player, so if they get review items from company xyz and tell their readers "hey, thanks to newegg canada for shipping us the gtx 580 on short notice b/c nvidia was running short" then that's just good marketing for newegg canada in my book. and if they don't even bother to tell their readers where they got the stuff then newegg canada/ncix/etc screwed up by not demanding that they get mentioned in the article.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You have to remember that in many cases MLAA is only used when you cant use anything else.

check this out:
http://www.iryokufx.com/mlaa/gallery/index.html

You take your mouse cusor over the "no AA" and the "MLAA" and compair.

it has pictures with NO AA and with MLAA from games like:

• Fable III
• Unigine
• Dead Space
• Far Cry 2
• G.T.A. IV
• N.F.S. Shift

exsample:

No AA:

With MLAA:

What kind of performance hit does that have. It looks pretty decent!

 

[blastingcap]

Some of us like single-GPUs and dislike multi-GPUs.

 

[tviceman]

Some of us like single-GPUs and dislike multi-GPUs.

I am completely in this boat. I like seeing sli/crossfire results and it's equally fun for x2 cards, but no matter how much bang for the buck a crossfire/sli setup can be, until multi gpu's are completely seemless, without potential caveats, and don't produce microstutter I will always be a proponent of buying the best single gpu within a given budget. The only time I would personally look into or recommend a dual card solution would be when adding in that second card to an already existing setup as a future inexpensive upgrade.

 

[3DVagabond]

I am completely in this boat. I like seeing sli/crossfire results and it's equally fun for x2 cards, but no matter how much bang for the buck a crossfire/sli setup can be, until multi gpu's are completely seemless, without potential caveats, and don't produce microstutter I will always be a proponent of buying the best single gpu within a given budget. The only time I would personally look into or recommend a dual card solution would be when adding in that second card to an already existing setup as a future inexpensive upgrade.

I understand what you are saying, but if you insisted on single GPU being perfect too, you wouldn't have any video card. Generally there is a single card that will do the job, do it better, and give more consistent results. I too would most times recommend single GPU.

There are systems that require dual GPU to function acceptably. Some eyefinity, 3D (but not all setups), nVidia surround, to name some off the top of my head.

 

[n0x1ous]

Not impressed. Nvidia's newest, most advanced, top of the line card is slower than a year old card. *yawn*

but when 6970 comes out and is slower then the 5970 then you will be impressesed? nice attempt at damage control

 

[ronnn]

Some of us like single-GPUs and dislike multi-GPUs.

Some of us have never even seen a multi gpu system. They must be quite rare.

 

[notty22]

For those interested : Disable GeForce GTX 580 Power Throttling using GPU-Z
NVIDIA shook the high-end PC hardware industry earlier this month with the surprise launch of its GeForce GTX 580 graphics card, which extended the lead for single-GPU performance NVIDIA has been holding. It also managed to come up with some great performance per Watt improvements over the previous generation. The reference design board, however, made use of a clock speed throttling logic which reduced clock speeds when an extremely demanding 3D application such as Furmark or OCCT is run. While this is a novel way to protect components saving consumers from potentially permanent damage to the hardware, it does come as a gripe to expert users, enthusiasts and overclockers, who know what they're doing.

GPU-Z developer and our boss W1zzard has devised a way to make disabling this protection accessible to everyone (who knows what he's dealing with), and came up with a nifty new feature for GPU-Z, our popular GPU diagnostics and monitoring utility, that can disable the speed throttling mechanism. It is a new command-line argument for GPU-Z, that's "/GTX580OCP". Start the GPU-Z executable (within Windows, using Command Prompt or shortcut), using that argument, and it will disable the clock speed throttling mechanism. For example, "X:gpuz.exe /GTX580OCP" It will stay disabled for the remainder of the session, you can close GPU-Z. It will be enabled again on the next boot.

 

[MrK6]

For those interested : Disable GeForce GTX 580 Power Throttling using GPU-Z
NVIDIA shook the high-end PC hardware industry earlier this month with the surprise launch of its GeForce GTX 580 graphics card, which extended the lead for single-GPU performance NVIDIA has been holding. It also managed to come up with some great performance per Watt improvements over the previous generation. The reference design board, however, made use of a clock speed throttling logic which reduced clock speeds when an extremely demanding 3D application such as Furmark or OCCT is run. While this is a novel way to protect components saving consumers from potentially permanent damage to the hardware, it does come as a gripe to expert users, enthusiasts and overclockers, who know what they're doing.

GPU-Z developer and our boss W1zzard has devised a way to make disabling this protection accessible to everyone (who knows what he's dealing with), and came up with a nifty new feature for GPU-Z, our popular GPU diagnostics and monitoring utility, that can disable the speed throttling mechanism. It is a new command-line argument for GPU-Z, that's "/GTX580OCP". Start the GPU-Z executable (within Windows, using Command Prompt or shortcut), using that argument, and it will disable the clock speed throttling mechanism. For example, "X:gpuz.exe /GTX580OCP" It will stay disabled for the remainder of the session, you can close GPU-Z. It will be enabled again on the next boot.

Yikes, yeah, no thanks. I'd hate to get this card under water and get it cranked to 1GHz+ only to have to throttle all the time or resort to having to do this every boot-up.

 

[happy medium]

Yikes, yeah, no thanks. I'd hate to get this card under water and get it cranked to 1GHz+ only to have to throttle all the time or resort to having to do this every boot-up.

SOmeone allready has a gtx580 @ 1000 core on air. :thumbsup:
It only throttles when the driver detects Furmark.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2119603

 

[MrK6]

SOmeone allready has a gtx580 @ 1000 core on air. :thumbsup:
It only throttles when the driver detects Furmark.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2119603

And some can't even get there on dice - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4622604&postcount=4 . One of the reasons I haven't picked up a GTX 580, overclocking is meh and all over the place. I think more mature silicon will do the cards well.

If the lock/throttle is program and not hardware-dependent that's good.

 

[tviceman]

And some can't even get there on dice - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4622604&postcount=4 . One of the reasons I haven't picked up a GTX 580, overclocking is meh and all over the place. I think more mature silicon will do the cards well.

If the lock/throttle is program and not hardware-dependent that's good.

LOL you're calling a measly 27% overclock on the fastest single GPU meh.

LOL --> http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30600753&postcount=62

 

[Cookie Monster]

I still dont understand why people think the GTX580 is somehow artificially capped by this VRM protection circuitry and that there is a potential issue of it throttling itself if overclocked too much or goes over a certain current level.

There is nothing being capped except throttling "power virus" programs like Furmark and OCCT when they are detected.

Unless there are more evidence to suggest either wise I just dont see why unlocking the OCP circuitry is even necessary unless one likes to play Furmark.

 

[notty22]

Yikes, yeah, no thanks. I'd hate to get this card under water and get it cranked to 1GHz+ only to have to throttle all the time or resort to having to do this every boot-up.

Here is why this is a good thing.

Heres the 5970 throttling and the vrm's getting to over 120c
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3590

As we previously noted in our 5970 review, when overclocked the card was throttling down in two cases. One was when running OCCT/FurMark, members of AMD’s “power virus” list by virtue of the fact that they put a card under a greater load than AMD believes to be realistically possible. Our 5800 series cards never throttled under these applications, so to see the 5970 throttle here was a bit surprising but not wholly unexpected.

I'm guessing AMD's new cards are going to continue to ALSO use this method to control powervirus, even though some don't want to believe its now in both companies cards.

 

[Lonbjerg]

LOL you're calling a measly 27% overclock on the fastest single GPU meh.

LOL --> http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30600753&postcount=62

Why am I not not surprised...what the expression the native amercians use..."speaking with a forked tounge"?


Personal attacks are not acceptable.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[MrK6]

LOL you're calling a measly 27% overclock on the fastest single GPU meh.

LOL --> http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30600753&postcount=62

OH NOES! Someone wasn't impressed by NVIDIA! Grab your pitchforks, boys!

But in all seriousness, what does the quotation you posted have to do with anything I said in this thread? 27% is the best so far, many are stabilizing at ~950MHz on air, which means I'll be lucky to get 1,050MHz on water. Assuming mostly linear performance scaling, the card might be 30% faster than my 5850 at those clock speeds. Not really worth the cash right now IMO.

Unless there are more evidence to suggest either wise I just dont see why unlocking the OCP circuitry is even necessary unless one likes to play Furmark.

If that's all it is then that's all it is. I hadn't seen any confirmation as to the extent of the "capping." However, there are reports like these:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4625406&postcount=64 which make me wary. Other cards with OCP don't have problems like that, which leads me to question if the cap is on overall power consumption or only on "power virus" programs.

Here is why this is a good thing.
Heres the 5970 throttling and the vrm's getting to over 120c
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3590
I'm guessing AMD's new cards are going to continue to ALSO use this method to control powervirus, even though some don't want to believe its now in both companies cards.

You missed the point. Throttling to keep temperatures in a safe operating range is fine, cards have been doing that for years now, and this can easily be overcome when overclocking by keeping temperatures low. I'm talking about whether or not the card is throttled purely to keep power consumption down, which will greatly affect it's overclocking potential.

 

[notty22]

Don't think I missed anything. Your ignoring FACTS , that the hardware implementation works with drivers , and looks for certain executables. In gaming, its not going to happen.
If you have proof or reason not to believe them, I'd be interest to see it ?

http://www.geeks3d.com/20101109/geforce-gtx-580-power-monitoring-details/
edit: NVIDIA has implemented a new power monitoring feature on GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards. Similar to our thermal protection mechanisms that protect the GPU and system from overheating, the new power monitoring feature helps protect the graphics card and system from issues caused by excessive power draw. The feature works as follows:

• Dedicated hardware circuitry on the GTX 580 graphics card performs real-time monitoring of current and voltage on each 12V rail (6-pin, 8-pin, and PCI-Express).
• The graphics driver monitors the power levels and will dynamically adjust performance in certain stress applications such as Furmark 1.8 and OCCT if power levels exceed the card’s spec.
• Power monitoring adjusts performance only if power specs are exceeded AND if the application is one of the stress apps we have defined in our driver to monitor such as Furmark 1.8 and OCCT.
  • Real world games will not throttle due to power monitoring.
  • When power monitoring adjusts performance, clocks inside the chip are reduced by 50%.

Note that future drivers may update the power monitoring implementation, including the list of applications affected.

 

[notty22]

NVIDIA GTX 580 Alien vs Triangles Tessellation and PhysX Demo Available

Alien vs Triangles (AvT) is out now! AvT is a Direct3D 11 tessellationPhysX that shows off the power of GeForce GTX 580 demo with a touch of tessellation engine. This GTX 580 demo worked flawlessly and smoothly (around 70FPS) on my GTX 480. It’s a very cool tech-demo, nice work NV demoteam!