Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 580

Coming almost out of nowhere is Nvidia's latest, greatest graphics card to date, the GeForce GTX 580.

This new card has been extrapolated from the age-old adage, 'if it aint broke, don't fix it.'

Nvidia's inaugural DirectX 11 card, the GeForce GTX 480, was a little broken and so Nvidia has been beavering away for the most part of this year trying to fix it.

Now, in terms of performance, the GTX 480 was still a very good card. In single-GPU metrics it's still the fastest card available despite AMD's launch of its second generation DX11 cards, the Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850.

Well, that was until this new chip tipped up anyway.

The broken part of the GTX 480 came from what Nvidia itself promised for the first Fermi GPU. Originally the GF 100 was touted as having a full compliment of 512 CUDA cores, but when the GTX 480 hit our test benches however the GF 100 GPU inside it was sporting only a cut-down 480 cores.

Rumours abounded that this was all down to poor chip yields from the silicon wafers with the full core count. Cutting that count to 480 then increased the numbers of usable chips in each wafer and made for a far more viable card.

Nvidia though is still denying that there were any yield problems with the GTX 480. But as Tom Petersen, Nvidia's Technical Marketing Director told me at the GTX 480 launch, it wasn't "the perfect chip".

The GF 110 housed in the GTX 580 though could well be the perfect Fermi chip, with the full 512 core-count and the same Streaming Microprocessor configuration as the GTX 480.

But we weren't expecting the next generation of Fermi cards to be coming quite so soon. Nvidia has kept this one quiet for a long time and it wasn't until last week that we actually found out what it was up to.

So spoiling the launch of AMD's latest cards, as well as getting the jump on its high-end Caymen-powered cards too, is something that Nvidia will be feeling rather proud of today.

With this launch the GTX 580 is retiring the GTX 480 and is slotting in exactly the same place and price-point as its outgoing sibling. So no worries about the strange re-ordering of Nvidia's card nomenclature that we've seen from competitors then.

With AMD having replaced the HD 5870 with a slower card, in the shape of the increasingly clunky-looking HD 6870, Nvidia was at pains to point out that this is a "100 per cent replacement for the GTX 480". Tom Petersen suggests stock of the GTX 480 will rapidly disappear and demand will be replaced by this new GTX 580 shaped card.

This new graphics behemoth is also heralding the approach of the 500 series of second generation Fermi cards, with the lesser-lights of the card family filtering through fairly soon after.

So is this new card a worthy successor to what was already the fastest single-GPU graphics card out there? Or is it just a hefty, hot, atavistic GPU from the green side of the graphics divide?

The big change is obviously the addition of the final Streaming Microprocessor (SM) that was removed from the GF 100 chip in order to garner yields large enough to make the GTX 480 a viable card.

This means an extra 32 cores and one extra Polymorph engine added to the GTX 580's architectural make up.

Essentially then it's the same chip as the one which powered the inaugural Nvidia Fermi card some seven months ago, though with the culled parts reintegrated into the final card.

Running with a core and shader clock of 772MHz and 1,544MHz respectively it's also clocked higher than the GTX 480's 700/1,400MHz setup. The memory speed has also been upped to a jot above the 4GHz mark at 4,008MHz, a boost of some 312MHz.

It still comes with the same 1.5GB of GDDR5 graphics memory, running on a 384-bit memory bus, that the GTX 480 had. With the possibility of AMD's top-end Caymen-powered cards coming with a 2GB memory block as standard that could be a sticking point in big-screen gaming terms.

But there have also been some improvements in the GPU's make up to improve performance. These include improvements designed to boost the card's power in some texture-heavy applications and another which will, according to Nvidia, improve the Z-cull efficiency, namely the speed it analyses three dimensional depth on the GPU.

But that's not the whole story. If this were simply a slightly faster GTX 480 we wouldn't be quite so interested; mostly because as fast as that card was, it was also an incredibly hot and rather loud beastie.

The new GTX 580 though basically isn't. I was sat chatting in a quiet room with twin GTX 580s in SLI running at full load without having to shout to be heard.

The key to this is the vapour-chamber tech Nvidia is now using in its reference cooler design.

Instead of the standard heat-sink/fan array there is now a small pool of liquid in a chamber sitting atop the GPU. Once this heats up it turns to vapour, transferring the heat away from the chip, hits the condenser and turns back into liquid again. The heat is then transferred into the heatsink on top of that where the fan moves air across in the usual fashion.

This GTX 580 is then quieter than any of Nvidia's last three top-end graphics cards.

Power consumption too has been improved compared to the juice-hungry GTX 480. This is down to the improvements the green technicians have made at the transistor level. The key has been the use of low-leakage transistors on non-timing sensitive, pathways and higher-speed ones on critical paths, where speed is of the essence.

Essentially what this all boils down to is a graphics card that is at once, faster, cooler, quieter and less power-hungry than the card it's replacing.

You listening AMD?

Test System:

• Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.8GHz


• Asus P6X58D-E


• 6GB Corsair DDR3 @1,333MHz


• Ikonik Vulcan 1,200W PSU


• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

All the results below were taken at 2560x1600 and at the highest settings possible with 4x Anti-Aliasing turned on.

As you can see below the GTX 580 has the edge in pretty much any benchmark you care to throw at it. Only the combined might of the GTX 460 in SLI trim and the more expensive HD 5970 are in any position to make the latest Nvidia card sweat. And only then in a few, older benchmark tests.

AMD's top card can manage a performance win in only one DirectX 11 benchmark, and Alien vs Predator is not a particularly striking example of DX11 implementation.

The distance the HD 5970 lags behind in Heaven and Metro 2033 is more telling.

In the legacy benchmarks the twin GPUs and extra graphics memory of the HD 5970 and GTX 460 in SLI do give them the lead against the GTX 580 though. But still each of those have their drawbacks against the newer card.

Would you really want to pay more for the venerable HD 5970 just to have better performance in older games, but worse in future titles?

Unlikely.

The out-going GTX 480 though is resoundingly beaten across the board, on average by a little over 17% over the eight tests.

We haven't included the figures for the now defunct Radeon HD 5870 as it's been replaced by the new HD 6870. But then we haven't included those figures here as they're nowhere near the GTX 580 in terms of placement or performance.

DirectX 11 Tessellation Performance

DirectX 11 Gaming performance

DirectX 10 Gaming Performance

Forget all the architectural shenanigans though, the real proof is in the performance pudding. So how does Nvidia's new flagship card stand up to our test-benches scrutiny?

The answer is, very well indeed.

In sheer performance terms alone the GTX 580 averages a boost of 17.5% at the top-end compared with the standard GTX 480 across our suite of benchmarks. Only in Metro 2033 and Just Cause 2 does the percentage framerate gain drop below a 10% boost. And in DiRT 2 we hit a 27% increase on the GTX 480, almost making the projected 30 per cent boost Nvidia had spoken about pre-launch.

AMD's bizarre naming switch-around with the HD 5870 and HD 6870 aside this is almost exactly the sort of performance figures we would expect to see from a card being sent out to replace another, older generation of GPU. And given that it's based on the same Fermi architecture we didn't really expect a huge leap in performance.

But this boost is still very significant.

What is important is that with the increased clockspeed and extra CUDA cores this is a card that is now outperforming AMD's best card, the dual-GPU HD 5970 in all but one of our DirectX 11 benchmarks.

That's something the GTX 480 couldn't boast at launch, and it leaves AMD in a little bit of hot water.

There are a couple of benchmarks, such as the Just Cause 2 and Far Cry 2 results, that put the twin-GPU card on top, but they're older generation technology. In the DirectX 11 benchmarks the GTX 580 shows its performance chops.

And also shows it's a more long-lived card.

Compared with AMD's top single-GPU card, the HD 5870, it's Britney Spears vs. Goliath out there, and there's no pointy stones lying around either. The HD 5870 was a way behind the GTX 480 but now it staggers around in the GTX 580's wake like some punch-drunk little Disney Mouseketeer.

It's looks every inch the retiring technology that it is.

When it comes to the improved power efficiency though, it's not quite as impressive as we'd hoped. There are definite drops in both temperature and in the system power drawn from the wall, but measuring the total system power between a GTX 480 and a GTX 580 setup we only saw a drop off of around 5 per cent under full load.

Likewise running the GPU at 100% saw only a 6 per cent difference in the peak temperature reading over time.

What is significant though is that it has achieved drops in both heat generation and power draw, while still managing to be quieter than either of the last three top-end Nvidia GPUs. 'It's the quietest high-end GPU we've done in about years,' says Petersen.

Generally you'd expect a boost in performance, coupled with better power efficiency and hence lower temperatures, to be linked to a shrink in the manufacturing process. The fact that Nvidia has managed to do this with essentially the same chunky chip design as the overpowered, overheating GF 100 of the GTX 480, is thoroughly impressive.

The only slight fly in the ointment is possibly the impressive SLI performance of the 1GB GTX 460.

It's only in Metro 2033 that the real gulf in technology is that evident. For the most part you are looking at single figure percentage drops in performance and when you're see a drop from 34 fps to 32 fps that's a difference few gamers are really going to be able to notice.

That SLI pairing is also £100 cheaper than the single GTX 580 too.

That said you'd need an SLI-certified motherboard and a heftier power supply than you would with a single card. And despite how good multi-GPU setups have become in terms of reliability and support, a single, powerful card is a lot more of a safe bet.

So here it is, the fastest DirectX 11 graphics card around today. No caveats here, there's none of the GTX 480's distraction over the dual-GPU HD 5970, this is as fast as it currently gets.

AMD will argue that the HD 5970 is still a faster card, but only if you select your tests carefully.

The really impressive thing is that performance boost has come in a cooler, quieter, less power-hungry package. Granted the power and temperature drops aren't quite as significant as we might have hoped, but the fact it's come without having to follow a die-shrink is definitely worth noting.

It's a simple sell as well. The GTX 480 is being completely replaced by this new card, essentially the card it should have been all along, and comes in at the same price-point too.

Still, that's £400 for a graphics card, but with the safe knowledge that it's the fastest, most future-proof thing on a single PCB right now.

And that timing is significant too.

The GTX 580 has sneaked up quietly, stealing the HD 6870 and HD 6850's weak rumbles of thunder. Those cards though were just caught up in the crossfire, what the GTX 580 is really gunning at is the supposedly imminent launch of AMD's new top-end cards, the Caymen GPU-powered HD 69xx cards.

The rumours are they'll appear towards the end of November, but then there's also been rumours that there's some delay which is keeping stock away from AMD's board partners.

So with Nvidia setting out its stall in this fashion the onus is definitely on AMD to produce something special to try and beat the GTX 580, though speaking with the green company they think this latest Fermi card has got the top-end GPU battle sewn up for the foreseeable.

The only slightly sticky point for the GTX 580 is the SLI performance of cheaper cards. A twin GTX 460 setup will come incredibly close to the top-end card's figures and for £100 less. Pair up a couple of GTX 470s and they will spank it for the same price.

So if you're sitting there with a GTX 460 and wondering whether it's time to go the whole hog and buy a GTX 580 have another think if you would be better served paying £250 less and just getting another GTX 460 for your rig.

Still, that's only if you've got a PSU beefy enough to cope with SLI and a certified motherboard too.

We liked:

The increased clocks, reengineered parts and reintegrated GPU components all add up to some impressive performance metrics. A new top-end card though should deliver that, what we weren't necessarily expecting though was that all to come alongside quieter, cooler and less thirsty running too.

We disliked:

There's really not a lot to dislike about the GTX 580. Nvidia has addressed pretty much all the issues we ever had with the GTX 480 it's directly replacing. The only issue is that it's bloody expensive, but then bringing this card out for less than £400 would turn the GPU industry on its head.

Final word:

With no new top-end AMD cards to put the GTX 580 up against there is no clear competition for what is now the fastest DX11 card available. Even the twin-GPU HD 5970 has met its match. Until the Caymen cards make an appearance, this is as good as it gets.

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