At the beginning of the year, the long awaited and somewhat over due Fermi GPU arrived from NVIDIA in the form of the GTX 470 and 480 video cards. Scrutineers poked at GPU’s performance, noise, and apparent thermal challenges. To summarize, the two video cards were hot tamales, but it did have performance to earn a top spot in NVIDIA’s arsenal. Naturally, improvements to the FERMI architecture rolled out. First it was the nVidia GTX 460, which won gamers back with a sweet spot price of $200. Now we’re heading to the other side of the price/performance spectrum with the ZOTAC Geforce GTX 580. Let’s see what the new nVidia performance king as in store for us!
Features and Specifications
The GPU core within the GTX 580 (GF110) shares more tangible similarities with its little GTX 460 (GF104) brother than the sibling it is supposed to replace, the GTX 480 (GF100). Namely cool running and a lot of performance potential. Luckily, the goal was reached as the the GTX 580 no longer needs the massive, inefficient beast of a GPU cooler that emitted up to 50dBA during benchmarking. NVIDIA engineers also looked at the thermal solution to make it a lot quieter.
If you recall, the GTX 480 rocked 480 Shaders. The GTX 580 however flexes the full 512 Shaders where Fermi was originally headed before heat and power consumption became an issue. This should mean more performance. But, rather than bore you to death with the entire list of specs improved within the GTX 580, here is a handle little ZOTAC table comparing the two GPU:
One thing definitely worth handing out extra credit for is that even though the GTX 580 offers improved specs all around, it doesn’t require feeding it more power than the GTX 480. In fact, a few watts have been shaved off in the new revision. At max load, the card should only require about 244/245 watts versus the 480’s original 250 watts.
Best of all is the price. While GTX 480 launched at $499US, the GTX 580 adds no price penalty and also launches at $499US. With street prices placing the GTX 480 now at below $449 US, the GTX 580 seems like a no brainer at the top end.
Quick Video Overview
What do you get inside? What does it look like? We’ll show you!
You’ll easily notice that it’s still a really long video card measuring in the same as the GTX 480. But, it’s noticeably lighter which is really good news for people planning on SLI builds. Triple SLI full tower builds were unusually heavy this year.
Based on the frequency and shader increases, I’m expecting a noticeable improvement in performance especially in DirectX11 games. And, I’m expecting to see the same or less power consumed than its predecessor. Let’s just find out.
Test System
This build is very similar to the one used with the GTX 470 and 480 launch. This time, I upgraded the processor to a Core i7-875K and memory to some Patriot ViperII Sector 4GB 2400MHz DDR3 down clocked to 1600MHz with 8-8-8-24 timings. It’s not that the Kingston HyperX 4GB 1600MHz wasn’t up to the task, I just needed some memory more tuned for a home theater PC build. Here’s the hardware list:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-875K Lynnfield LGA1156 (Skull Trail Algorithms)
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 (F11 BIOS)
- Memory: Patriot Memory ViperII Sector5 4GB 2400MHz DDR3
- Graphics 1: ZOTAC Geforce GTX 480 (Thanks ZOTAC) 1.5GB
- Graphics 2: ZOTAC Geforce GTX 580 (as tested) 1.5GB
- Graphics 3: GIGABYTE ATI HD 5870 (GV-R587UD-GD1) 1GB
- Graphics 4: MSI NVidia Geforce N460GTX 1GB Cyclone
- Power Supply: Antec CP Series CP-850
- CPU Cooling: Koolance CPU-36o Cooing Block w/Exos 2.5
- Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
- Computer Enclosure: Antec P183 (Puget Systems Edition)
The latest ATI 10.11 Catalyst and NVidia 263.09 (GTX 580), and 260.99 (GTX 480, 460, and 260) drivers were installed along with the latest available stable BIOS for the motherboard. Let’s get to work.
Benchmark Suite
The suite consists of games that have built in benchmarks. Many of them are stand alone and don’t require you purchasing the game so you can play along at home before spending for the full version. Tests were performed at 1920 x 1200 resolution unless otherwise noted in the results. Even though there are some small programs one can use to enable some ATI type PhysX, it’s not a default card feature at this time. So, I’m not using them in the benches where PhysX is tested.
Temperatures were monitored using OCCT and Hardware Monitor Pro. Noise was recorded 24″ inches away from just the GTX 480 and GTX 580 to reveal any improvements to the reference graphics card. Keep in mind that the Antec P183 enclosure, easily shaves off about 8dB from our results. If you have an open chassis, noise is obviously going to be louder.
3DMark Vantage
We see a massive GTX 580 GPU score showing some of the extra power inside. That’s almost 6K more than the GTX 480 and almost 10K more than the GTX 460. This card is flying!
Unigine Heaven 2.0 (DirectX 9, 10, & 11 Tests)
Heaven is one of my favorite benchmarks since it’s free and so easy to use. It gives us the option of testing all of the DirectX formats without needing any extra software. While DX9 and 10 don’t hamper performance too much, DX 11 Tessellation along with 4xAF really utilize the video cards’ resources. These are the fastest frame rates to date. And, even though it’s only about 4 frames faster than the GTX 480, it still is a testament to the improvements inside.
Batman Arkham Asylum (DirectX 9)
In my humble opinion, Batman still represents the pinnacle of the DirectX 9 standard. It features some of the most impressive graphics and fun game play. In fact, it also features a bit of PhysX, an Nvidia feature, which is really cool if you like getting immersed in to the ambient gaming environment.
The first thing you’ll notice is that the GTX 580 simply flies with the GTX 480 not to far behind. Each NVidia card also makes use of NVidia’s well known PhysX built in to the game that the ATI cards simply don’t offer. That’s something to keep in mind if you like all the extra moving visuals in your game.
Final Fantasy XIV (DirectX 9)
MMOs are big business and in this particular benchmark, the ZOTAC GTX 580, GTX 480, and ATI HD 5870 all help obtain a High Performance score. However, the GTX 580 naturally out paces the ATI card by a healthy 4,000 points. The ATI HD 5870 shows some of the hidden potential underneath beating the GTX 480. If you’d like to see where your system scores, check out the benchmark here.
Mafia II (DirectX 9)
Mafia II is another game title that features a rich PhysX environment. It’s been known to slow down some good performance graphics cards at higher resolutions. This means, we shouldn’t expect much from the ATI card.
This game is also heavy PhysX favourite and the poor HD 5870 just creeps when enabled. Basically, any AMD GPU hits a wall at 19 frames per second. Even the newer HD 6800 series. The NVidia line does well even the GTX 460 with an 8xAN setting applied at the chosen 1920 x 1200 resolution. Of course, GTX 580 is well ahead.
Crysis (DirectX 10)
As the Crysis series slowly becomes out dated, it’s still one of the few DirectX 10 titles we can always rely on to chew on any video card. It’s not the game’s fault that gaming developers blew past DX10 like it was Vista.
Even with such a rich, lush green environment going on during the benchmark, the latest drivers seemingly do a great job of giving us very playable frame rates, even with the GTX 460. The great thing about the GTX 580 is that it makes the game run very, very smoothly. There are very few instances where the card seems to slow. Too bad the bug at the end prevented me from ever finishing the game.
Farcry 2 (DirectX 10)
There was a change of colors here. The NVidia cards all out performed the HD 5870 which seemed to have more trouble with the flames. Of course, the GTX 580 enjoys a strong 12 frame per second improvement over the GTX 480. Pure pristine country driving is what you’ll get.
Resident Evil (DirectX 10)
I picked Resident Evil 5 because it’s one of the very few DX10 free benchmarks around from CAPCOM. In rinse and repeat fashion, the GTX 580 leaves everything in the dust using the benchmark’s maximum settings at 1920 x 1200 resolution. This time, the HD 5870 makes better use of its GPU. Still, the entire NVidia series seems to enjoy this title.
HAWX 2 (DirectX 11)
This beautiful mountainous aerial benchmark takes us on a tour of the country side showing us a little Tessellation that accompanies DirectX 11. The GTX 580 slaughters the rest with over 19 frames more than even GTX 480.
Metro 2033 (DirectX 11)
This game can almost be called the “new Crysis”, but without the bugs. While all the cards produced beautiful graphics, but barely playable frame rates, the GTX 580 just seems to go that much further. If you’re using 1080p resolution, you can expect about a 5 frame increase over the 1200p resolution.
STALKER: Pripyat (DirectX11)
This benchmark is a very demanding test of most of any GPU’s features and capabilities and this benchmark seemed to really favor the NVidia cards, again. The GTX 480 and 580 leave the ATI card in the dust providing extremely smooth viewing results. Note that the Sun Shade test with all its fancy lighting effects slow all the cards with the GTX 580 leading the pack with 51 smooth frames.
Overclocking the ZOTAC Geforce GTX 580
Being that this is a reference GPU, I wasn’t expecting a lot of extra room for overclocking. But, after seeing the specs for the ZOTAC GTX 580 AMP edition, it seemed feasible that even a reference card should be able to get close if not keep up.
Surprisingly, the reference card matched the AMP edition quite easily. This kind of boost isn’t close to possible with the GTX 480 due to the heat. Still, the idea that anyone can purchase the stock ZOTAC GTX 580 and clock it up to match the AMP edition is a sweet bonus. Essentially, this offered 13 extra average frames in Batman and 8 extra in Mafia II with PhysX enabled.
Temps and Noise Results
The revised Fermi GTX 580 GPU contains some enhancements tuned to offer frequency increases across the spectrum without increasing power consumption. The GPU is also suppose to be more efficient with the power it does consume thus resulting in lower operational temperatures which means the likelihood of less noise. While it may seem improbable, we have to test these statements. Here is what our newly tuned GTX 580 card offered.
The numbers here caused me to do a double take as well. Honestly speaking, the GTX 580 is literally a pleasure to use especially when gaming as the card realistically refused to get noisy except when Furmark was being used. But, that’s just a worse case scenario test and not even close to how the card will realistically be used 99% of the time. You can actually expect the cooler fan to produce less than 32dB on the average while hardcore gaming.
Final Thoughts
The ZOTAC GTX 580 made me question whether or not I had a hand picked card given the data I gathered. NVidia’s Fermi GTX 580 improvements coupled with ZOTAC’s own internal tweaks has resulted in a much quieter and cooler video card than the once dominant reference GTX 480. They’ve even gone as far as putting a more aggressive Zalman VF3000 series VGA cooler on many of their AMP! editions just to ensure their customers are happy.
Fortunately for ZOTAC and all NVidia partners alike, the GTX 580 doesn’t really require aggressive cooling. It would be kind of a shame to omit such a sweet cooling solution on future cards especially the AMP! editions because this new reference cooling solution does work.
The GTX 580 launches at $499US and we can expect the ZOTAC NVidia Geforce GTX 580 graphics card to fall in line. This is actually the same price that GTX 480 launched at. Given all the improvements at the same price, the ZOTAC GTX 580 earns the Editors’ Choice Award that the ZOTAC GTX 480 failed to earn the first time. Well done!
Pros
- More energy efficient, higher performance, lower noise.
- Fastest DirectX 11 video card available
- PhysX ready and hungry for action
Cons
- The cost of playing with the best of the best!
Overall Rating: 9.0 /10.0
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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 1546MB Graphics Card – Photo Gallery
