What can this video card do? Or a better to question to ask is what can’t this card do?
If all other video cards were considered common soldiers on the battlefields then this card would be considered the best of the best, the elite, Tier 1, or even the black ops of the commando group. They’re more stealthy and quieter, pack more punch then there predecessors, and even do better in a group attack scenario. Nvidia has specifically released the GTX 580 cards to directly compete with AMD’s upcoming released of the 6900 series cards and has focused their design on 3 major functions:
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Designed for great performance / watt & quiet gaming
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Best multi-GPU gaming with SLI
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Exceptional geometric realism
From the looks of the stats shown so far, these cards outperform everything out there, like a sprinter in a race with no need to look back to see how far their competitor is behind, because honestly they haven’t even rounded the corner as far as Nvidia is concerned. In tests by Nvidia of over 19 games and benchmarks, the GTX 580 outperformed the AMD 5870 by an average of 1.5x. In the same series of tests the multi GPU solution of a 2 - GTX 580’s in SLI outperformed the 2- 5870 Crossfire solution by an even greater average of 1.63x . Keep in mind these are stats and games chosen by and coming from the Nvidia camp, but these numbers are hard to deny until unbiased testers get benchmarks of their own out and either confirm or deny the stats.
The average performance per watt compared of the GTX 580 is said to be an average of 1.3x greater than that of the previous GTX 480 series cards and advertised at 46dbA under load it is approximately 6db quieter than the GTX 480, 1.5dbA lower than that of the GTX280 and even .5 dbA quieter than the GTX285
As shown in previous announcements of Nvidia’s Unreleased Technology earlier this week this card sports a custom vapor chamber, new adaptive GPU fan control, SLI optimized design, and external venting. It also has new hardware monitoring, which manages power under stressful application loads, including real-time monitoring of current and voltage on each 12V rail (8-pin, 6-pin, PCIE) and the ability to dynamically adjusts performance in certain stress apps (i.e. Futuremark, OCCT) to keep power within specs. The architectural enhancements, addition of 512 cores, and faster clock speeds have increased performance up to 1.30x by themselves, when compared in games like Dirt 2 and 3D Mark benchmarks to that of the of the GTX 480. With the ability to process over 2 billion triangles per second and 16 polymorph engines, Nvidia is claiming itself King and boasts to be the card to beat. In Microsoft DX11 tessellation tests the GTX 580 outperformed the 5870 boasting itself as a generation ahead in DX11 tessellation performance.
In reference to DX11 being a key component in upcoming gaming titles, Daniel Lazar, the Producer of Tom Clancy’s Hawx 2 was quoted as saying:
“HAWX 2 derives significant visual benefit from DX11Tessellation which enables a level of terrain detail that has never before been seen in a game. The resulting environment is natural, complex and irregular –you never see an obvious triangle."
The ability to create such realistic detail and generate millions of triangles per frame procedurally on the GPU will be a huge enabler of next-generation content.”
I personally am enjoying the video card battles between Nvidia and AMD. I think it’s a win/win scenario with the consumers benefiting in the long run, proof that good competition and ingenuity in both camps are resulting in huge strides in video card manufacturing processes, not to mention what they mean for gamers everywhere in regards to an enjoyable experience
whether it be DX 11, 3D or multi monitor gaming.
The price? $499, but Newegg has already sent out their newsletter - $559 with 10% dicount codes. Finally, EVGA was talking about a Black ops Edition being released to the public with a special Call of Duty: Black Ops cover.
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