Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Video Card: A review

Today, nVidia and gaming industry complement each other perfectly like never before. nVidia is an American company based in Santa Clara, California and it is the company that invented graphics processing unit or GPU technology back in 1999.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Video Card

GPUs are the most necessary components for today’s 3D enabled games, animation, and graphics industry. It has become so powerful that beside the mother board and processor this becomes a necessity in each and every computer today. nVidia GeForce GTX 580 card is a model under the GeForce 500 series and it is based on the famous Fermi Architecture. Today it is the most powerful graphics card harnessing the true power of DirectX technology from Microsoft. It was launched in November 2010 and since then it is the top most wish list component for a gamer, modder or an enthusiast.

Pricing and availability

GeForce GTX 580 was first launched in November 2010 and currently it is widely available both from online and offline retailers. The price point is higher as it is a high end graphics card meant for hard core gamers, 3D designers and modders. At the time of launch the price was $499 and after one year still, the price varies from $450 to $599 depending on the manufacturer or over clocked version.

What’s great

This powerful monster has four graphics processing clusters (GPC) and each cluster contains four stream multiprocessors (SM) on each of them. All the SM again contains 48 stream processors. Thus the entire graphics card has 512 stream processors in all and this makes it capable to run at 772 MHz frequency and can support 1.5 GB of DDR5 memory with an effective frequency of 4.08 GHz. This beast is 3 way SLI ready and nVidia 3D ready also. That means if one wants to use all the latest applications to its fullest without worrying about lower the graphics settings such as lowering anisotropic filtering, switching off the V-Sync, lowering the shadow quality or details of the water and reflection or resolution they can use three GTX 580 at SLI mode and can get the maximum performance boost. GTX 580 also truly supports Open GL 4.1, DirectX 11, windows 7 compliant and nVidia PhysX ready card.

GTX 580 can support maximum digital resolution at 2560 X 1600 and support multiple monitor. This means more clarity and sharpness from the gaming world. If one plays Crysis 2 or the latest Battle Field 3 using this card, they can get all the real thrill of the the war on their screen at higher resolution that no other cards can offer currently. The height of this card is 111 mm, length is 267 mm and it takes dual slot of the PCI-E in the motherboard. This card is equipped with vapor chamber cooler with lower leakage transistors to control the operating temperature. Still the power consumption of this card is on the higher side and can draw power upto 363 W at its maximum performance point. Also at maximum performance in the room temperature the temperature of this card can go upto 55 degree centigrade. This means that to use this card, one has to also invest good amount of money in a very good power supply unit and in the cooling system. One can think of water cooling system or nitro cooling system as the alternative measure.

On performance front, there is no doubt that this is the top most card. In all the test results where we use Dirt 2, Battle Field Bad Company 2, this card gives the most satisfying performance as compared with others such as ATI HD Radeon HD 5970 2GB. And if one can afford the SLI mode, then there is no looking back. No one can beat this SLI set up in this current market scenario.

What’s not so great

Everything about this card is simply great - the performance, stability, features, specification, capability of overclock everything. The only thing which is not so great is the price point and the lack of connectivity with different ports. For example if one wants to connect three monitors together, he needs two GTX 580 card. Also there is not connector for the display port which is a concern for many.

Things to watch out for

Batman:Arkham City one of the most anticipated and awaited PC game in 2011. It has been already released for console versions but the PC version hasn’t been released yet and to get this opportunity EVGA is ready to launch their new Batman themed superclocked GTX 580. This is a modified version of the original one, and this card is much quieter as well. Also this card is overclocked so the maximum capability of this card can be achieved while playing graphics intensive games such as Batman: Arkham City or Frost Bite 2 engine based Battle Field 3.

Verdict

nVidia has proved itself as the master of the graphics universe. Again and again they are coming with their innovation and latest models that others are following. It is true that this card is not the ultimate one as ATI is also closely working on its latest development. But for nVidia fans and likes, getting this card is like a spiritual experience which only can be feel bit expressed at all. Only if the price point can be a bit lower, then more and more people can afford it. But again, a gem of a product cannot be easily accessible, one has to earn it to feel it.