Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Review

GeForce GTX 580 Temperatures

With its vapour chamber cooler and redesigned lower leakage transistors, we were confident the GTX 580 1.5GB would banish the power and thermal worries of the GTX 480 1.5GB. Idle power consumption was still high in comparison to ATI’s offerings, hitting 150W rather than the HD 5870 1GB’s 136W, but this is also a healthy 14W less than the GTX 480 1.5GB.

Load power consumption was still very high though, with the total system power draw peaking at a whopping 363W - 93W more than that of the HD 5870 1GB. The power consumption was 13W less than that of the GTX 480 1.5GB, despite the increased frequency of the GPU.


We were also pleasantly surprised then to find that the new vapour chamber cooler worked a treat, allowing the GTX 580 1.5GB to idle at just 18°C above room temperature and peak at 55°C above room temperature. While this is still hotter than ATI’s cards, it’s a big improvement over the first generation of high-end Fermi cards.

The vapour chamber cooler also allowed the card to be far quieter than the GTX 480 1.5GB. When idle the card was very quiet indeed, and while the fan did spin up to 58 per cent under load, the noise it produced wasn’t too intrusive.

Conclusion

Back in March we were pretty brutal in our Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB review. Hugely expensive, hot, noisy and thirsty for power, it delivered just a ten per cent bump in performance over the HD 5870 1GB. While overclocked, custom-cooled versions and liberal Nvidia price cuts have since solved some of those problems, it’s taken time to do so.

The GTX 580 1.5GB is a very different card to the GTX 480 1.5GB. The tweaks and improvements of the new GF110 GPU have not only increased performance by a much more meaningful degree, but also reduced heat, power consumption and noise.

Performance is simply stellar for a single-GPU card, and the much improved vapour chamber cooler delivers capable, quiet cooling – it’ll take a great third-party cooler to actually improve on this reference cooler.


Even the £400 price is reasonable; remember that the Radeon HD 5970 2GB still costs upwards of £490 and that it has the significant drawback of depending upon drivers to unlock all of its potential performance. Investing in a high-end, single-GPU card will typically see you through two years of high-detail gaming, and we’ve no reason to think the GTX 580 1.5GB wouldn’t manage this with ease.

The only thing keeping our wallets in our pockets is the graphics card rush that’s on between Nvidia and ATI at the moment: we’re expecting the high-end Radeon HD 6900-series to arrive very soon. With a competing high-end part from ATI so close, it would be foolish to buy the GTX 580 1.5GB right now without waiting to see what the red team has to offer.

Nevertheless, the GTX 580 1.5GB is a seriously impressive card that justifies its price. It offers great performance that’s a meaningful step up from the previous generation, plus a cooler you can live with and none of the drawbacks of a multi-GPU setup. Our credit cards are ready; it’s up to ATI to show us its hand so we can decide which card to buy.

SCORES

• Performance
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• x
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• 10/10

• Features
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• x
• x
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• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
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• x
• x
• x
• x
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• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
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• -
• 9/10

Score Guide