Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Review

GeForce GTX 580 Performance Analysis

As this is Nvidia’s latest flagship card, we were expecting the GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB to impress us when it came to performance, especially as we’d been so underwhelmed back in March by the GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB. Happily, Nvidia has delivered a much larger performance jump for its high-end part, and we were immediately impressed with the GTX 580 1.5GB’s frame crunching credentials.

Dirt 2 ran a huge 29 per cent faster on the GTX 580 1.5GB than on the GTX 480 1.5GB at 2,560 x 1,600 with 0x AA; the GTX 580 1.5GB delivered minimum frame rates of over 60fps even at 2,560 x 1,600 with 4x AA while the GTX 480 1.5GB could only manage a minimum of 48fps. The GTX 580 1.5GB even manages to out-muscle the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 2GB by 11 per cent at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA, with a minimum frame rate of 88fps. At the same resolution, the GTX 580 1.5GB was an incredible 63 per cent faster than ATI’s fastest single-GPU card, the Radeon HD 5870 1GB. In Dirt 2 at least, the GTX 580 1.5GB is the fastest card we’ve ever tested.


Our Arma II testing also saw the GTX 580 1.5GB unleash a vicious broadside, resoundingly sinking the competition. While even our 3.2GHz Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor looks like a limiting factor with the minimum frame rates, the GTX 580 1.5GB’s average frame rates were streets ahead of the competition. An average frame rate of 41fps at 1,920 x 1,200 with normal AA is awesome, and 32 per cent faster than both the GTX 480 1.5GB and the HD 5870 1GB in the same test. At 2,560 x 1,600 the GTX 580 1.5GB managed noticeably higher minimum frame rates than any other card on test, and equally impressive averages. With no AA we saw a minimum of 21fps rather than the 15fps of the HD 5870 1GB, for example. Meanwhile, the dual-GPU HD 5970 2GB was well off the pace thanks to poor driver support.

We saw the HD 5970 1GB rally well in Just Cause 2, however, thanks presumably to better driver optimisations. At 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA, the GTX 580 1.5GB was 6 per cent slower than the dual-GPU beast, which managed a minimum frame rate of 35fps rather than 33fps. The GTX 580 1.5GB managed to be 22 per cent faster than the GTX 480 1.5GB, which clocked a minimum of 27fps.


We’ve found that Bad Company 2 tends to run better on Nvidia hardware when anti-aliasing is enabled, and the GTX 580 1.5GB is further corroboration of this. At 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA the GTX 580 1.5GB managed a minimum of 48fps, a huge increase over the 30fps minimum of the HD 5870 1GB, ATI’s current fastest GPU. Even the dual-GPU HD 5970 struggled to keep up with the GTX 580 1.5GB, managing a minimum of 42fps, even if it’s average frame rate was much higher.

While the HD 5970 2GB also put in some impressive numbers at 1,920 x 1,200, we encountered serious micro-stuttering at 2,560 x 1,200, meaning that the game was unplayable. We’ve therefore graphed the card has having a minimum of 0fps to reflect the unplayability of the game at this resolution with this card – again, we have to blame the driver for this poor result. The GTX 580 1.5GB is therefore the card of choice for Bad Company 2 players with 30in screens – the minimum of 34fps in epic, with the game never stuttering.