In early November, we tested the Radeon HD 6870 video card, a representative of the next generation of graphic boards from AMD. In less than a month, as another novelty appeared in the editorial office, this time from NVIDIA. They launched on sale GeForce GTX 580 – The next productivity leader.
A bolt from the blue
You ask how Nvidia managed to make a new generation of video cards in just seven months? We will answer – in no way. In April, we talked about the fact that GF100 , The processor underlying GeForce GTX 480 , Artificially cut. The crystal consumed too much energy, and one of the 16 SM blocks was turned off. So in the GTX 580 he was returned.
The structure of the new stone, GF110 , Similar to the structure of the predecessor. There are four large clusters called Graphics Processing Clusters. Each has four SM blocks with a set of 32 CUDA-Jader, four texture blocks and one tesselia engine.
With an additional SM block, the number of stream processors on the GTX 580 increased from 480 to 512 pieces. The texture blocks became 64 versus 60 GTX 480, and the Tessellation engines, respectively, one more – not 15, but 16 pieces.
In addition, GTX 580 works at higher frequencies. The processor speed increased from 700 to 772 MHz. CUDA-JPER function at a frequency of 1544 versus 1401 MHz. Memory frequency increased from 3696 to 4008 MHz. Otherwise, the GTX 580 and GTX 480 are similar as two drops of water: 384-bit memory bus, 1536 MB GDDR5 and 48 rasterization blocks.
Innovations in architecture only two. First: like GF104 from GeForce GTX 460 , The video card processes textures (up to FP16) at full speed, without passing the clock. Second: the Z-Cull algorithm is improved, which is responsible for the passage of processing of pixels invisible to the eye, so that in some scenes the performance of the board can double.
Freezing
To squeeze all the juices from the old GF100, NVIDIA engineers had to thoroughly work on energy consumption and cooling system.
First of all, Fermi appetites were measured: now the crystal is recruited by different transistors. Part of the regions is collected on slightly slower components with smaller leakage currents. Thus, even with an additional SM block and increased frequencies, GTX 580 consumes 6 watts less than its predecessor-244 watts during a load.
To additionally protect the video card from overheating, NVIDIA installed a special chip for power control. He in real time tracks the parameters of the PCIe X16 lines, as well as 6-pin and 8-pin contacts of PSU. As soon as the card begins to consume too much energy and basking, starting the processor trotling – passing the clocks, and when overheating the computer does not freeze, but continues to work with low frequencies. True, the function is declared only for special "get" like Furmark and its appearance in games is not planned.
For cooling the NVIDIA video card, I put a new radiator. Instead of thermal pipes, it uses a system Vapor Chamber , known to us from a series of video cards Sapphire Vapor-X. The radiator is based on the crystal with a special bath with a liquid. When heated, it evaporates, rises to the radiator, condenses and drops down. The radiator blows a powerful turbine: it drives away the air throughout the map of the map and throws it outside the case. Vapor Chamber system is more expensive than familiar tubes, but the efficiency of heat removal is much higher in it. According to some reports, the bath allows you to reduce the temperature by 15 ° C.
Remember everything
September 23, 2009
The beginning of the DirectX 11 era: goes on sale AMD Radeon HD 5870. New processor CyPress hits all performance records and selects the palm of the championship from double GeForce GTX 295. What will be answered by competitors from NVIDIA is unknown.
October 12, 2009
A ruler appears in stores AMD Radeon HD 5700 on the basis of the processor Juniper – cut version of CyPress. From this moment, AMD begins the struggle for the middle and lower price segments. By February 2010, three more episodes are launched – HD 5600 , HD 5500 And HD 5400. Today the Radeon HD 5000 line has ten video cards in a wide variety of price ranges.
November 18, 2009
AMD once again confirms its leadership: it appears on sale Radeon HD 5970 with two Cypress chips at once. The card eats almost 300 watts, costs fabulous money and also overtakes solutions NVIDIA.
January 7, 2010
Only four months after the launch of the HD 5000 series, NVIDIA officially states that AMD is preparing to answer. January 18 NVIDIA presents the architecture of Fermi and chip GF100. A massive attack by press releases lasts another three months.
April 12, 2010
They appear on sale GeForce GTX 480 And GTX 470 – The first NVIDIA graphics cards with DirectX 11 support. The boards are ambiguous. They easily go around HD 5870 in DX11, but show comparable performance in DX10 and cost much more than competitors.
May 31, 2010
NVIDIA makes the first attempt to break into the average price segment. Released on a trimmed GF100 video card GeForce GTX 465 It turns out to be too expensive for its level of performance.
July 12, 2010
NVIDIA modifies Fermi architecture and represents a new processor GF104 , on the basis of which a new video card is available, GeForce GTX 460. Huge accelerated potential and competent pricing policy conquer the hearts of users. AMD has nothing to answer.
September 3, 2010
Exit GeForce GTS 450. The GTX 400 line has eight video cards in a variety of price ranges. Unfortunately, the most cheap boards are offered only in OEM and is available only to computers collectors.
October 22, 2010
AMD launches a new series of video cards. The first boards – Radeon HD 6870 And HD 6850 – based on the modified architecture of CYPRESS and are positioned as solutions to the average price segment. These are direct competitors GTX 470 and GTX 460. It is stated that the series will be released soon HD 6900 On the new processor Cayman.
November 9, 2010
While AMD is preparing to present the first boards of the Radeon HD 6900 series, NVIDIA launches on sale GeForce GTX 580.
Reality
The first GeForce GTX 580 was sent to us by NVIDIA itself, and the cards came to the editorial office not just in plastic bags, but as part of a powerful computer Meijin Sli GTX 580.
In the length of the GTX 580 the same as the GTX 480 (almost 27 cm), but outwardly the cards differ. Firstly, the hole on the printed circuit board disappeared. Secondly, there are no heat tubes on the side. GTX 580 is closed by a deaf casing with a small bevel on the back. It was made in NVIDIA specifically: it redirects air flows and reduces the noise from the video card. According to the manufacturer, the GTX 580 is not only the predecessor, but also the old GTX 285. So or not, we did not check, but during operation the card is almost not heard. Although, most likely, the case is not in the casing, but in the new algorithm of the fan controller, which, depending on the temperature, smoothly changes the speed speed of the impeller. And the fan itself is now better: better bearings, less vibrations and noise.
The set of video outputs has not changed. While AMD puts two DisplayPort, two DVI and HDMI on new video cards, NVIDIA continues to equip boards with only one mini-hdmi and a DVI couple. There is nowhere to place the ports: to release warm air, you need a whole compartment of the https://casiroom-casino.co.uk/ expansion.
Beast
For the GeForce GTX 580 tests, we have assembled a system on the motherboard Foxconn Renaissance , Installed the processor Intel Core i7-920 and put three memory planks Kingston Hyperx DDR3-1666 2 GB each. On the operating system Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Installed 3DMark Vantage , Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.0 , Resident Evil 5 , Devil May Cry 4 , Aliens vs. Predator And Lost Planet 2. The level of graphics in all applications was displayed to the maximum. Permission – from 1680×1050 to 1920×1080; Anisotropic filtration has always worked in 16x mode.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing the article, AMD did not present Radeon HD 6900 , Therefore, we recorded in competitors GTX 580 Radeon HD 5870 , HD 5970 And GTX 480.
To the record
GTX 580 performance at a height: no matter what a test is a new record. In 3dmark Vantage, a fee scored 25,940 points! This is 6144 more than that of the GTX 480, and 5423 more than that of the double Radeon HD 5970. And this is only the beginning!
With GTX 580, for the first time, we looked without brakes, we watched the UniGine Heaven Benchmark 2 test.0: The card stably held the bar 31.6 frames per second. Even on the GTX 480, this indicator did not rise above 24.6 FPS, and the double HD 5970 did not reach 20 fps.
In the DX10-game, the performance of the GTX 580 surpassed all reasonable limits. In the most difficult modes, at AA 16X and a resolution of 1920×1080, the frequency of personnel in the Resident Evil 5 has never dropped below 106.1 FPS, and in Devil May Cry 4 – below 217.6 fps. And this is the level of the Radeon HD 5970, which in the DX10 did not yield in anything, and somewhere even overtook the top from Nvidia. But the difference with the GTX 480 is felt: in the same Devil May Cry 4, the map of the last generation lagged behind 81 fps.
A real lead for leadership turned around in the DX11-game. In the first test – Lost Planet 2 – GTX 580 was almost twice as fast as Radeon HD 5970. Second benchmark, aliens vs. Predator, changed the rivals in places. AMD double card bypassed a competitor by 30%. GTX 480 stably lagged behind 22%.
Since the unequivocal winner DX11 did not determine, we decided to conduct additional testing of video cards in the game " Metro 2033 ". Unfortunately, on our test stand, she gave out a critical error. Neither the replacement of components, nor fresh Windows saved the situation. Metro 2033 started only on the Meijin computer, where with one GTX 580 it showed 23.98 FPS in the most difficult mode. The same thing happened with another dx11 test – Colin Mcrae Dirt 2. The game was launched only in DX9 and refused to work in DX11. However, soon we will return to the GTX 580 and add the results of the tests.
* * *
Buy a new generation of NVIDIA or not, you decide. If you want to squeeze out everything possible from games and are not ready to sacrifice a tesselation, then for GTX 580 it is worth giving 20,000 rubles. If you are not important for Tesselia and you are not going to play at maximum settings, then the purchase of GTX 480 or Radeon HD 5870 will become a much more wise investment. But the Radeon HD 5970 is already pointless: yes, in many tests it bypasses GTX 580, but it makes no more noise and consumes almost 300 watts.
Table 1
Comparative table of technical characteristics
Characteristic Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5970
Nuclegf110gf100cypresshemlock
The number of transistors 3 billion3 billion2.15 billion4.3 billion
TECHROUT PROCESS40-NM40-NM40-NM40-NM
The number of stream processors51248016002x 1600
The frequency of the graphic nucleus772 MHz700 MHz850 MHz725 MHz
Frequency of stream processors1544 MHz1401 MHz850 MHz725 MHz
Type, memory volume of 1536 MBGDDR5, 1536 MBGDDR5, 1 GBGDDR5, 2 GB
Memory frequency 4008 MHz3696 MHz4800 MHz4000 MHz
Data tire 384 bit384 bits256 bit256 bits
The number of texture blocks6460802x 80
The number of rasterization blocks 4848322x 32
InterfacePcie 2.0 x16pcie 2.0 x16pcie 2.0 x16pcie 2.0 x16
The price for December 2010 is 20,000 rubles with 14,000 rubles with 11,500 rubles with 19,500 rubles
Table 2
Synthetic tests
3DMark Vantage
Model of the video card carduoverallllLLLLLLIARY
Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 22 468 48 353 25 940 100%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 48016 52647 71119 79676%
AMD Radeon HD 587017 40217 32617 38367%
AMD Radeon HD 597021 84817 34720 51779%
Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.0
Model of the video card of the performance of performance
Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 31.6 796 100%
Nvidia GeForce GTX 48024.661777%
AMD Radeon HD 587011,428836%
AMD Radeon HD 597019,950263%
Table 3
Game tests (personnel per second)
The name of the game, settings Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5970
Resident Evil 5 (DX10)
High, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 8x 113.8 105,2105,8112.7
High, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 8x 108.1 10699,4106.7
High, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 16×108,8106108.5 109.8
High, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 16X 106.1 103,7104,5105.7
Performance ratio 100%96%96%100%
Devil May Cry 4 (SC2, DX10)
Superhigh, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 8x 242.5 147.5- –
Superhigh, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 8X 240.8 138,2131,5218.7
Superhigh, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 16X 222.6 148.7- –
Superhigh, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 16X 217.6 136,7163,1211.8
Performance ratio 100%62%64%94%
Lost Planet 2 (DX11, Test A, SC2)
High, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 8x 71.5 -32.747.5
High, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 16X 75.5 -34,349.7
Performance ratio 100%-46%66%
Aliens vs. Predator (Demo, DX11)
Veryhigh, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 2×62,342,448,7 74.7
Veryhight, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 2×3439,243.5 61.7
Veryhight, 1680×1050, AF 16X, AA 4×55.73839.4 66.8
Veryhigh, 1920×1080, AF 16X, AA 4×47,435,135,2 55.1
Performance ratio 100%78%84%130%
Review ratio 100%70%57.5%97.5%
Performance ratio 100%77%73%98%