GeForce GTX 590 Review Thread

[Madpistol]

Guru3D
TechpowerUp
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Bit-tech
TECHSPOT
[H]ard|OCP
techradar
HOTHardware
tom's hardware
MAXIMUMPC
HardwareHeaven
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Legit Reviews
Hardware Canucks

[Peoples-Agent]

Sheesh, why are those clock speeds so low? Really suprised by this tbh.

[newparad1gm]

NVIDIA must have thought that they caught too much flack for the noise levels of the GTX 480 and also seeing that AMD is currently being denigrated for the noise levels of the 6990 as well, so they went with the safe route here, lower clocks, lower fan speeds, and lower noise. The problem is that they went a bit too far with the downclocking. Anandtech tested their OC'ed 590 in all the same tests as the stock 590, and its much closer to the stock 6990 in the AMD-favored games. The problem is that the 6990 can have a healthy OC as well, and I don't know how much more headroom the 590 would have after the speeds that Anandtech OC'ed it to at 750/900.

The acoustics design on the 590 also seems to be catering to the wrong audience here. HardOCP says this card is nearly silent. I don't think it would have been a problem to bump up clock speeds and have a slightly noisier $700 dual GPU card. Its not like you are dropping this thing into an HTPC, and enthusiasts who would overclock this thing to speeds where the fan would be insanely loud would put on a waterblock anyways.

I haven't read all the reviews but this caught my attention. Taken from the techpowerup review.

As a first step, I increased the voltage from 0.938 V default to 1.000 V, maximum stable clock was 815 MHz - faster than GTX 580! Moving on, I tried 1.2 V to see how much could be gained here, at default clocks and with NVIDIA's power limiter enabled. I went to heat up the card and then *boom*, a sound like popcorn cracking, the system turned off and a burnt electronics smell started to fill up the room. Card dead! Even with NVIDIA power limiter enabled. Now the pretty looking, backlit GeForce logo was blinking helplessly and the fan did not spin, both indicate an error with the card's 12V supply.
After talking to several other reviewers, this does not seem to be an isolated case, and many of them have killed their cards with similar testing, which is far from being an extreme test.

Hopefully this isn't a widespread defect in the first batch shipped.

[MikeC]

Originally Posted by newparad1gm

The acoustics design on the 590 also seems to be catering to the wrong audience here.

I must be the wrong audience then

Seriously, after having used the 480 for over a year, I'm enjoying the acoustics on the 590. It has plenty of power to drive a 2560x1600 monitor.

Check out the 3D Vision Blog. This site provides a lot of valuable information for those interested in 3D Stereo Gaming.

http://3dvision-blog.com/geforce-gtx...tereo-3d-mode/

[Madpistol]

From what I've read, Nvidia is banking on developer support to make this card a winner. On the games where Nvidia has thrown some money into the development of the title, the GTX 590 shines quite well. On the other games, the HD 6990 is ahead, sometimes by as much as 30%. Guaranteed this is due to the extra memory on the 6990. The GTX 590 seems to run out of steam on higher resolutions.

For right now, the HD 6990 is faster while the GTX 590 is quieter. I have no idea where we will go from here, but as predicted, the market is now divided between most powerful and most "acoustically friendly".

I'm anxious to see how AMD answers this. Perhaps they will redesign their cooler to be more inline with Nvidia's design.

[Roadhog]

What a flop IMO. 570 sli is much better choice.

[MikeC]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

What a flop IMO. 570 sli is much better choice.

That's fine. But consumers will be "investing" in a high-quality power supply.

I invested in a power supply that's flexible enough that I can drive multiple 590s or multiple 570s.

I'm sure you did too.

[Bah!]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

What a flop IMO. 570 sli is much better choice.

I agree, about the 570 comment, not the flop. But if you are looking for a dual gpu card it's not so cut and dry. You can buy the faster/louder/hotter 6990 or the slower/cooler/quieter 590.

I can't wait to see the discussions about these cards over the next few months.

Even before they were released we were seeing people around here changing their tune as to what's acceptable and what isn't as far as power/performance/sound, etc. Now that it's pretty much firmly established that Ati and Nvidia have switched positions in those departments, the flip flopping will most likely continue.

Should be interesting.

[Bah!]

Originally Posted by grey_1

I haven't read all the reviews but this caught my attention. Taken from the techpowerup review.



Hopefully this isn't a widespread defect in the first batch shipped.

Turns out it is a driver issue.

IMPORTANT: The supplied Geforce Drivers 267.52 for Geforce GTX 590 will not stop the card from overheating when overclocking. Please use newer versions from the Nvidia website and stay away from 267.52. Otherwise this may happen ...

From a video showing the card burning up.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Bah!

Now that it's pretty much firmly established that Ati and Nvidia have switched positions in those departments, the flip flopping will most likely continue.

Should be interesting.

It's funny how that works, isn't it? The GTX480 was faster than the 5870 pretty much across the board, and demolished it on DX11, yet the ATi fans (and a fair amount of NVIDIA fans) spent the next year crucifying it for noise.

Now that ATi's card is by far the loudest (HARDOCP says you can't even hear a 590) and the card trade wins on benches the ATi fan's post is "Noise has never mattered! The benchmarks the 6990 loses don't matter! What matters is the benchmarks ATi wins, and having 500MB more VRAM of course!"

When I received the 590 a while back I took out my GTX480SLi and ran some benches at 57X10:

JustCause2 57X10 4X16X Dark Tower demo: 74.3 fps (within 1fps of the GTX480 SLi)
MafiaII 57X10 0X16X: 76fps (within 1fps of the GTX480 Sli)
FarCry 2 57X10 4X16X: 74fps (within 2fps of the GTX480 SLi)

Oh yeah, and I can turn on 3d and play in 3d on one or three monitors (depending on game and setting) with this card, see the PhysX effects in the dozen games I have with PhysX.

Would I trade this for a few more frames in some games that wouldn't change the game experience, and CF/CCC? Ummmmmm........no.

When you throw the fact it's totally quiet doing all of the above and the 6990 roars like a blow dryer doesn't hurt either.

EDIT: I should note that noise has never been my personal deal maker/breaker, but it clearly matters to the market in general.

I think this card is a very nice mix of performance and ergonomics.

[Peoples-Agent]

I was expecting to have a slight taste of buyer's remorse with my 570s when this came out, thankfully that's not the case. (Apart from the fact they shipped with a dodgy bios and one fried, MSI apologised with a free game)