GeForce GTX 590 Review Thread

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Madpistol

I think the issue is based on power consumption. By flipping the BIOS switch, you significantly increase the power draw to the card. There are PSU's out there that would not be able to handle the load, thus creating an unstable experience. Without that switch being flipped, the chances of such a thing happening are completely determined by the PSU itself. In that case, the only solution is to get a better PSU.

They're probably voiding the warranty because they don't want people simply returning the card because their PSU isn't up to snuff and take that mistake for their card being defective and returning it. It's all about maximizing profits.

That's actually another beef i have with both cards to be honest, as the GTX590 is rated at 365 watts TDP and the HD6990 is at 375 watts TDP and this is at stock clocks for both cards, so once overclocked, they'll both go well north of 400, maybe even beyond 450 watts wich is just insane in terms of dissipating that kind of heat and keeping either card quiet with the stock cooling,.



But more to the point, they only use a pair of 8 Pin PCI-e power connectors, wich along with the 75 watts provided by the PCI-e slot itself totals 375 watts in total....So where is the extra power coming from especially when you overclock both of them?....I know they both use advanced power management features that work with the drivers to minimize power draw to the absolute minimum requirement needed, but still, any Power supply is going to be pushed pretty hard here, as they're usually rated for 25 amps per 12 volt rail, wich totals 300 watts, and each pair of PCI-e connectors (6 + 8 pin), usually uses a single dedicated rail.


There's only a few power supplies that don't use multiple 12 volt rails in their design, and one that comes to mind is the silverstone zeus series, wich uses a single massive 90 amp rail for the 12 volt line(1080 watts), but they are expensive....



The one thing i like is what Asus did with the ARES series of cards, specifically the HD5970 version that also packs 4 GB of ram(2 per GPU of course), but they designed their own PCB for this one, and in this case using 3 PCI-e power connectors(8 + 8 + 6 pin setup), so that the cards have at least 450 watts provided to them....They knew they had a power hog on their hands and designed to power delivery accordingly...


That didn't happen with the GTX590 or the HD6990 cards though, and the PCI-e spec also allows for triple slot coolers to also lower temperatures and less noise since the fans don't need to turn as fast as they do(especially with the HD6990) given the heatsink's larger surface area...


In short, both these cards overstep the reasonable limits even for hardware enthusiasts in terms of power use, thermals and noise, and i wouldn't even think of buying either one without imediately going the water cooling route, since that at least solves 2 or the 3 problems, even though i have to spend a fair amount more money extra and more work setting that up as well.....

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by shadow001

In short, both these cards overstep the reasonable limits even for hardware enthusiasts in terms of power use, thermals and noise, and i wouldn't even think of buying either one without imediately going the water cooling route, since that at least solves 2 or the 3 problems, even though i have to spend a fair amount more money extra and more work setting that up as well.....

The GTX590 does not overstep any reasonable limits for noise, were I to guess it is likely the quietest dual GPU card ever produced. It's also quieter than several single gpu solutions.

The 6990 is either the loudest video card ever produced, or a close second behind the infamous FX5800 Ultra.

The power use and thermals of the GTX590 are acceptable to me, as are the power use and thermals on the 6990.

Water cooling is definitely not needed for a stock clocked 590.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Rollo

The GTX590 does not overstep any reasonable limits for noise, were I to guess it is likely the quietest dual GPU card ever produced. It's also quieter than several single gpu solutions.

The 6990 is either the loudest video card ever produced, or a close second behind the infamous FX5800 Ultra.

The power use and thermals of the GTX590 are acceptable to me, as are the power use and thermals on the 6990.

Water cooling is definitely not needed for a stock clocked 590.

Tell that to the PCI-e consortium that governs the PCI-e express specification, and clearly states a 300 watt power limit to be PCI-e certified, and both these cards exceed that quite easily...


As for thermals, it all depends on where you live too i suppose, and what the ambient temperature is like especially during the summer time, if you live in a soulthern state like florida or texas where it can hit beyond 100*F and the A/C in the house is already struggling to cool down the rooms in the house as it is, never mind the heat contribution that appliances or computers add to that to make matters even worse..


I'm all for performance, but not at the ever increasing cost of steadily increasing power consumption with every new generation, as i go far enough back to the time when even the highest end video cards ran on the 30~35 watts provided by the AGP slot and that was it( yes, i'm an old fart..), so if back then you told someone that video cards alone could eat up 400 watts, you'd have a revolution in your hands...


Remember all the gags that were used when 3Dfx anounced the voodoo 6000 series of cards, using up to 4 GPU's and an external power supply(called the voodoo volt), and the card was large and used an insane 70 watts of power to run?.....That's a joke by today's standards as it's the kind of power used to run a low end, budget video card these days, or how the NV30 was loud as hell and used a lot of power for it's day?....That's also a joke by today's standards for both thermals and power use.


What's next?....High end video cards using 450 watts, maybe even 500 watts and it'll be acceptable since they're so fast and fully featured anyhow, no one will care how noisy they are or how hot they run....Where does one draw the line on acceptable trade offs, because we are getting up there at a steady pace.


Both GPU makers should take the example of what Intel and AMD do in this matter and limit every new product release to a given TDP, and that i can remember, both companies have never released products that exceeded 135 watts TDP period, even for their high end products and it's been this way for the last 15+ years straight...

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by shadow001

Tell that to the PCI-e consortium that governs the PCI-e express specification, and clearly states a 300 watt power limit to be PCI-e certified, and both these cards exceed that quite easily...


As for thermals, it all depends on where you live too i suppose, and what the ambient temperature is like especially during the summer time, if you live in a soulthern state like florida or texas where it can hit beyond 100*F and the A/C in the house is already struggling to cool down the rooms in the house as it is, never mind the heat contribution that appliances or computers add to that to make matters even worse..


I'm all for performance, but not at the ever increasing cost of steadily increasing power consumption with every new generation, as i go far enough back to the time when even the highest end video cards ran on the 30~35 watts provided by the AGP slot and that was it( yes, i'm an old fart..), so if back then you told someone that video cards alone could eat up 400 watts, you'd have a revolution in your hands...


Remember all the gags that were used when 3Dfx anounced the voodoo 6000 series of cards, using up to 4 GPU's and an external power supply(called the voodoo volt), and the card was large and used an insane 70 watts of power to run?.....That's a joke by today's standards as it's the kind of power used to run a low end, budget video card these days, or how the NV30 was loud as hell and used a lot of power for it's day?....That's also a joke by today's standards for both thermals and power use.


What's next?....High end video cards using 450 watts, maybe even 500 watts and it'll be acceptable since they're so fast and fully featured anyhow, no one will care how noisy they are or how hot they run....Where does one draw the line on acceptable trade offs, because we are getting up there at a steady pace.


Both GPU makers should take the example of what Intel and AMD do in this matter and limit every new product release to a given TDP, and that i can remember, both companies have never released products that exceeded 135 watts TDP period, even for their high end products and it's been this way for the last 15+ years straight...

Perhaps, but my GTX590 performs very well at 57X10, and on some games at 57X10 in 3d. The AGP cards of yore were incredibly weak in comparison, I'd probably be looking at .003fps with two of those GPUs, so it's all relative.

If you want to run high end graphics, high end cases and PSUs are required.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Rollo

Perhaps, but my GTX590 performs very well at 57X10, and on some games at 57X10 in 3d. The AGP cards of yore were incredibly weak in comparison, I'd probably be looking at .003fps with two of those GPUs, so it's all relative.

If you want to run high end graphics, high end cases and PSUs are required.

Those AGP cards were high end graphics cards for their time, costing anywhere from 400 to 600$ at the time, and were cranking out some pretty good FPS numbers for pretty much any game available at the time, and used tiny coolers that only used a single slot on the motherboard without blocking the one next to it, since todays cards use such large coolers that they do block expansion slots on the motherboard, and they didn't need additional power connectors at all...


If all the user cares about is performance above anything else and the current trend continues, then get used to seeing video cards use above 500 watts probably within the next 2~3 years, fully deserving to be called serious power hogs and soon needing a nuclear reactor to power the friggin thing up, and that's just 1 card....


Now add those who use 2~3~4 card setups in SLI or crossfire and what should users do in those cases, perhaps redo the electrical wiring of the house using more powerfull breakers and install a water chiller on the outside of the house just for the PC cooling issue perhaps?....Remember, performance is all that matters right?....


It's getting rediculous, plain and simple.

[Ninja Prime]

Originally Posted by Rollo

The GTX590 does not overstep any reasonable limits for noise, were I to guess it is likely the quietest dual GPU card ever produced. It's also quieter than several single gpu solutions.

The 6990 is either the loudest video card ever produced, or a close second behind the infamous FX5800 Ultra.

The power use and thermals of the GTX590 are acceptable to me, as are the power use and thermals on the 6990.

Water cooling is definitely not needed for a stock clocked 590.

Its pretty cool to make stuff up, I guess. GTX 590 is the second loudest card ever, behind the 6990 by a few decibles, and even then, only in some situations. A lot of cards have since surpassed the infamous FX5800, it was just for the time, it was way louder than anything out there.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Ninja Prime

Its pretty cool to make stuff up, I guess. GTX 590 is the second loudest card ever, behind the 6990 by a few decibles, and even then, only in some situations. A lot of cards have since surpassed the infamous FX5800, it was just for the time, it was way louder than anything out there.

That's the main issue really, when the performance of the card is lower than expected(FX5800) that things such as power use, heat and noise isuses further make it look even worse still as an overall product...Offer kickass performance and those same power/heat and noise issues aren't even mentioned as a problem at all, at least for some people...Double standard much?


Anyhow, in my case with 3 GTX580's on board wich are rated at 240 watts TDP for each one, that's potentially 720 watts of heat to deal with and that's before i even think of overclocking the cards at all, and i have a feeling that the upcoming 28nm parts will probably double the performance overall, but might get TDP values that won't be far off 300 watts, so that's potentially 900 watts of heat to deal with here if i get 3 of those too...


I won't be able to deal with that much heat without the PC sounding like a vacuum cleaner each time i start it up with just straight air cooling, and even water cooling will be problematic while keeping all the cooling mounted internally due to lack of space and air flow issues, so i might have to start thinking about using an external enclosure to house the radiators/fans and reservoir and pump, using their own dedicated power supply...


It's getting crazy to have to resort to such extreme methods if i want a PC that's quiet with high performance, and not have the GPU's running at 90*C under hard loads, wich also heats up the rest of the interior of the PC case nicely....

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Ninja Prime

Its pretty cool to make stuff up, I guess. GTX 590 is the second loudest card ever, behind the 6990 by a few decibles, and even then, only in some situations. A lot of cards have since surpassed the infamous FX5800, it was just for the time, it was way louder than anything out there.

The baby Jesus cries when you tell a lie NP.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4239/n...e-card-king/16

The 6990 is 5db louder at HAWX, and a whopping 7db louder at Crysis. As 10db is considered "twice as loud" the 6990 is much louder.

[Ninja Prime]

Originally Posted by Rollo

The baby Jesus cries when you tell a lie NP.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4239/n...e-card-king/16

The 6990 is 5db louder at HAWX, and a whopping 7db louder at Crysis. As 10db is considered "twice as loud" the 6990 is much louder.

So uhh, where did I lie rollo? All your post did was confirm what I said? Lets high five anyway, brah!

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Ninja Prime

So uhh, where did I lie rollo? All your post did was confirm what I said? Lets high five anyway, brah!

You lied when you said the 590 was the second loudest card in history brah. Check out ATi's last dustbuster, the 5970 a whole 7db louder and the 6990 hitting the magical 10db louder for the dubious honor of "twice as loud":

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20629/11

Here we have the GTX590 as the fourth loudest card on the chart, and again hitting the magical 10db quieter than a 6990. 10db isn't a "few" brah, a card that is twice as loud isn't about the same as you said.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2898-17.html

What I like best about these reviews is they show the GTX590 and the GTX580 at the same noise level as the 6970, and both totally trump the the 6970 in performance and feature set.

The only way an ATi high end buyer can get better performance in some games is to subject himself to the loudest video card in the history of the world. If there was an ATi engineer in my living room now, I'd probably give him a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for this situation.

After all the ATi fans spent last year joking about how the GX480 was "unusable" due to how loud it was, it's pretty convenient for me they made the 6990 much louder than both the GTX480 and GTX590. Of course the reason they did this probably wasn't concern for how easy it would be for me to post about how the 6990 is a questionable buy. They had to clock the card high enough to compete with the GTX590, which required cyclonic fan speeds to keep the card operational.

[Rummy]

Originally Posted by Rollo

You lied when you said the 590 was the second loudest card in history brah. Check out ATi's last dustbuster, the 5970 a whole 7db louder and the 6990 hitting the magical 10db louder for the dubious honor of "twice as loud":

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20629/11

Here we have the GTX590 as the fourth loudest card on the chart, and again hitting the magical 10db quieter than a 6990. 10db isn't a "few" brah, a card that is twice as loud isn't about the same as you said.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2898-17.html

What I like best about these reviews is they show the GTX590 and the GTX580 at the same noise level as the 6970, and both totally trump the the 6970 in performance and feature set.

The only way an ATi high end buyer can get better performance in some games is to subject himself to the loudest video card in the history of the world. If there was an ATi engineer in my living room now, I'd probably give him a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for this situation.

After all the ATi fans spent last year joking about how the GX480 was "unusable" due to how loud it was, it's pretty convenient for me they made the 6990 much louder than both the GTX480 and GTX590. Of course the reason they did this probably wasn't concern for how easy it would be for me to post about how the 6990 is a questionable buy. They had to clock the card high enough to compete with the GTX590, which required cyclonic fan speeds to keep the card operational.

Why not the red?

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Rummy

Why not the red?

I want to reward them, not burn their tonsils!

Whiskey rule of thumb: You *usually* get what you pay for.