Zotac GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card Review

Conclusion
From all of our benchmark testing, the GTX 580 is clearly the fastest single card setup that we’ve tested to date; it even outperformed a pair of 6850’s in CrossFire in our Dirt 2 tests. In essence, the GTX 580 is everything that the GTX 480 was and still is but tweaked, improved and all in all around 15% faster. It is everything that the rushed 480 should have been.

All of this does come at a price and seeing as a multi-GPU setup from both Nvidia and AMD can be had for less, some would be wondering why they should spend more on a single card. The price of the 580 can be justified though as the card runs cooler, faster and quieter than a GTX 480 and the full implementation of the Fermi core and the array of other features such as the support for GeForce 3D Vision further enforce this.

We can see for sure that all the tweaks and redesigns that we mentioned at the start have all made a significant difference and therefore, the GTX 580 is certainly a contender for the top mark on the podium against AMDs 6970 ‘Cayman’ GPU.

Once we’ve got the 6900 series cards tested and reviewed, we’ll soon see who out of the two contenders have made the top mark for the best single GPU card of 2010.

Unboxing Video:

Video Review:

Pros:

• Full DX11 support
• Well known manufacturer
• Good support base
• World’s fastest single GPU card

Cons:

• Large card can cause some issues with installation in mid-sized chassis’
• Bang for buck is not as good as a pair of CrossFired 6850’s

Ratings:

• Design – 8
• Features – 9
• Performance – 9
• Value – 8
• Overall – 8.5