Zotac GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card Review

A Closer Look

As soon as we look at the card, we start to get the impression that there is a lot to be offered. The card is without a doubt the biggest we’ve seen and handled to date, and in one of our test cases only just fits in with a few mm to spare! Alongside the size, the card also weighs a little more due the huge heatsink required to keep the cards heat at bay.

The design is much that of a typical release from Zotac, matte black cover with hints of gloss black with the golden graphical man like we see on the box.

The back of the card shows us clearly where the GPU core of the card is and where all the mountings are for the heatsink. As with the rest of the card, all the circuits are mounted on a nice black PCB.

Towards the front of the card is the fan which draws air in and through the card to the rear where collected heat is dissipated.

From the base we get a good look at the profile of the card and it is pretty much the standard with a large majority of card that it will populate two expansion bays. There are also a couple of stickers on the base with reference and serial numbers on.

Here we can see the two SLI connections that allow the card to wok in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. 2 way SLI would use one of the connections whereas 3 & 4 way configurations will use both.

On the top of the card, we can see both of the power connections that are require to feed this power hungry card. With a minimum of a 600W power supply required its no wonder that there is a 6pin and 8 pin connection.

On the rear there are two DVI connections and the mini-HDMI port, I’m surprised there is no display port or mini DP, but this may be due the large grill to needed expel heat from the card. Whilst testing we did find that there was a lot of heat pushed out so this can be justified.