EVGA GTX-580 3GB Tri-SLI Benchmarks! -OC Goodness Inside!-

[Baasha]

Had a chance to run some benchmarks on my rig with 3 EVGA GTX-580 3GB in Tri-SLI running the latest 275.33 WHQL drivers from NVidia.

Was able to get a solidly stable OC @ 900MHz | 1.10V and here are the results:

3DMark 11 (Performance):

3DMark 11 (Xtreme - this was @ 850MHz | 1.050V):

3DMark Vantage (Performance):

Unigine Heaven 2.5 (1920x1080 | 16xAF | 8xAA | Extreme Tessellation):

Some basic info w/ OC stuff:

Really happy with the results.

The rig is simply superb and I'm loving BC2 and Crysis 2 on it!

The beast:

 

[tviceman]

Everything about your rig is insane!

 

[Annisman*]

I just came all over my puny GTX 580 SLI setup...

 

[dac7nco]

What is your exact street address, Baasha? Any dogs?

Daimon

 

[BFG10K]

What is your exact street address, Baasha? Any dogs?

Comedy gold! :thumbsup:

 

[AdamK47]

Seems a bit low compared to my system. I would have expect higher results.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2177408

What are the full specs of the system?

 

[Baasha]

Seems a bit low compared to my system. I would have expect higher results.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2177408

What are the full specs of the system?

Hmm.. that is very interesting indeed.

I'm running all SIX cores on my 990X as well so I'm not sure what's going on.

I'm also using the 275.33 drivers which I've heard are not that great for synthetic benchmarks but still, I find it strange that your benchmarks when running DUAL (two cores) are HIGHER than mine running SIX cores (Unigine) and same thing when running Quad for 3DMark 11. Something is definitely off.

We're running the same resolutions so I don't see that being the issue.

My 990X is running at 4.41GHz and the GTX-580s are at 900MHz. Also, are your 580s the 3GB versions?

Maybe I should try the BETA drivers but I'm waiting for the new WHQL version to be released.

Also, I'm running 3 30" monitors so under NVCP, I have Surround enabled. I'm sure if I ran just one monitor and used "Maximize 3D Performance", there would be a difference. Are you running Surround as well?

Here is my Crysis 2 run (2560x1600):

 

[AdamK47]

The 275.50 (or even the 275.65) drivers won't give a boost over 275.33 in most benchmarks.

My GTX 580s are 1.5GB clocked at 850/1100/1700.

Here's 2560x1440. Shouldn't be too far off from 2560x1600. I'm not using surround. Try turning that off and see if your scores improve.

Edit: You may want to make sure you're CPU is actually overclocked. The Crysis 2 benchmark tool shows 3.47GHz as well as the CPU flags in Unigine Heaven. These should show the overclocked setting like it does in my screenshots.

 

[2disbetter]

Baasha,

Very nice setup! What is your cooling like in that setup? Temps? Are you on air or is that liquid?

All the fans on your case and I want to say air, but with as big as your case is I'm not sure those aren't fans for radiators.

AdamK47,

What are your temps like on your setup? I run dual GTX 580s (one black ops version and the other a normal SC version (EVGA of course)) and have found the temps to be pretty high.

Also just as a general question for the masses, I noticed afterburner is being used here... is this preferred over evga's precision tool? If so why? I use precision and so far I haven't had any problems.

Although I wish the changes to fan settings could be made on the firmware level instead of at the software level on startup.

Thanks for any and all feedback!

2d

 

[AdamK47]

MSI Afterburner is made by the same person who originally made EVGA Precision. MSI Afterburner is far better than EVGA Precision now. It includes many more updates and features.

My primary/top most 580 tops out at 90 degrees C during extreme testing. It's generally in the 80s when gaming with vsync enabled. The fans on the cards are kept fairly quiet then.

 

[bryanW1995]

Seems a bit low compared to my system. I would have expect higher results.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2177408

What are the full specs of the system?

You really need to update your signature...

I didn't see any WC info in your thread, are you having any trouble air cooling those 3 x gtx 580's?

 

[AdamK47]

No trouble air cooling them. I have a 120mm fan cooling from the side of the cards and a 120mm fan directly in front of the cards (on the end of the drive bay and within a couple mm of the ends of the cards). I've torture tested them for hours and have been running at 850MHz core clock speeds since December. Each of the cards needs 1.1V at this speed to get 100% stability in everything. I've run hundreds of hours worth of games, benchmarks, and demos and have not encountered instability issues from the cards. In fact, this is probably the best gaming rig setup in terms of stability that I've had in the 15+ years I've been building and overclocking.

I cannot run at 900MHz no matter what. I get lockups in Unigine Heaven and Unigine Tropics (some of the most stressful tests) within an hour of looping them. Increasing the voltage beyond 1.1V causes runaway temps over 90 degrees C to the point where the fans cannot bring it down on the primary card.

 

[Baasha]

Baasha,

Very nice setup! What is your cooling like in that setup? Temps? Are you on air or is that liquid?

All the fans on your case and I want to say air, but with as big as your case is I'm not sure those aren't fans for radiators.

Thanks! Yea, my setup is entirely AIR-COOLED. I have 17 fans (9 intake and 8 exhaust).

The hottest any of my cards (first one) gets is 75C under load. This is at 900MHz.

 

[Baasha]

The 275.50 (or even the 275.65) drivers won't give a boost over 275.33 in most benchmarks.

My GTX 580s are 1.5GB clocked at 850/1100/1700.

Here's 2560x1440. Shouldn't be too far off from 2560x1600. I'm not using surround. Try turning that off and see if your scores improve.

Well, I tried switching to single display mode and using "Maximize 3D Performance" and 3DMark 11 just crashed. In fact, I got a BSOD (black screen) when playing BC2 as well! It also crashed during Unigine. The BSOD analyzer says it was the NVidia driver.

There have always been issues for people who switch between Surround and "regular" modes and I'm not sure why.

I switched back to Surround and everything runs fine now.

I really want to test it under the "Maximize 3D Performance" but it crashed every time (I even tried disconnecting two of the monitors and just leaving one plugged in but same thing happens).

Edit: You may want to make sure you're CPU is actually overclocked. The Crysis 2 benchmark tool shows 3.47GHz as well as the CPU flags in Unigine Heaven. These should show the overclocked setting like it does in my screenshots.

Hmm.. that's really weird. I think my CPU is overclocked. The reason it shows that is because I OC my CPU with the multiplier and not the BCLK. I believe those programs only read the Bus Speed (?) and report the CPU as being stock in my case. the CPU-Z screenshot shows my Core Speed at 4.41GHz.

Are you OC'ing your CPU using the multiplier or the BCLK frequency?

 

[AdamK47]

Thanks! Yea, my setup is entirely AIR-COOLED. I have 17 fans (9 intake and 8 exhaust).

The hottest any of my cards (first one) gets is 75C under load. This is at 900MHz.

That's pretty amazing if you've only reached 75C with triple SLI. I've not seen that happen in any other air cooled triple SLI system. The only way I can see that happening is with a user defined fan profile, or you are using aftermarket cooling. I'm using the default profile which makes 90C the fan ramp up temp. Under that and the fan RPMs remain low. If you are indeed only hitting 75C AND using the default fan profile, then your fans would be spinning low. I don't see how they would be able to disappeate the heat in this manner when 100% GPU load is on all three cards. Perhaps the 3GB cards run cooler, or perhaps the 3GB cards are using an nVidia BIOS with a different fan profile.

Are you OC'ing your CPU using the multiplier or the BCLK frequency?

Both. The multiplier is lowered to 21. The base clock is at 200. 200MHz base clock seems to be the best performance/stability-wise. I can run the QPI at 3600 and the memory at 2000. Since it's a Gulftown, I can run the uncore (L3 / memory controler) at 3400MHz to maintain 100% stability. The PCI-E is also running at 110MHz from the 100MHz default.

 

[AdamK47]

You aren't using the pre-defined nVidia control panel options, are you? Use advanced/expert mode if you are. I've never used the pre-defined options.

 

[bryanW1995]

No trouble air cooling them. I have a 120mm fan cooling from the side of the cards and a 120mm fan directly in front of the cards (on the end of the drive bay and within a couple mm of the ends of the cards). I've torture tested them for hours and have been running at 850MHz core clock speeds since December. Each of the cards needs 1.1V at this speed to get 100% stability in everything. I've run hundreds of hours worth of games, benchmarks, and demos and have not encountered instability issues from the cards. In fact, this is probably the best gaming rig setup in terms of stability that I've had in the 15+ years I've been building and overclocking.

I cannot run at 900MHz no matter what. I get lockups in Unigine Heaven and Unigine Tropics (some of the most stressful tests) within an hour of looping them. Increasing the voltage beyond 1.1V causes runaway temps over 90 degrees C to the point where the fans cannot bring it down on the primary card.

I have an antec 900, it sounds like the 1200 might be my next purchase. Even with only one card my cases tend to get a bit crowded.

From reading others posts, it sounds like the 580 is enormously better than 480 was in sli/tri configurations. Most people wouldn't even consider 480 in tri-sli without WC, and even in sli it was recommended by several posters (Grooveriding stands out most clearly in this regard). Hopefully one day someone will come out with a game I'm interested in that requires more than a gtx 460 to run smoothly...

 

[bryanW1995]

Well, I tried switching to single display mode and using "Maximize 3D Performance" and 3DMark 11 just crashed. In fact, I got a BSOD (black screen) when playing BC2 as well! It also crashed during Unigine. The BSOD analyzer says it was the NVidia driver.

There have always been issues for people who switch between Surround and "regular" modes and I'm not sure why.

I switched back to Surround and everything runs fine now.

I really want to test it under the "Maximize 3D Performance" but it crashed every time (I even tried disconnecting two of the monitors and just leaving one plugged in but same thing happens).

Hmm.. that's really weird. I think my CPU is overclocked. The reason it shows that is because I OC my CPU with the multiplier and not the BCLK. I believe those programs only read the Bus Speed (?) and report the CPU as being stock in my case. the CPU-Z screenshot shows my Core Speed at 4.41GHz.

Are you OC'ing your CPU using the multiplier or the BCLK frequency?

I've experienced similar weirdness with my i7 920, though it seems odd that they would have such an issue with a popular series like nehalem...ah, well.

 

[Baasha]

That's pretty amazing if you've only reached 75C with triple SLI. I've not seen that happen in any other air cooled triple SLI system. The only way I can see that happening is with a user defined fan profile, or you are using aftermarket cooling. I'm using the default profile which makes 90C the fan ramp up temp. Under that and the fan RPMs remain low. If you are indeed only hitting 75C AND using the default fan profile, then your fans would be spinning low. I don't see how they would be able to disappeate the heat in this manner when 100% GPU load is on all three cards. Perhaps the 3GB cards run cooler, or perhaps the 3GB cards are using an nVidia BIOS with a different fan profile.

Well, I do increase the fan speed to 95% when gaming. That is the only way to keep the temps down. Why on earth would you leave your fan profile to "auto" when it heats up so much? The fan is there. It is meant to be used. I just don't push it to 100% but 95% during load keeps it at a very comfortable 75C. The coolest card never goes above 60C.

Both. The multiplier is lowered to 21. The base clock is at 200. 200MHz base clock seems to be the best performance/stability-wise. I can run the QPI at 3600 and the memory at 2000. Since it's a Gulftown, I can run the uncore (L3 / memory controler) at 3400MHz to maintain 100% stability. The PCI-E is also running at 110MHz from the 100MHz default.

Well, that's the thing see. My BCLK frequency is at stock (133). I increased my multiplier to 33 and made sure my DRAM timings were set properly and also changed the v-core to 1.30V and the QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.275V. Everything else is on "Auto".

I was told by someone else that when running Tri-SLI, we should change the IOH voltage to 1.20 - 1.30V but I've left it at stock. I haven't run into any issues with that. Is your IOH voltage stock (1.10V)?

I haven't touched any of the other settings so perhaps I could tweak it to be even more robust but my system runs great as it is. Only when I switch the NVidia CP to "Maximize 3D Performance" and use only one monitor, it starts having issues.

My NVCP is mostly default except for "Multiple Display Performance" mode, Power Management Mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance", and Texture Filtering Quality to "High Quality".

Everything else is default (application controlled etc.).

What are your NVCP settings?

 

[AdamK47]

Well, I do increase the fan speed to 95% when gaming. That is the only way to keep the temps down. Why on earth would you leave your fan profile to "auto" when it heats up so much? The fan is there. It is meant to be used. I just don't push it to 100% but 95% during load keeps it at a very comfortable 75C. The coolest card never goes above 60C.

95% with three GTX 580s would be way too loud for me. Auto is just fine. 90C may seem high to some, but it's within nVidias thermal design. It's only at 90C when there is sustained 100% GPU load on all three cards for over several minutes. Otherwise the high mark is in the 80s for the primary 580. I've had my primary 580 at around 90C for several hours when folding before. GPU folding is also a good stability test.

Well, that's the thing see. My BCLK frequency is at stock (133). I increased my multiplier to 33 and made sure my DRAM timings were set properly and also changed the v-core to 1.30V and the QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.275V. Everything else is on "Auto".

I was told by someone else that when running Tri-SLI, we should change the IOH voltage to 1.20 - 1.30V but I've left it at stock. I haven't run into any issues with that. Is your IOH voltage stock (1.10V)?

I did increase my IOH. I can't remember to what though. It has been a long time since I was in the BIOS. It's either 1.2V or 1.3V. QPI/uncore voltage is very important. Mine is at 1.325V.

I haven't touched any of the other settings so perhaps I could tweak it to be even more robust but my system runs great as it is. Only when I switch the NVidia CP to "Maximize 3D Performance" and use only one monitor, it starts having issues.

My NVCP is mostly default except for "Multiple Display Performance" mode, Power Management Mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance", and Texture Filtering Quality to "High Quality".

Everything else is default (application controlled etc.).

What are your NVCP settings?

When benchmarking I restore the global profile to defaults and set vsync to "Force Off", Power Management Mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance", and Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration to "Single display performance mode".

 

[AdamK47]

I have an antec 900, it sounds like the 1200 might be my next purchase. Even with only one card my cases tend to get a bit crowded.

From reading others posts, it sounds like the 580 is enormously better than 480 was in sli/tri configurations. Most people wouldn't even consider 480 in tri-sli without WC, and even in sli it was recommended by several posters (Grooveriding stands out most clearly in this regard). Hopefully one day someone will come out with a game I'm interested in that requires more than a gtx 460 to run smoothly...

I had three GTX 480s in SLI before the three GTX 580s. I was using the stock air cooling on the cards. Still maxed out at around 90C on the temp of the primary card, but the fans got very loud when GPU folding. I had almost no room in overclocking. Three GTX 580s run much quieter and have better overclocking room.

 

[2disbetter]

Ahh ok so the 60C+ temps are normal with this card. I had a gtx 285 before the 580s, and it ran WAY cooler than this card.

In the Witcher 2 with all settings maxed, the card sits around 79C which is really hot. But I guess this is just normal.

2d

 

[AdamK47]

Got board. Ran this.

 

[Grooveriding]

Ahh ok so the 60C+ temps are normal with this card. I had a gtx 285 before the 580s, and it ran WAY cooler than this card.

In the Witcher 2 with all settings maxed, the card sits around 79C which is really hot. But I guess this is just normal.

2d

My cards sit at about 85-90 in Witcher 2

 

[ArchAngel777]

Yeah, I was going for the same setup. But it was either that or a 10 grand down payment on a house. ** I Kid ** If you have the money, great. Very nice setup.