Official GTX 590 Review Thread (23 reviews at this time)

[bryanW1995]

Less performance, more power-hungry, but it's quieter. Hey, it's quieter! At around 60db (instead of 65db)... Ooook..

I think Ryan's review was fair, which refrains from injecting personal reviewer preference into the decision (unlike Tom's review).

it's closer to 6 db difference in noise level, so the hd 6990 is 6x as loud. that's a HUGE difference in similar-perfroming cards. slap a WC or custom cooler on there and it's a different story, but at stock 65 db is unbelievably loud.

I think Ryan Smith made an excellent point in the conclusion - the 6990 is ahead where it counts. I'd rather see a card that can pull the highest framerates in the most intensive gaming situations as opposed to one that can pull another 50 in a console port. I'm glad he shares my sentiments.

Where I'm surprised is how short NVIDIA came up in in the power usage department, and actually makes the 6990 look efficient. This is not a repeat of the 4870X2 vs. the GTX295. If I was going to have to use one of these cards, the 6990 on water would be the way to go.

Good point. I agree, forgot about the "6990 is better at lower fps games" portion of the conclusion. I'd still pick sli/cf over either card, but WC or at least custom cooling solution and 6990 looks to be a better solution for somebody who needs a sandwich high end card.

 

[MentalIlness]

Overvolting is one thing, overvolting 30% is entirely another thing.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of members here who overclock their GPU's do it on stock voltage. Of those who do overvolt, the majority probably nowhere near 30%

Can you show me at least one "sig" here on Anand, that has a 460 not overvolted ?

I'm not saying it is bad/good to overvolt, because myself, I do not do it. So I cannot really comment on it.

Yes, 30% is a helluva lot. Didn't say it wasn't. And for all we know, since most review sites are biased, maybe they aren't stating exactly what happened to the card ? Could be overvolted too far, could have been DOA, making up excuses. We dont know. But I still think it is too early to tell that if "overvolting" is the problem for the 3 failures.

 

[OCGuy]

Can you show me at least one "sig" here on Anand, that has a 460 not overvolted ?

I'm not saying it is bad/good to overvolt, because myself, I do not do it. So I cannot really comment on it.

Yes, 30% is a helluva lot. Didn't say it wasn't. And for all we know, since most review sites are biased, maybe they aren't stating exactly what happened to the card ? Could be overvolted too far, could have been DOA, making up excuses. We dont know. But I still think it is too early to tell that if "overvolting" is the problem for the 3 failures.

Oh geez.....

Im not sure what is worse: You suggesting that everyone over-volts, you suggesting there is a conspiracy, or you suggesting that the 1.2v wasnt what killed that card.

 

[n0x1ous]

Can you show me at least one "sig" here on Anand, that has a 460 not overvolted ?

I'm not saying it is bad/good to overvolt, because myself, I do not do it. So I cannot really comment on it.

Yes, 30% is a helluva lot. Didn't say it wasn't. And for all we know, since most review sites are biased, maybe they aren't stating exactly what happened to the card ? Could be overvolted too far, could have been DOA, making up excuses. We dont know. But I still think it is too early to tell that if "overvolting" is the problem for the 3 failures.

Im sure we could tally it up and see the numbers, but i still think the majority don't. One model doesnt make the majority.

Overvolting most certainly was the cause on TPU. It "seemed" to be related for the Sweedish review as well since they mention it went after more voltage, but they don't state how much extra they gave it. The Romanian one did not appear to be voltage related but not necessarily the same component gave out as the other two.

Certainly Nvidia should have made sure to have the OCP working properly in the driver, and i wonder if that had something to do with the extra 2 day delay on the NDA to fix that bug with the newest driver.

 

[bryanW1995]

Perhaps you should re-read the first page of this thread? Most of the posters say AMD is better this, 6990 is better that. Its quite comical really...

And tincart, you can't say the people buying these cards are only running 2560+ resolution, because you don't know that. Nobody does, and that is a piss poor reason to say the 6990 is better...

As loud/hot/expensive/etc these sandwich cards are, how many people are going to buy one from either camp for 1680x1050 usage? What do you think a reasonable estimate is of the screen resolution for people buying $700 video cards? I'd say something like the following:

1920x1080 or lower ~ 5%
1920x1200 ~ 40%
2560x1600 ~ 30%
2 or more monitors ~ 25%

Admittedly this is a complete WAG. I'll put up a poll, but I doubt that we'll get more than 10-15 replies from actual sandwich buyers or people who are at least strongly considering one.

 

[Jionix]

Its funny yesterday, anything o/c does not matter, only stock results blah blah blah, now we have to read in a review thread a link to the same part of one review, about 10 times now. During o/c , which yesterday didn't count ?

Uhhh.. What?

You're trying to say people shouldn't talk about this "blow up" thing because people yesterday were wanting to compare performance at stock?

Does not compute.

 

[n0x1ous]

Can you show me at least one "sig" here on Anand, that has a 460 not overvolted ?

I'm not saying it is bad/good to overvolt, because myself, I do not do it. So I cannot really comment on it.

Yes, 30% is a helluva lot. Didn't say it wasn't. And for all we know, since most review sites are biased, maybe they aren't stating exactly what happened to the card ? Could be overvolted too far, could have been DOA, making up excuses. We dont know. But I still think it is too early to tell that if "overvolting" is the problem for the 3 failures.

but since you asked take a look at Bryanw sig and I hit your quota of one not overvolted

 

[MentalIlness]

Oh geez.....

Im not sure what is worse: You suggesting that everyone over-volts, you suggesting there is a conspiracy, or you suggesting that the 1.2v wasnt what killed that card.

Id be willing to bet that more than 50% of gpu purchasers overvolt their cards somewhat. Point is, overvolting is almost common place now.

Conspiracy ? Don't think so. But do you "believe" everything you read on the net ?

I didn't say it "didn't" kill the card, the 1.2v. Chances are, it did cause it, but there is also a chance that it didn't. Probably a relatively small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

 

[SirPauly]

To EVGA's credit they already have water cooled editions and some OC editions and guaranteed for life.

 

[bryanW1995]

Yeah, this hasnt happened since the 7900 back in 2005

Well, I do think the 6990 is too loud, but I wouldnt buy reference designs of any of them, so thats kind of a moot point

What I am not liking this generation is that the performance is all over the place depending on games... Usually the 2 top cards are close in every game with an exception here and there, but here half of the games run better in 590, half run better on 6990... It sucks, youre screwed either way

Ryan Smith quite astutely noted that most of the games that favor 6990 are extremely intense, low fps games while most of the games that favor gtx 590 (other than civ 5) are in the 100's anyway. In a few years we might see more extreme tessellation games that favor the gtx 590 architecture, but I wouldn't hold my breath when even crysis 2 has been "consolized".

 

[OCGuy]

Id be willing to bet that more than 50% of gpu purchasers overvolt their cards somewhat.

Just....wow.

 

[bryanW1995]

I keep reading the comments about the 590 "blowing up" when overclocked and how its happening all over the place.

The only concrete piece of evidence on this is Techpowerup. However this only happens when the card is overvolted to the extreme of 1.2 volts. They had it clocked to 775 mhz without voltage. Then they had it running at 1.000 volt and it was fine.

They also go on to say that "other" reviewers have mentioned the same thing yet do not give names nor does anyone seem to be able to find other reviews of this happening.

As of right now, this appears to be an isolated incident and only at an extreme voltage OC. This "blowing" up is being "blown" way out of proportion at this time.

As far as the 590 performance. Nice to see the smaller size and quieter noise, but its held back by the clocks and the 1.5GB at the high resolution where this product would be primarily used. Its a shame because they have the higher performing chip, it just can't be unleashed in that type of thermal/power envelope.

Kind of ironic that AMD ususally hits the smaller nodes sooner since it would be more beneficial to Nvidia with their larger dies.

Are you saying that w1zzard just made that up? That's almost as bad as calling Anand a liar. Sorry, but w1zzard has a ton more credibility in this arena than you (or any of us) do. Also, a swedish site had was linked with the same issue a few posts after the tpu link.

 

[n0x1ous]

Are you saying that w1zzard just made that up? That's almost as bad as calling Anand a liar. Sorry, but w1zzard has a ton more credibility in this arena than you (or any of us) do. Also, a swedish site had was linked with the same issue a few posts after the tpu link.

Made what up? Im not calling anyone a liar (not wizzard nor Anand) The card blew up, and it blew up from overvolting it 30%.

He says nothing to the contrary of that, so I don't know where your getting that from.

And I already commented on the Swedish link which looks to be voltage related as well, although they don't list how much it was overvolted. When I first posted that I did not see the Swedish link....

If you are referring to TPU mentioning others have told him the same, no I'm not calling him a liar. But it would have made sense for him to explain who else and what they did to kill the card. The way its worded leaves it up to your imagination or makes it seems like its going to die out of the blue. He could have said "hey we stuffed a ton of voltage through this so its not something you really need to worry about under 99.9% of circumstances" or something like that....

Im not saying he intended it to be that way, but thats the way it comes across IMHO

 

[bryanW1995]

but since you asked take a look at Bryanw sig and I hit your quota of one not overvolted

sorry, mine is at 1.087v. however, I run DC 24/7 so I've dropped the core back to 880 on 1.0 v for 24/7 use. My sig just feels too cluttered as it is to start including gpu voltages on it as well...

And for the record, I don't know of any other gtx 460 oc'ers who didn't at least overvolt a little bit with afterburner. they're probably out there, but they also didn't OC as much and thus didn't brag about it as much.

Made what up? Im not calling anyone a liar (not wizzard nor Anand) The card blew up, and it blew up from overvolting it 30%.

He says nothing to the contrary of that, so I don't know where your getting that from.

And I already commented on the Swedish link which looks to be voltage related as well, although they don't list how much it was overvolted. When I first posted that I did not see the Swedish link....

If you are referring to TPU mentioning others have told him the same, no I'm not calling him a liar. But it would have made sense for him to explain who else and what they did to kill the card. The way its worded leaves it up to your imagination or makes it seems like its going to die out of the blue.

That may not have been his intent but thats the way it comes across

look at it this way: how many 6990's blew up during OC testing at the hardware reviewer sites? When was the last time that 3 (THREE!!) cards blew up in reviewer's hands? Maybe Apoppin, Ryan Smith, keys, etc can chime in here, but I'd suspect it was during 2007 or even further in the past because I don't remember reading about this in past reviews of new high end cards.

 

[TerabyteX]

I would say your doing a better job of derailing than me, so worry about mentalillness and stop pointing fingers.

Its funny yesterday, anything o/c does not matter, only stock results blah blah blah, now we have to read in a review thread a link to the same part of one review, about 10 times now. During o/c , which yesterday didn't count ?

Please stop, you are getting annoying and still derailing the thread. We know that you love nVidia hardware, but that doesn't mean that you have to shove down our throat your likes and dislikes, just respect other's opinion and post useful information without cherry picking, or don't post at all.


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[cusideabelincoln]

Due to scaling and per-game "bias", these card trade blows. This isn't really unexpected considering they are both working under thermal and power limitations. I thought whichever card ended up using more power would end up with a decisive performance advantage, but the 590 isn't able to decisively do that. Oh well, I suppose that isn't unexpected either considering AMD's "small" die strategy.

Also it really isn't a surprise to see some cards blowing up. Just like we had that purported 570 fiasco, I thought there was a very high chance that if the 590 were to undergo the same treatment (overvolting) as the 570 it too would have some blown up cards, since the 590 would be extremely power hungry (moreso than the 6990) when overclocked. A similar power delivery system + more strain = higher chance for failure.

 

[n0x1ous]

look at it this way: how many 6990's blew up during OC testing at the hardware reviewer sites? When was the last time that 3 (THREE!!) cards blew up in reviewer's hands? Maybe Apoppin, Ryan Smith, keys, etc can chime in here, but I'd suspect it was during 2007 or even further in the past because I don't remember reading about this in past reviews of new high end cards.

Right, but its simply down to OCP failing with the driver they had. I believe the Swedish site mentions this that when they used the very newest driver they overvolted high and the OCP kicked them down. So i dont think it points to a particular hardware problem if its dying from 1.2 volts.

If the 6990 had no Powertune and you stuffed 1.2v through it, theres a good chance it goes up in smoke as well.

 

[Jacky60]

<P>

I wonder which other reviewers have killed their cards<IMG class=inlineimg title=Shock border=0 alt="" src="images/smilies/familiar/shock.png" smilieid="38">

</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>&nbsp;<A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRo-1VFMcbc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRo-1VFMcbc</A></P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>You can watch a 590 burn our here-clearly a well designed product!</P>

 

[cusideabelincoln]

But with that said. I think they should have used two 560/570 cores instead of 580 cores. Maybe the would have overclocked further, beyond 580 levels and ran a little cooler and used a little less power. It don't matter to me though....I still think it is a damn sexy card.

570 cores are 580 cores. I think it was best of them to leave the entire core functional instead of crippling it for this dual GPU part. You would have to overclock a "570" core to match the performance of a lower clocked 580 core anyway, so power would probably be the same.

Now two 560s might be a different story. If they binned these 560 chips, had them run at higher memory and core speeds than the 560 Ti, slapped on 2GB of RAM per GPU, then I think that card would have gotten pretty close to the current 590 performance - if not match it. It would most likely use less power, too. The downside is that it wouldn't have the same overclocking potential on both the core speed and memory bandwidth.

 

[Grooveriding]

I wish someone with both a 590 and a reference 570 could take off the cooler and compare the VRMs on the two cards and see if they match.

Perhaps they are same VRMs that cause problems on some 570s with blowing up when overclocked and volted as well.

 

[Elganja]

To EVGA's credit they already have water cooled editions and some OC editions and guaranteed for life.

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified already sold out

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified Quad SLI (2 Pack) already sold out

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper Quad SLI (2 pack)

fyi... classified clocks are just a hair faster then reference... so the 30 dollar premium isn't THAT much

 

[MrK6]

it's closer to 6 db difference in noise level, so the hd 6990 is 6x as loud. that's a HUGE difference in similar-perfroming cards. slap a WC or custom cooler on there and it's a different story, but at stock 65 db is unbelievably loud.

Just as a side note, decibels are a measure of intensity, not loudness (volume). It takes ~10dB to double the perceived loudness.

As far as the GTX 590's blowing up, it's a problem if you're an enthusiast. I already mentioned I would be apprehensive pushing a 6990 due to its high power demand. The GTX 590' power consumption is even higher, AND it has slipshod OCP circuitry - a very bad combination. I'd like to see the sites that blew up the cards follow up on it if they can get another sample.

 

[Jacky60]

Id be willing to bet that more than 50&#37; of gpu purchasers overvolt their cards somewhat. Point is, overvolting is almost common place now.

Conspiracy ? Don't think so. But do you "believe" everything you read on the net ?

I didn't say it "didn't" kill the card, the 1.2v. Chances are, it did cause it, but there is also a chance that it didn't. Probably a relatively small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

I'd disagree -this is an enthusiast site-most people don't even try overclocking but many here do, overvolting is another step in the direction of risk and most people are risk averse. Mind you I reckon a lot of those buying mid to upper range cards DO overclock and overvolt

 

[OCGuy]

Just as a side note, decibels are a measure of intensity, not loudness (volume). It takes ~10dB to double the perceived loudness.

As far as the GTX 590's blowing up, it's a problem if you're an enthusiast. I already mentioned I would be apprehensive pushing a 6990 due to its high power demand. The GTX 590' power consumption is even higher, AND it has slipshod OCP circuitry - a very bad combination. I'd like to see the sites that blew up the cards follow up on it if they can get another sample.

Someone would have to have more money that brains to manually over-volt either $700+ dual-GPU card on market right now. Either that or they are using a free sample that has to be returned anyway, as we have seen.

 

[bryanW1995]

Just as a side note, decibels are a measure of intensity, not loudness (volume). It takes ~10dB to double the perceived loudness.

As far as the GTX 590's blowing up, it's a problem if you're an enthusiast. I already mentioned I would be apprehensive pushing a 6990 due to its high power demand. The GTX 590' power consumption is even higher, AND it has slipshod OCP circuitry - a very bad combination. I'd like to see the sites that blew up the cards follow up on it if they can get another sample.

oops, it appears that the richter scale and DB levels are not related at all!! :

here's a db chart link for those who are curious: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/TableOfSoundPressureLevels.htm