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

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Zanovar

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2011
3,446
232
106
<P></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>
ouch/the boom was dissapointing though,i want fire cracker explosions etc,jk just messing:p
 
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bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
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.

I disagree. most people buying cards like these will want that absolute last ounce of performance, with many of them likely to end up on a water loop. I would post a poll but my other one has ended up being completely wasted by people with zero reading comprehension.
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,002
126
I like how you throw OCing in with overvolting, as if they are the same thing. *eyeroll*

People overvolting CPUs/GPUs/RAM etc are gambling, plain and simple.


The first argument was the 580 couldnt happen. Then the 590 couldnt happen. Now it is "lolz if you overvolt it to 1.2v it explodes."


"Grasping for straws" comes to mind...


I like how you like it! What makes you think I'm grasping at straws? You don't find it at all troubling that so far three (and counting! - edit) reviewers have bricked their cards? Not just bricked them, but bricked them within probably a week of ownership, not years of abuse.

This is an enthusiast level card, the people who buy it are likely to be, well, enthusiasts. Hardware and PC gaming enthusiasts tend to tweak their hardware and push it. Or are you suggesting that people who bought GTX295's, Radeon 4870x2's, and Radeon 5970's would not be the type to overclock and even push voltage?

Has your CPU ever seen extra voltage? How about your 5850's? Have you ever added voltage or overclocked any card or CPU?
 

MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
4,458
4
81
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.
That's a great attempt to condone poor build quality. :thumbsup:
 

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
27,224
37
91
I disagree. most people buying cards like these will want that absolute last ounce of performance, with many of them likely to end up on a water loop. I would post a poll but my other one has ended up being completely wasted by people with zero reading comprehension.

I disagree. Most people spending that kind of money aren't going to go out of warranty by manually increasing voltage.

Clocks? Of course.
 

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
27,224
37
91
That's a great attempt to condone poor build quality. :thumbsup:

And the 101c on the 6990 was what?


AMD and nV don't need to account for 30&#37; over-volters when designing cooling solutions, in my opinion. All it does is add cost for the large majority of people who never touch the voltage on their GPUs.

These cards are already pushing the limits as it is....
 

Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,499
560
126
Anyone who thinks NV made it quiet because they had a choice, isn't all that bright. They did it because it won't clock that high, so they don't need higher rpm fans. You can guarantee if they could have cranked up the mhz, adding more noise they would have.

But hey, maybe NV can blow up more cards with poor drivers.
 

bryanW1995

Lifer
May 22, 2007
11,144
32
91
And the 101c on the 6990 was what?


AMD and nV don't need to account for 30% over-volters when designing cooling solutions, in my opinion. All it does is add cost for the large majority of people who never touch the voltage on their GPUs.

These cards are already pushing the limits as it is....

101c on a 6990 isn't the same thing as bricking 3 different cards. I don't get why you're defending that. lots of high end cards over the past 3-4 years have run in the high 80's, even low 90's, on a daily basis. certainly a spike to 101c during an extreme usage scenario is unlikely to brick any well-built card from either camp. also, how many of these halo cards are nvidia and amd making? 10k each? on a card of this level it's definitely worth a few extra bucks here and there to ensure that you don't get a bunch of reviewers bricking your $700 video card while testing it. Looks like nvidia spent too much on cooling and not enough on other areas, while amd didn't spend enough getting the cooling system right. both companies failed imho, though again if given a choice I'd rather have a loud card that works than a quiet card that blows up just as I'm about to finish my 30 minute marathon battle with the archdemon.
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,002
126
That's a great attempt to condone poor build quality. :thumbsup:


Despite some people trying to defend these things melting down, I think most of us would be a bit concerned about the quality of the components if we were buying a GTX590. I mean, isn't it pretty telling that not too many other cards failed in their launch review from overclocking and overvolting, yet this card has multiple instances of failure?

I think it just might be too much a stretch to put two Fermi GPU's on one PCB. According to one of those links one of the failed cards wasn't even overclock or overvolted, though it was an engineering sample from the sounds of it. I guess this card is just like the GTX570... proceed with caution when it comes to overclocking.
 

Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
3,681
2
0

^ 3 reivewers, then add in those Swe dudes with the youtube video, and TPU review and thats 5 reviewers.



http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4791289&postcount=37

It's not about the cooling SKYMTL, the PWM is too weak, just as it is on the GTX 570. Two GTX 590 died the same way here, one in our test lab and one in a demo system of a reseller, both not overclocked or overvolted; Nvidia says some faulty components not found on retail parts caused it, but both us and TPU had retail package GTX 590's.

http://tbreak.com/tech/2011/03/zotac-gtx-590-review/3/

Hoping to hit the 10k mark, I decided to bump the voltage to 125mV with Core speeds of 804Mhz. As 3DMark 11 was coming to a close, the whole system shutdown and I could see smoke coming out of the power cable connectors.
^ seems anything over 750mhz core is a pipedream, because you need more volt increase than the cards can handle. At which point they die.
 
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DarkKnightDude

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
981
44
91
My friend Jason, who has several setups told me his Asus GTX 590 blew up when he was overclocking it up a bit. It made sort of a "popping" sound, I'm waiting on him to send me a video of it.
 

Zanovar

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2011
3,446
232
106
I disagree. Most people spending that kind of money aren't going to go out of warranty by manually increasing voltage.

Clocks? Of course.
i disagree,most people spending this kind of money arent gonna be worrying about increasing voltage imo
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
So, faulty nVidia drivers. Who would have thunk it? Here's a hypothetical (and rhetorical) question for those who were so concerned about AMD warrantying the "AUSUM" switch. If you use the faulty drivers shipped with the card and you blow your card up over clocking it, is it covered under warranty? :eek:

There was another thread where someone was giving 'at-a-boys to nVidia for coming up with a shorter design than AMD and I said wait and see what's missing from the board before we say whether it's a good thing or not. I had a feeling we might see this.

Also, I'd like to harken back to our discussions of exceeding the pci-e power specs. The supposedly "arbitrary" limits imposed. Now we have cards, that while faster, are running on a knife's edge and are causing other components in our systems to run a lot hotter than they are supposed to. Not an acceptable trade off for the consumers who might buy these products, IMO. I think these cards should come with big warning labels stating that they exceed the industry standards. I also stick to my position that forcing manufacturers to improve performance while adhering to these standards will give us better products. They will actually have to improve the designs to make them perform better. Not just throw more watts at the problem.

For both of these cards (6990 and 590) I suggest waiting for custom designs. Designs like the MSI Hawk series, Sapphire Toxic, Asus Direct Cu, HIS iceq, etc... These designs will have more robust power stages with better and quieter coolers. It likely won't solve the problem of heating up other components in you case though. People will need to tackle that problem separately.
 

SolMiester

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2004
5,330
17
76
I can say it. In fact I just did. There may be someone out there looking at this card while running at 1680 x 1050. That person is a moron and I don't feel the need to consider them.

These cards are designed to run high resolution displays and when people judge whether or not to buy one, they will judge based on the performance at those high resolutions.

Id say if using such a card at lower res than 25x16, then 3D & PhysX would be quite useable!
 

TerabyteX

Banned
Mar 14, 2011
92
1
0
Despite some people trying to defend these things melting down, I think most of us would be a bit concerned about the quality of the components if we were buying a GTX590. I mean, isn't it pretty telling that not too many other cards failed in their launch review from overclocking and overvolting, yet this card has multiple instances of failure?

It isn't a bug, it is a feature!! :D
 

GaiaHunter

Diamond Member
Jul 13, 2008
3,732
432
126
I disagree. most people buying cards like these will want that absolute last ounce of performance, with many of them likely to end up on a water loop. I would post a poll but my other one has ended up being completely wasted by people with zero reading comprehension.

While I've not interest in buying cards like the GTX590 since I can't justify their cost for their purpose, I can tell you that if I was indeed on the game of having the best no matter the cost, water cooling and OC with has many big screens I could plug on them would be my option.
 

SHAQ

Senior member
Aug 5, 2002
738
0
76
Meh. I'll stick with my 470 SLI until the end of the year I guess. I usually like to upgrade in the spring but nothing looks worth the money. Fall upgrade season for me this year for either the 2011 platform or 28nm GPU's.
 

load81

Member
Jan 21, 2011
105
0
0
Now I agree with most of the stuff people are saying in this thread about 6990>590 and all that. I was going to step up with EVGA if I could and try a 590 but not after reading this. But people saying the 570 blows up from a little added voltage or overclocking like the 590 does is FUD. The 570 has been out for 4 months and almost all of the 10 or so that fried had OCP disabled and ran Furmark. Some 570's posted in that thread were proven false deaths also. Faulty cards happen only difference is the 570 has a special FUD thread where it gets announced and blown out of proportion when someone gets a faulty card, abuses their card to death, posts a false death, or disables safety features. There is a 50+ page post on OCN with heavily overclocked and overvolted 570's doing just fine.
 

Zanovar

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2011
3,446
232
106
Now I agree with most of the stuff people are saying in this thread about 6990>590 and all that. I was going to step up with EVGA if I could and try a 590 but not after reading this. But people saying the 570 blows up from a little added voltage or overclocking like the 590 does is FUD. The 570 has been out for 4 months and almost all of the 10 or so that fried had OCP disabled and ran Furmark. Some 570's posted in that thread were proven false deaths also. Faulty cards happen only difference is the 570 has a special FUD thread where it gets announced and blown out of proportion when someone gets a faulty card, abuses their card to death, posts a false death, or disables safety features. There is a 50+ page post on OCN with heavily overclocked and overvolted 570's doing just fine.
Just let it go,jeebus(tries to console a crazy load81)
 
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PingviN

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2009
1,848
13
81
Sweclockers fries 2 GTX590
This banner is found at Swedish e-taillers:

banner_244.jpg


Coincidence? I think not!
 

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,219
56
91
Official statement for those who missed it and always will miss it.

&#8220;The few press reports on GTX 590 boards dying were caused by overvoltaging to unsafe levels (as high as 1.2V vs. default voltage of 0.91 to 0.96V), and using older drivers that have lower levels of overcurrent protection. Rest assured that GTX 590 operates reliably at default voltages, and our 267.84 launch drivers provide even more additional levels of protection for overclockers. For more information on overclocking and overcurrent protection on GTX 590 please see our knowledge base article here: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2947.&#8221;

Also it turns out that these reviewers who killed their cards were WARNED not to use the old AIC drivers that did not have protection in them. They did anyway, and videotaped the second one just for the hell of it. Nice.
 

DarkKnightDude

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
981
44
91
Well, several reviews reported they didn't overclock or overvolt it, and they blew up anyway.

Lesson learned, never use drivers on disk.
 

PingviN

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2009
1,848
13
81
Also it turns out that these reviewers who killed their cards were WARNED not to use the old AIC drivers that did not have protection in them. They did anyway, and videotaped the second one just for the hell of it. Nice.

I guess maybe Nvidia should spend a bit less on marketing and a bit more on QA then? For some reason, $700-busting-drivers were put on the CD, placed in the box, sealed and shipped to reviewers, no?