[Question] GTX580.... so many options?

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Shegokigo

Shegokigo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tion=gtx580&bop=And&Order=PRICED&PageSize=100

Why are there so many options under the same model and brand? I'm not going to spend more than $500 for the card but for some reason there's a ton of models/brands under the same price. I know EVGA has been good to me in the past and ASUS puts out some quality cards too.

I realize some are "Superclocked" and after how great my OC 5870 runs, I'm leaning more toward those (Price difference being like $20).

My only real concern left is that I'm making the right decision to go with a 580 now, and a second SLI 580 in March vs taking the 590 now. Mostly worried about PSU being strong enough (750w) and my cooling being enough (it's a HUGE case with alot of fans and a solid air cooling system but worried two OCed 580s might be too much.)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

If you are going to try SLI with two of them later, try to get something close to the reference design (i.e., avoid the OC versions). The OC versions look only about 25MHz faster, that doesn't really sound like a huge difference in speed. Running 2xOC might be more than your PSU and fans can handle (heat and power draw rise faster the more you push a chip). The 590 might be 2x580 chips on one board, but both of them will be down clocked to reduce the heat/power draw (so 2x580 in SLI will still be measurably faster).

Also, WTF with this $1500 MARS II card? It's two full-on 580's ganged together on a single card that pulls 550W all by itself? Sheesh.

--Patrick
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I always go evga. They've always been good to me, and have been great when it comes to warranty and replacements. I just bought a 570 myself, the 580 was just too rich for me.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

So I should go with one of the EVGA stock setting cards so that I have less conflict/heat/power issues come March? Makes sence.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Or just name recognition. Any reference card should be just as good as any other reference card, especially if you use the reference drivers.

I'm tempted by the ones which have 3GB RAM on-board, but they're almost $100 more expensive than the 1.5GB ones. Extra memory just means better future-proofing and higher resolutions (we're talking 2560 and up).

--Patrick
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Well I play everything at 1980 anyway due to my monitor size and I'm happy with that. So going with two of the Galaxy GTX 580s would be just as good as the two EVGA's at nearly a $100 difference?
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

A reference card is a reference card is a reference card. Usually the only differences between brands are the bundle, the cooler, or the guarantee/build quality.

--Patrick
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I'd personally spend the $60 just to know that it's got EVGA's guarantee and quality behind it. But then I haven't heard of Galaxy. Check to see what their warranty and review ratings are.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Galaxy has a 3yr review, long enough for any card I'd use.

Surprisingly, the reviews around the net seem to be pretty positive about the cards and that the company isn't a "big name".
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

That's...curious. The shader clock should be 2x the core clock (just like all the other cards). I wonder if they just pasted one or the other value wrong into the specs webpage. Hmm...looks like they might have. The manufacturer page shows the expected 1544 shader clock.

If it matters, the Galaxy card is three slots wide. The EVGA takes up only two. Depending on how your MLB is laid out, that might matter if you want to try to cram another one in there later.

I have no personal experience with the Galaxy brand, looks like EVGA's website launched in March of 2000 while Galaxy's website first launched in March of 2009*. Galaxy (the company) has been around since 1985, though...looks like they are an OEM manufacturer of electronic equipment, probably just decided to make a consumer line of GPUs because video gaming is one of the 'in' things making money right now. The discount might just be their attempt to get their name out there in the consumer space.**

--Patrick
*Courtesy of The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
**All speculation on my part.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Dunno if you have already bought the card but you really don't need a 580, that's super overkill. The way game design is these days there is almost no reason to buy top of the line unless you're doing it just to buy top of the line, and you are Gossip Girl wealthy, particularly for graphics cards. Performance wise you will get quite a lot out of the older/lower end cards.

When my 4870X2 died recently (top of the line in its time) I replaced it with an EVGA GTX 550 TI, cost me like 150$. Runs Skyrim beautifully.

If you have ANY other parts on your computer that could use an upgrade, like say any of your monitors are less than 28" or you lack an SSD I would suggest you go for the cheaper card and upgrade one of the other compenents instead.

The days of top of the line video cards are kind of gone for the time being since everyone is slowing graphics development for console games.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Appreciate the advice Necronic, but if you've heard me rant and rave on the boards before even a difference of 5-10 fps make a huge difference to me. I also don't always buy new cards. The last time I bought a card WAS my 5870OC and it was just released within a month or two. Then I go a good 2yrs before buying another card.

Since I guess you missed it:
https://www.halforums.com/threads/the-epic-win-thread-3-son-of-epic.22168/page-48#post-884901

There's also a difference between running a game "beautifully" on certain settings and running it smoothly 100% of the time on the highest settings. It really does bother me that much when I get mini-stuttering for anything. It's also why my processor is OCed.

However I'm thinking that instead of the second GTX580 in March, I'm going to be probably upgrading my i7 940 and motherboard to whatever's blowing most everything out of the water at that time.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Do you have an SSD?

Edit: The reason I ask is that an SSD can give significant advantages to FPSs. I emphasize "can" because it's more important than some games than in others, a lot of it seems to have to do with textures. There's an old, but still good, reference to this here:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ds/SSD_vs_HDD_is_there_a_difference_Rev_3.pdf

The results of this are probably more significant now with the vastly improved read speeds of SSDs.

I do appreciate your point about the need of the twitch, it's been a long time since I was a heavy FPS gamer but back in my day (Quake 3) the standard procedure was to lower all of the graphics to the bare minimum, I don't know if you do this already (or if it's really viable with todays games) but it may mean that the performance gains from the SSD or the graphics card are not as significant.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

You know, for some reason I keep forgetting about SSDs. Everytime I'm buying up new parts for the beast I completely forget about getting one. Currently have a Raptor 10k drive for most of my programs and a second "fat" 7200 drive for my storage.

SSD wouldn't be a bad idea actually.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
SSDs can provide a pretty significant advantage in games in two places.

Read speed - It will undoubtedly reduce your level loads, which probably isn't that significant for an FPS (although probably is big for WoW).

Write speed - Write speeds can be a significant part of the equation for speeds in FPSs, depending on the game you can get stuttering from slow writes even with a massively powerful GPU. This is the real performance gain from an SSD. In most cases you are looking at nearly double the write speeds, even over the Raptor (which really is a dead end/pointless drive these days for gamers, kind of like SCZI, since the price is so prohibitively high for performance that SSDs can beat)

And, just to continue the conversation, what's your situation on peripherals? Right now there are some downright amazing peripherals that I would have killed for back in the day. Probably the two best that come to mind is the Logitech G13 gameboard and the Logitech G9 series mouse.

I won't argue that those are the best possible options for a gameboard and a mouse, but I would argue that if you aren't playing with a high end gameboard/mouse you are seriously crimping your gaming.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Yeah I'm already shopping for a SSD after that interesting read. Thanks for the link.

My keyboard has been the same for the past 3-4yrs. Had to replace it once and I got the exact same one (though it took some searching as they don't sell them anymore).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_G15

I've tried using other keyboards but I'm completely mind glued to the the hotkeys on the left side of the keyboard and nothing has come close to recreating that. I can hit any of the 16 command keys on muscle memory alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_G5

Insane presicion, great customizable options for the 3 speeds and weighted to my perfect balance.

http://steelseries.com/products/surfaces/steelseries-9hd

Cause my mouse deserves the best ;)
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
(thread is about to be completely derailed btw)

See I never really liked the G15 compared to the G13. The joystick is insanely useful for FPS's, switching the wasd or tfgh configuration where you have three fingers dedicated to movement you now only have your thumb. I can't remember if you can do diagonal strafing with it but its still pretty handy.

My problem with keyboards is that even with all the bells and whistles added to the gaming keyboards the fundamental design still revolves around typing, not gaming, so you can only go so far. Like with that G15, the Macro keys are undoubtedly useful, but they are all the way over on the other side of the board instead of being in a nice central position laid out specifically for providing the most access to the most keys with one hand.
 
Frank

Frank

It's such a dorky looking pos but I really loved my old Merc keyboard.



It really tried to be more than just a keyboard with extra keys.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Necronic said:
(thread is about to be completely derailed btw)

See I never really liked the G15 compared to the G13. The joystick is insanely useful for FPS's, switching the wasd or tfgh configuration where you have three fingers dedicated to movement you now only have your thumb. I can't remember if you can do diagonal strafing with it but its still pretty handy.

My problem with keyboards is that even with all the bells and whistles added to the gaming keyboards the fundamental design still revolves around typing, not gaming, so you can only go so far. Like with that G15, the Macro keys are undoubtedly useful, but they are all the way over on the other side of the board instead of being in a nice central position laid out specifically for providing the most access to the most keys with one hand.
Click to expand...
Works out great because the only time I use the macro keys is for MMOs. Otherwise I go with regular configs and it plays fantastic both ways. Having 16 keys at instant muscle memory access in an MMO though? Just can't beat it.

@Frankie - When my first G15 died and I couldn't find a full fledged replacement (The "newer" G15 has half the keys" I actually bought a MERC.... for a week. I could NOT adjust to it at all. The macro keys were set up in a long line with no "breaks" between them so I couldn't just hunt down the buttons I needed without looking at the keyboard.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Noise level is the exact same as the previous 5870OC card so pretty much negligible. FPS is clearly a leg up over its replacement. Where I was having small stutter lag on Skyrim with water and having such a far clipping plane is giving me solid 50-60s on highest settings. Wow's jumped at least 10-30fps in the heaviest areas. Haven't had any stability issues at all.
 
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