ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Posted by: Sahil Mannick on: 13-06-2011 [ 19 comment(s) ]

Nvidia are back to claim the graphics card performance crown. Can the GTX590 live up to its hype?

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Tagged as: ZOTAC, GTX 590, NVIDIA

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

alexhull24 Posts: 1027 Joined: 2010-03-31

#16097 Posted on: 13.06.2011 13:08:37 I can see you've been working very hard on this one, I'm looking forward to seeing the conclusions. Fantastic technical overview to begin, incredibly informative. Great stuff.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Helios1234 Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#16098 Posted on: 13.06.2011 14:06:31 Cheers Alex. It was a tough one to conclude because there are so many ways you can analyse the performance, from its theoretical performance based on the specifications to how well it scales in real situations. And then there's the matter of costs which isn't easy when dealing with a dual GPU card. On the one hand, it's amazing to be able to engineer such a card to hold two power hungry GPUs on one PCB but on the other hand, two separate cards is more ideal. But I've tried my best to test what people will want to see. Unfortunately, I don't have a 30inch display to really push the card to its limit because I know it can deliver more.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

alexhull24 Posts: 1027 Joined: 2010-03-31

#16099 Posted on: 13.06.2011 14:25:07 I suppose you can dial up the SSAA to really push the card and sort of have the effect of running at a higher resolution. Is the AA you were using SSAA? I think the GTX590 is awesome as a concept, but it doesn't seem to quite find its place in reality.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Helios1234 Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#16100 Posted on: 13.06.2011 14:31:49 Quote: Originally Posted by alexhull24 I suppose you can dial up the SSAA to really push the card and sort of have the effect of running at a higher resolution. Is the AA you were using SSAA? I think the GTX590 is awesome as a concept, but it doesn't seem to quite find its place in reality. Just standard MSAA from in-game settings. Except for BC2 which uses CSAA. If I had more time, I'd have benched the other custom AA settings on the GTX590.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

w3bbo Posts: 606 Joined: 2011-04-21

#16105 Posted on: 13.06.2011 16:46:24 Great review m8 throughout. I appreciate the amount of work it takes to do a review of this calibre so a big thumbs up from me. I'm surprised the extra GB of the 6990 didn't yield greater benefits at higher resolutions but I guess that might show with even higher resolutions or indeed multi monitor setups. It wasn't so long ago that 1680x1050 was seen as a luxury - how times and needs change!

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Helios1234 Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#16107 Posted on: 13.06.2011 17:09:12 Quote: Originally Posted by w3bbo Great review m8 throughout. I appreciate the amount of work it takes to do a review of this calibre so a big thumbs up from me. I'm surprised the extra GB of the 6990 didn't yield greater benefits at higher resolutions but I guess that might show with even higher resolutions or indeed multi monitor setups. It wasn't so long ago that 1680x1050 was seen as a luxury - how times and needs change! Thanks mate. And yeah, I imagine the extra framebuffer it to drive Eyefinity. But really, people keep harping on about 2GB on the HD6970 making the card better than a GTX570 but in reality, noone will use settings that benefit from the extra VRAM and in those instances, they'll probably find that the card isn't powerful enough anyway. There are a few exceptions like Shogun I guess but higher framebuffer seems to be the latest craze at the moment. Saying that, I can see why AMD have gone that route given how much they are marketing Eyefinity.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

alexhull24 Posts: 1027 Joined: 2010-03-31

#16108 Posted on: 13.06.2011 17:10:59 Dude, I remember gaming on 640x480! I think you summed up the card well, I have to agree with the conclusions you've put forward really. Do you think it's going to be worth the manufacturers while even mass producing these sort of cards in the future? They seem like more of a e-peen item than a real practical bit of kit. SLI seems like a better idea with lesser cards, but if they go and make a 560 based dual GPU card, they'd just be competing against their own higher end offerings.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Helios1234 Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#16109 Posted on: 13.06.2011 17:18:16 Quote: Originally Posted by alexhull24 Dude, I remember gaming on 640x480! I think you summed up the card well, I have to agree with the conclusions you've put forward really. Do you think it's going to be worth the manufacturers while even mass producing these sort of cards in the future? They seem like more of a e-peen item than a real practical bit of kit. SLI seems like a better idea with lesser cards, but if they go and make a 560 based dual GPU card, they'd just be competing against their own higher end offerings. It's more of a demonstration of their engineering capabilities. For the most part, such cards are not practical. Take the old GX2, the GTX295 and AMD's variants, they are all loud and run hot. The GTX590 is surprisingly practical in those sense. It's not too big, temperatures are manageable and power consumption is less than a proper SLI setup. But then you get problems like the lack of tweaking through overclocking and overvolting making them less of an enthusiast's choice. The dual mid-range offerings are definitely more promising but the fact they are not mainstream drives up costs and they end up being more expensive that a dual card setup based on the same GPUs. And then, you get the same impracticalities as before. And add the fact that scaling will not always be great and a single more powerful GPU will provide more consistent performance. The concept is a good one but it has too many flaws to make it mainstream. They will always be a niche.

2 Gtx 570 in Sli @ 720p 120Hz 3D Vision

Badelhas Posts: 33 Joined: 2011-10-14

#19418 Posted on: 14.10.2011 11:57:09 Hello. Been reading your reviews, great work, very detailed. Do you ever do Sli reviews? I´ve been trying to set up a 3D Vision Home Cinema with a Projector at home, for movies and gaming, but I cant seen to find any benchmarks at 720p resolution for 3D Vision. What´s your opinion: are the 2 gtx570 in Sli a complete overkill, even if I game with maximum detail and AA? Cheers

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Mishima Administrator Posts: 4321 Joined: 2009-07-28

#19419 Posted on: 14.10.2011 12:28:13 Quote: Originally Posted by Badelhas Hello. Been reading your reviews, great work, very detailed. Do you ever do Sli reviews? We do indeed, in fact there is a GTX590 SLI review coming soon so keep an eye out for that one!

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

EzyRyder Administrator Posts: 137 Joined: 2011-05-15

#19424 Posted on: 14.10.2011 12:45:16 Quote: Originally Posted by Mishima We do indeed, in fact there is a GTX590 SLI review coming soon so keep an eye out for that one! Are you doing that on one monitor or multiple ones? No point in running Quad SLI over one single monitor IMO

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Mishima Administrator Posts: 4321 Joined: 2009-07-28

#19427 Posted on: 14.10.2011 12:52:44 Not sure what the plan is mate its one of Rich's!

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Milamber Administrator Posts: 502 Joined: 2009-08-04

#19428 Posted on: 14.10.2011 12:57:00 Quote: Originally Posted by Badelhas Hello. Been reading your reviews, great work, very detailed. Do you ever do Sli reviews? I´ve been trying to set up a 3D Vision Home Cinema with a Projector at home, for movies and gaming, but I cant seen to find any benchmarks at 720p resolution for 3D Vision. What´s your opinion: are the 2 gtx570 in Sli a complete overkill, even if I game with maximum detail and AA? Cheers Hi I have a 3dvision setup with 2xgtx580's heavily overclocked under water and games run fine except one... "Witcher 2", this is because the game is the most detailed I have ever seen with heavily rich environments. GTX570 is definitely not overkill, if your only gaming at 720p then its just right... 1080p then definitely something more powerful.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Helios1234 Administrator Posts: 2570 Joined: 2009-02-17

#19429 Posted on: 14.10.2011 13:31:57 Quote: Originally Posted by EzyRyder Are you doing that on one monitor or multiple ones? No point in running Quad SLI over one single monitor IMO One 30 inch monitor at 2560x1600.

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Badelhas Administrator Posts: 33 Joined: 2011-10-14

#19430 Posted on: 14.10.2011 13:35:17 Quote: Originally Posted by Milamber Hi I have a 3dvision setup with 2xgtx580's heavily overclocked under water and games run fine except one... "Witcher 2", this is because the game is the most detailed I have ever seen with heavily rich environments. GTX570 is definitely not overkill, if your only gaming at 720p then its just right... 1080p then definitely something more powerful. I was talking about two of them in SLI. Were you also? Or do you think one is enough?

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Milamber Administrator Posts: 502 Joined: 2009-08-04

#19432 Posted on: 14.10.2011 13:45:18 Quote: Originally Posted by Badelhas I was talking about two of them in SLI. Were you also? Or do you think one is enough? SLI refers to two graphic cards. 3Dvision requires a minimum of SLI to function, I was referring to two cards :-)

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

w3bbo Posts: 606 Joined: 2011-04-21

#19434 Posted on: 14.10.2011 13:52:46 We reviewed ZOTAC GTX580 3GB SLI setup and have the 590SLI review coming up hopefully after the London International Tech Show. 2560x1600 with all the trimmings can still bring even the most powerful quad SLI setups to its knees in certain games. We are however looking at getting a multi monitor setup but triple 30" screens don't come cheap! Keep checking back

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

EzyRyder Posts: 137 Joined: 2011-05-15

#19436 Posted on: 14.10.2011 14:10:35 Quote: Originally Posted by w3bbo We reviewed ZOTAC GTX580 3GB SLI setup and have the 590SLI review coming up hopefully after the London International Tech Show. 2560x1600 with all the trimmings can still bring even the most powerful quad SLI setups to its knees in certain games. We are however looking at getting a multi monitor setup but triple 30" screens don't come cheap! Keep checking back Triple 30" monitors! yummy! I do agree with you even my single 27" 2560x1440 screen can bring down my pair of 6950(70) in some circumstances!

ZOTAC GTX590 3GB Graphics Card Review

Badelhas Posts: 33 Joined: 2011-10-14

#19545 Posted on: 15.10.2011 17:16:59 Quote: Originally Posted by Milamber Hi I have a 3dvision setup with 2xgtx580's heavily overclocked under water and games run fine except one... "Witcher 2", this is because the game is the most detailed I have ever seen with heavily rich environments. GTX570 is definitely not overkill, if your only gaming at 720p then its just right... 1080p then definitely something more powerful. You game at what resolution? And about Witcher, do you recommend that game?

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