ASUS GeForce GTX 590 Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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ASUS GeForce GTX 590 Video Card Review - Today NVIDIA is launching the GeForce GTX 590 with dual-GPUs on a single video card. We are going to take this beast and compare it to not only Radeon HD 6990 but also GeForce GTX 580 SLI and GeForce GTX 570 SLI. This video card is pleasant to the ears, but does it have the muscle to make it a competitive buy?
 
Nice review, I saw this coming... keeping my video cards then...
 
Great review.
Looking forward to the overclocked results

Not that I have any money to afford any of those setup tested :(
 
Well the answer to this one is easy; NVIDIA cares about video card acoustics in a big way with this video card. In our recent briefing with NVIDIA the point was made clear that the goal with this video card was to engineer a quiet dual-GPU video card that offered a very user friendly gaming experience. That means, no wild amounts of noise and irritation while you are gaming. NVIDIA believes that a dual-GPU solution should have the same user experience as a single-GPU video card. The GeForce GTX 590 was designed as a friendly video card that won't scare children when you boot up your computer.


Anyone else smell bullshit?
 
I took one look at the price and had the same reaction as I did to the price of the 6990. I don't care if its basically the best card ever and triples performance over everything on the market combined. There is no way in hell I will spend nearly 3/4th of the money I spent on my entire system on a GPU. I really didn't expect this card to be some super amazing "2 GTX480s on a stick" card that will blow everything away. It'll be interesting to see how overclocking effects the performance though. Even if I'd never buy the card reviews for super expensive things are fun to read.
 
I think this about sums it up

"our evaluation has clearly revealed that the GTX 590 is very much equal to "GeForce GTX 570 SLI on a single card."
 
Interesting that they chose the 'slow but quiet' route. Still, given the normal mentality of geforce buyers, the card that's easier to live with but second best, is probably cause a fair bit of disappointment.
For the majority of people, both the HD6990 and GTX590 are a bit silly, but for those that do want the best they can get in one card with no compromise, surprisingly it's AMD at the forefront again.
 
Thanks for the review guys. Now Nvidia downclocking to keep acoustics within check? That's a load of FUD, sorry, and goes against the Nvidia mentality.
 
Anyone else smell bullshit?

Interesting that they chose the 'slow but quiet' route.

Thanks for the review guys. Now Nvidia downclocking to keep acoustics within check? That's a load of FUD, sorry, and goes against the Nvidia mentality.

I thought a few of you guys might think that. Cannot say it did not cross my mind either. But we will take the explanation at face value as it really does not impact the conclusion we come to one way or another.
 
In the future it would be nice if you would go into detail about how much more expensive the board is compaired to ... I don't know what.
 
Thanks for the review guys. Now Nvidia downclocking to keep acoustics within check? That's a load of FUD, sorry, and goes against the Nvidia mentality.

It doesn't surprise me. The 480's were notorious for being extremely loud, and I think NVidia wanted to avoid that problem again in the future. As for being 2 570's in SLI on a single board, that was pretty much what I was expecting.
 
So AMD retains the 'single fastest video card' title? So much for a 'halo' card from Nvidia. They'll have to settle for 'single fastest gpu' crown. I was expecting a $799 MSRP, but seeing the peformance numbers I can see why the price is 'only' $699. The fact of the matter is that the 590 is about 20% slower than GTX 580 SLI. That means it would offer about the same performance levels as my GTX 480 SLI. And the 590 still only has 1.5GB per pgu.

Unfortunately Nvidia hasn't given me a reason to upgrade with the 590. Except for the noise factor, only I've already upgraded to water blocks. If the 590 had come out say a month or two after the 480s I would have definitely considered it. But now? I guess the only reason to get one is for bragging rights. Although it isn't as fast as a 6990 or 580 SLI, it will be in limited supply. *sighs* Can we bring on Kepler already? :D
 
Bet if you put this thing on water you could get sli 580 performance for alot less money. Instead of 1k + 2 water blocks your only looking at 700 + 1 water block. If i didnt already have 1 6970 i would do it.
 
I was going to get one of these, but now I'm reconsidering. 6950 tri-fire is starting to look good.
 
I bet this would be sick with a custom water block and some aggressive overclocking - problem is the amount of RAM - why would you limit a flagship model.

Only thing I can think is they don't expect too many people to be doing more than Nvidia 3d instead of the surround (or they don't think people are smart either and associate the ram size with the resolution size required for 3 or 4 monitors)

In the end, this generation I would stick with two 6950's 2gb in crossfire and bios mod them.
 
Will be a beast for those that plan to water cool it, should be the best card hands down. It's Nvidia though so despite what [H] says, it'll sell anyways :p. Will pass myself however as well as the 6990.
 
If you guys want to laugh at Nvidia some more: Check out their 590 video on Youtube. They are showcasing their $700 "best DX11 card" with Crysis 2 and Homefront. So showing off a DX11 card with games that aren't DX11.
 
Good review.

It's inline with what I was expecting, it is generally being outclassed by the competition.

One thing to note is nvidia has managed to be dissipating 45 more watts generated by the card more quietly than AMD. Those must be the Very best binned chips available for low power use. Though you will apparently still want to be wearing a speedo if you are sitting besides it.

Overclocking it, I dunno, I'm starting to be apprehensive at the wattage going through those cards. AMD stated their card is rated for 450 watts, what is the 590 rated for? (not average watts, maybe I missed it)

Y.
 
If you guys want to laugh at Nvidia some more: Check out their 590 video on Youtube. They are showcasing their $700 "best DX11 card" with Crysis 2 and Homefront. So showing off a DX11 card with games that aren't DX11.

Catering to the console crowd :D
 
If you guys want to laugh at Nvidia some more: Check out their 590 video on Youtube. They are showcasing their $700 "best DX11 card" with Crysis 2 and Homefront. So showing off a DX11 card with games that aren't DX11.

Well the real irony is that AMD video cards traditionally trounce Nvidia in Crysis. I wonder if they managed to influence Crytek to make the game perform better for Nvidia. Because it would be embarrassing if the 6990 beat the 590 in Crysis 2 as well.
 
It's like they made a card for an very limited market....surround and noise in one package. Makes no sense.
 
Good review overall.

I have a couple of questions though...

Why did you choose 5040x1050 w/0xAA as highest playable setting in Civ5 for the 6990 when it bests the 590 in the apples to apples at the same res with 4xAA?

The red line is less spikey too, which should translate to a smoother gameplay experience. No?

And why use 5040x1050 w/4xAA for all the apples to apples tests? Including the games which all cards could play in native 5760x1200 res (which was all but one!).
 
It's like they made a card for an very limited market....surround and noise in one package. Makes no sense.

Its the iOS'ification of Nvidia - don't worry, the 590 is a magical and revolutionary device- it just works out of the box without having to get two 570's.
 
Yikes, slower by quite a bit and consumes more power. The saving grace for this gpu as presented would be overclocking. Perhaps that'll make it stand a chance at least. The 1.5GB of Vram also maes you lose hope for that possibility unless your willing to dial the quality settings down. For someone who is not tech savvy the out of box performance experience is poor compared to competition.

The best extreme performance bang/buck seems to be 3 6950 Crossfire X.

The Bad
Less Vram
Less Performance
More Power consumption

The Goiod

Nvidia Features Cuda/Stereo 3d
Low Noise
Can overclocking save it?
 
My opinion on Making a dual GPU solution to combat noise for Single GPU performance is highly critical. I can see nvidia Making that claim, and some of it may even be a legit concern, but as a business practice it seems ridiculous.

Thant being said, I think Nvidia at a certain level WANTS this card to be overclocked to its true potential giving the end user the ability to determine its own Noise/Performance ratio.

I can see the rational, I'm just not a target market. I think Nvidia is losing some of its video card finesse (not nessecarily in engineering, but in being out of touch with its core market) through its recent strategy changes. While I don't disagree with the business strategy, I don't like how they are in a way neglecting the very market that got them to where they are. They are just another stock market company now. (Pay attention, Newegg)
 
This is a very well done review, and unfortunately demonstrates a neutered product.

I just don't get it. Why spend two years of time to put out a gimped product?
This card could be killer with full out specs on the gpus and 4 to 6 GB of memory.

Noise......what did you say? I had 480 GTXs in SLi, while those were the loudest cards I've owned, they weren't that bad. I mean, itwould be like taking your street car to a NASCAR race....they don't give a shit about noise, they want raw performance......nvidia pussied out.

I'm surprised by this product.....maybe overclocked it will be the real deal?

I pass. I'll keep my 580 SLi.:D
 
Slap a HD6990 with the GTX590 heatsink/cooler and we'd have the ideal Frankenstein card. It seems like the bad reception of the GTX480 by the community left a big impression on Nvidia's collective mind and did all they could to prevent a repeat. Problem is, this time they overdid it.

P.S: Holy crap, some cards are literally blowing up. W1zzard's card blew up on him lol.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_590/27.html
Card blew up during testing, power limiting system does not work reliably
 
Last edited:
Bummrus[H]a;1037019924 said:
Why did you choose 5040x1050 w/0xAA as highest playable setting in Civ5 for the 6990 when it bests the 590 in the apples to apples at the same res with 4xAA?

The red line is less spikey too, which should translate to a smoother gameplay experience. No?

And why use 5040x1050 w/4xAA for all the apples to apples tests? Including the games which all cards could play in native 5760x1200 res (which was all but one!).

People gripe about having settings all over the board, so we pick one setting and AA for Apples to Apples testing and roll with it. Personally, I find little value in it. We only put it there for those that have a hard time understanding real world gaming results.
 
It performs better than I would have expected given its 512SP's and relatively low 607Mhz clock.

The GPU number crunching capability is similar to that of two GTX 560's, yet this performs much better than a GTX 560 SLI setup.

It suggests that two GPU's on one board are more efficient than SLI on two boards. Maybe this is because with two boards you wind up having a bottleneck in the SLI bridge or PCIe bus?
 
Great Review!

Unfortunately, this card feels like it should be cheaper than the 6990. However, with the card being sold by only EVGA and Asus it seems like we won't see this card at or below MSRP.

Another unfortunately situation is the 6990/590 are solutions for people like me who idiotically were impressed and bought the mATX motherboards. I say idiotically because I am running a P180 case (moving to a Raven or HAF922 soon depending on funds), a case (or future cases) that don't take advantage of the form factor. Meaning I would have to run two cards sandwiched together because of the PCIE placement.

Sad really, the prices on the 570s/6950s are awesome right now.
 
I noticed the wierd 5040x1050 resolution too, but figured you used it not to bottleneck the 590's memory too much to make it look even worst?

In any case, also wanted to add BIG Kudo's for using a Multi-Monitor setup for benchmarking these babies properly!


Y.

Yeah, "benchmarking"a $700 card at 1080P or even 2560x1600 is kinda stupid IMO.
 
Slap a HD6990 with the GTX590 heatsink/cooler and we'd have the ideal Frankenstein card. It seems like the bad reception of the GTX480 by the community left a big impression on Nvidia's collective mind and did all they could to prevent a repeat. Problem is, this time they overdid it.

P.S: Holy crap, some cards are literally blowing up. W1zzard's card blew up on him lol.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_590/27.html

He said also that he got two cards from Asus so at least he was able to continue with the review. But then again even if the first card didn't blew up he still can't test both as Quad-SLI isn't working.
 
So much for cherry-pikt 580s running @full speed for the590....and yes, I am another 'acoustics' sceptic...I agree, not Nv mentality...boo Nv...
 
Read the review. Stock its disappointing for sure. Lets hope this thing overclocks like a champ noise be damned! Otherwise, without a doubt, AMD has this segment locked up!
 
Given the power consumption of the system (700w !!) I wonder how long before folks realize they're setting up a space heater on their desks.
 
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