Is the gtx580 worth the price premium?

sparky1_2007

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Im just curious of what everyone thinks, because im going to be upgrading my system soon and im probably going to be buying my video card.

i've been primarlly a ati guy mostly because of the price/performance ratio, i started out with an x800xl back in the day, then moved up to a 4870, and when that died i went to a 5770.

anyways, im planning on upgrading my system around this summer to something nice, i was thinking 2600k with 8/16gb of ram, and a killer video card that i wont have to upgrade anytime soon.

so i was origonally thinking hmm, well it'd probably be a good idea to get a 6970 because it's only $300 or so and it's going to offer me quite a bit of performance for my money, but then i got to looking at the 570's and the 580's and i was just wondering what their $100 and $200 price premium gets me aside from being the fastest single core graphics card out there.

from my understanding the whole graphics card breakdown goes like this.

580 > 6970 >= 570 > 6950 > 560=6870 and so on and so forth, is that a fiarly good estimate?

but my question is that if i got a 580, what does that extra $200 price premium get me over a 570/6970??
 
It gets you ~10-15% more FPS than a 570 or 6970, 10% at high resolution and 15% at low resolution. If you're at 1680 x 1050, a 6870 should be fine for you, maybe a 560 if you really want to destroy that resolution. Anything above that will be underutilized and will make your money depreciate with diminishing returns.
 
im running at 1920x1200 right now, just so you know, im just trying to look ahead for BF3, that's the whole point of upgrading and i want to be able to run it flawlessly at max settings day of release, haha
 
Certainly here in the UK, the GTX580 is not worth the price premium. They go for about £400 when £200 gets you a GTX480 which is only around 20% slower! I went for the 480.
 
I have the Asus 6970 with DirectCUII cooler, and it's one badass card. And overclocks well. Gaming at 1920x1200
 
If you want it to just work, I would say 6970 or even a 480/570. Similar performance for all of them, which is basically all you need for 1920.
 
I'd get the GTX 580 even for 1920x1200 personally. I always like getting the best single gpu solution I can even if it is a tad overkill.
 
Depends on what you mean. In terms of $$$ for performance? No, the top of the line stuff never is, particularly the top of the line nVidia stuff since it tends to be the very top of the top. Also it isn't as though it'll take any games from unplayable to playable or any significant quality increase. A 570 will go "nom nom" on any games out there, and any likely to come out soon.

However it will increase performance. It'll mean a bit faster FPS, or more FSAA or whatever. Not a lot please understand, but there will be an increase.

My personal rule is that graphics cards get outdated fast. New graphics standards come out all the time so even if your card is really fast, it doesn't matter because it cannot handle the new technology. As such upgrading often is the name of the game. Figure out what you can spend every 12-18 months or so, and get a card at that level. Then, when there is something worth upgrading to, upgrade.

So you have to work out what that level is for you. If it is a 580, then go for it. If it isn't then don't. You'll be much better off refreshing your card periodically than trying to get something uber high end and having to hand on to it for years and year, watching it get outdated.
 
im running at 1920x1200 right now, just so you know, im just trying to look ahead for BF3, that's the whole point of upgrading and i want to be able to run it flawlessly at max settings day of release, haha

same here, just the cpu though.
 
Depends on what you mean. In terms of $$$ for performance? No, the top of the line stuff never is, particularly the top of the line nVidia stuff since it tends to be the very top of the top. Also it isn't as though it'll take any games from unplayable to playable or any significant quality increase. A 570 will go "nom nom" on any games out there, and any likely to come out soon.

However it will increase performance. It'll mean a bit faster FPS, or more FSAA or whatever. Not a lot please understand, but there will be an increase.

My personal rule is that graphics cards get outdated fast. New graphics standards come out all the time so even if your card is really fast, it doesn't matter because it cannot handle the new technology. As such upgrading often is the name of the game. Figure out what you can spend every 12-18 months or so, and get a card at that level. Then, when there is something worth upgrading to, upgrade.

So you have to work out what that level is for you. If it is a 580, then go for it. If it isn't then don't. You'll be much better off refreshing your card periodically than trying to get something uber high end and having to hand on to it for years and year, watching it get outdated.

This man knows where it's at in terms of upgrading graphics, bravo! :cool: If you do it the "spend a big chunk every few years" way, you end up spending more, and your card is overkill at first, then underpowered and inefficient as time goes on.
 
Get a 6950 and unlock/OC it. Plenty for that resolution.

I agree Nvidia doesn't have anything that can touch 6950 in price/performance. You could almost do 6950 crossfire for the price of gtx580. Other thank gtx460 I can't think of any card that competes with AMD as far as price vs performance.
 
Im just curious of what everyone thinks, because im going to be upgrading my system soon and im probably going to be buying my video card.

i've been primarlly a ati guy mostly because of the price/performance ratio, i started out with an x800xl back in the day, then moved up to a 4870, and when that died i went to a 5770.

anyways, im planning on upgrading my system around this summer to something nice, i was thinking 2600k with 8/16gb of ram, and a killer video card that i wont have to upgrade anytime soon.

so i was origonally thinking hmm, well it'd probably be a good idea to get a 6970 because it's only $300 or so and it's going to offer me quite a bit of performance for my money, but then i got to looking at the 570's and the 580's and i was just wondering what their $100 and $200 price premium gets me aside from being the fastest single core graphics card out there.

from my understanding the whole graphics card breakdown goes like this.

580 > 6970 >= 570 > 6950 > 560=6870 and so on and so forth, is that a fiarly good estimate?

but my question is that if i got a 580, what does that extra $200 price premium get me over a 570/6970??

if your playing on 1080p you will be wasting your money. Two monitors or one above 1080p
 
I agree Nvidia doesn't have anything that can touch 6950 in price/performance. You could almost do 6950 crossfire for the price of gtx580. Other thank gtx460 I can't think of any card that competes with AMD as far as price vs performance.

hi how's Crossfire in Crysis?
Crossfire is a gamble. It doesn't always work like its intended to work. With a single gpu crunching every game you have headroom for another down the line when its running low on steam.
Now getting a cf setup you'll have more issues and try adding a third card to the pot. Any running 3 x 6950/6970s? Anyone?
 
hi how's Crossfire in Crysis?
Crossfire is a gamble. It doesn't always work like its intended to work. With a single gpu crunching every game you have headroom for another down the line when its running low on steam.
Now getting a cf setup you'll have more issues and try adding a third card to the pot. Any running 3 x 6950/6970s? Anyone?

i had a 5770 crossfire setup, i was kind of frustrated that it only worked when a game was in full screen.

but other than that it worked nicely.

but my current setup is in my sig, running 2x monitors, 1 at 1920x1200 and a secondary screen @ 1680x1050.

i want to eventually get a 3 monitor setup all @ 1920x1200/1080 and i want to be able to run a full screen across them, like eyefinity or w/e nvidia's equivilant is.

does nvidia even offer an equivalent of eyefinity?
 
I do think the GTX 580 is worth the price premium for single screen. It's the single best card and it's at the standard $499.99 that most are used to paying. Hopefully with the 6990 out and the GTX 590 coming out that price will lower a good $30. For single screen gaming I might have chosen a GTX 580. I believe the difference in performance between GTX 580 and 6970 is even greater than 10-15% at 1920x1200 or below, It's probably anywhere between 15-25% depending on the app. It's only the higher up in the resolution you go and with the higher IQ settings that you begin to slow down toward 6970 levels. For multi screen gaming, it's a totally different story, in which case my sig speaks for itself.
 
Thats weird to me that you guys say a 6970 runs 1900x1200 great...

1900x1200 here on a 24' screen and i needed to add a 5870 to my 5970 (trifire) to get decent frames in homefront, the 5970 alone wasnt enough.. 30-50 frames and sometimes 20's..now 60-80..thats with everything on to the max ingame... is a 6970 really that much faster>?
 
Thats weird to me that you guys say a 6970 runs 1900x1200 great...

1900x1200 here on a 24' screen and i needed to add a 5870 to my 5970 (trifire) to get decent frames in homefront, the 5970 alone wasnt enough.. 30-50 frames and sometimes 20's..now 60-80..thats with everything on to the max ingame... is a 6970 really that much faster>?

Sounds like a driver issue. Homefront is a UE3 game that from what I hear doesn't even look particularly good.
 
Thats weird to me that you guys say a 6970 runs 1900x1200 great...

1900x1200 here on a 24' screen and i needed to add a 5870 to my 5970 (trifire) to get decent frames in homefront, the 5970 alone wasnt enough.. 30-50 frames and sometimes 20's..now 60-80..thats with everything on to the max ingame... is a 6970 really that much faster>?

because vsync is cutting your frame rates half to your refresh rate. Enable tripple buffering to get it up just under your refresh rate. Are you using a 120mhz LCD?
 
Love my 580s, if you're not too concerned about the price I think you really will like the card. If you're about trying to find the best bang of the buck then you probably won't be happy.
 
i had a 5770 crossfire setup, i was kind of frustrated that it only worked when a game was in full screen.

but other than that it worked nicely.

but my current setup is in my sig, running 2x monitors, 1 at 1920x1200 and a secondary screen @ 1680x1050.

i want to eventually get a 3 monitor setup all @ 1920x1200/1080 and i want to be able to run a full screen across them, like eyefinity or w/e nvidia's equivilant is.

does nvidia even offer an equivalent of eyefinity?

if you want 3 monitors Amd
If your satisfied with 2 per card and want 3d nvidia.

The 580 will just give you a bit more headroom in future developments
 
i have v off and frame smoothing off.. 60hz monitor, i dotn liek the 11.2 driver alil buggy to me...dont know which are best and most stable that came out..10.6 never gave me probs
 
i have v off and frame smoothing off.. 60hz monitor, i dotn liek the 11.2 driver alil buggy to me...dont know which are best and most stable that came out..10.6 never gave me probs

over at uncle Toms there's been 3 posts relating to the latest drivers giving issues. All three was about pixels doing funny stuff with the screen.

Go here to tweak your settings

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_11.html
 
Love my 580s, if you're not too concerned about the price I think you really will like the card. If you're about trying to find the best bang of the buck then you probably won't be happy.

well said.
No worries about fiddling settings with them. They crush any game
 
It's not worth it if your motherboard has 2x pcie slots. Crossfire 6950's is roughly the same price and destroys a single 580 in performance.
 
Stock GTX580 over here. Only regret is not waiting for the 3GB one. :(

Problem solved!! Sell him your 1.5gb version for $429.99 shipped. You use that $430 toward the 3gb version. Use the FS/FT forum to get it done. :D

What say both of you?
 
I would say it's not worth it, however, that's mostly my fault at choking around 400usd for a single GPU :(

Also, another portion is the GTX580 has a significantly better VRM setup than the GTX570 ref design, at noted by OCN's GTX570 death thread that was creeping on 50pages last I saw it.
 
Problem solved!! Sell him your 1.5gb version for $429.99 shipped. You use that $430 toward the 3gb version. Use the FS/FT forum to get it done. :D

What say both of you?

I think I might as soon as Newegg carries the 3GB Palit.
 
580 with 1.5Gb is a real POS. Nvidia should be ashame to sell them and ask 500$ for those.

The 580 with 3Gb are a much better buy. If you can find one, buy those. Much much better. But almost impossible to find one...

Nvidia and EVGA just announced EVGA will start making 580 3Gb now. It's not a coincidence if they do this the week the 6990 just came out. Because they look pretty bad in benchmarks with the 1.5Gb version. So they are proving what I'm saying about the 1.5Gb version with that move. :)

But 2 X 6950 is a much better value. If you can unlock them, that set-up will laugh at any 580 with 1.5Gb.
 
580 with 1.5Gb is a real POS. Nvidia should be ashame to sell them and ask 500$ for those.

The 580 with 3Gb are a much better buy. If you can find one, buy those. Much much better. But almost impossible to find one...

Nvidia and EVGA just announced EVGA will start making 580 3Gb now. It's not a coincidence if they do this the week the 6990 just came out. Because they look pretty bad in benchmarks with the 1.5Gb version. So they are proving what I'm saying about the 1.5Gb version with that move. :)

But 2 X 6950 is a much better value. If you can unlock them, that set-up will laugh at any 580 with 1.5Gb.

You're funny.
 
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