| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Gemini Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 24 March 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NVIDIA Gemini OverclockingAs we've discussed in this article, NVIDIA's codename 'Gemini' project may use two GF110 GPUs from the GeForce GTX 580 series, but it wasn't designed to produce twice the performance. NVIDIA states that the GeForce GTX 590 should produce approximately 1.5x a single GTX 580 in most applications. That makes sense, considering the GTX 580's GF110 operates at 772 MHz and each of the GPUs in the GTX 590 run at only 608 MHz. That means that two GTX 580's in SLI combine for 1544 MHz to the GTX 590's 1216 MHz - a difference of 328 MHz, or 164 MHz on each GPU. That a lot of ground to cover with a single overclock. Gemini uses a 12-later PCB For maximum signal integrity, so the overclocked GPUs could be more stable. To help disperse heat more effectively across the printed circuit board, two ounces of copper are used for each of the board's power and ground layers on the PCB. This also helps to enhance the circuit board's longevity. To help provide cooling for the PCB and its components, and aluminum baseplate is secured to the top of the board. In addition, two backplates are mounted on the bottom of the board to cool the graphics memory. NVIDIA also uses a 10-phase digital power controller with over-volting capability on Gemini. So let's see how far we were able to stretch the GPU's on Gemini...
AMD and NVIDIA already stretch their GPUs pretty thin in terms of overclocking head room, but there's a difference between thin and non-existent. In this section, Benchmark Reviews compares stock versus overclocked video card performance on the GeForce GTX 590 with default voltage supplied to the GPUs. Here are the test results: GPU Overclocking Results
Overclocking Summary: With a 72 MHz overclock that represents a 11.8% increase in GPU speed, our baseline results indicate an average increase of about 5% in actual frame rate performance at 1920x1200 resolution. This usually amounted to an added 4+ FPS in most games. This isn't a huge performance boost, especially compared to single-GPU overclocks, but every extra frame translates into an advantage over your enemy. Of course, all of our results were gathered by using the standard core voltage. Once updated tools are available to better overclock these GPUs with added voltage, there will be additional headroom available for better performance.
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Comments
but i will wait until aftermarket coolers for 6990 appears
anyway i appreciate great competitions like this one
If the results show low power use in Furmark for the 590, you know the card is activating its limiter, therefor the temp/noise reading are not realistic.
Simply put the power/temp/fan noise should be done on the games as you benched them, its all to easy to program a driver to fool one application to make it look and sound good.
Thanks
Actually, the hardware sits in a big box for retests and other projects. After a year or so, they become gifts or sold for what little they're still worth.
Hey- I never did see any of your work from PAX! Hope it was fun, and worth the visit.
They really need to put some 2g or even 3g of mem on those 580 cards.
I'm pretty sure that's not right.
So what's up next week?
When you look at the things that are not bias towards either product IE Heaven benchmark. Thats where you see the real difference in the cards. All this end talk about features is complete garbage. You can say the same for ATI there card and 3d bluray is far superior then the Nvidia solution. Eyefinity maybe a novel feature but it does work. Something Nvidia has yet to even come close to matching. Heck this is first card with 3 monitors support. Also the displayport is a mute point because ATI is now including a displayport adaptor that illiminates the super high cost of this solution among other reasons could state that this is not a fd it will eventually be the standard. If your going to skew your review because you like nvidia just do it at the begining. Its getting extremely old seeing the bait and switch from both sides.
Some of your remarks are a relief to me, because they show how uninformed you truly are. According to you, features like PhysX, 3D Vision, and CUDA support don't matter. I suggest you start asking around, because like it or not those 'garbage' features help sell these products.
By the way, those 'biased' NVIDIA games that always score the highest... games like BattleForge and Battlefield Bad Company 2... those are AMD co-developed games, not NVIDIA.
Then Toro's jumped on this forum and blogged his ATI Fanboy Mumbo Jumbo. But you know what, that's ok, Handicap need a place to lay their heads at night. If he had read the whole review he would have seen that facts. 1. The 6990 has its pro's and con's. Fact 2, The Nvidia and ATI cards are pretty neck and neck. Fact 3, the 590 won 5, tied 5 and (barley) lost 5. I don't know how anyone could have taken this review as "BIAS" towards Nvidia. I am an Nvidia fan, but I own a 6990 and 2 580 GTX's, they are both powerful................nevermind, I know if Toros is reading this it wont make sense so i will save my time.
Interesting read though. I am anxious to see how the cards compare at their overclocked overvolted limits on reference cooler.
For all I know next year could have big stuff for processors.
The rest of you fanboys should really stop honestly. In the case of the 6990 and 590, what is there really to say one card is superior to the other? I don't find 50w less, 5c degrees less or a card that runs EVER SO quieter to the other good ways of saying my card beats yours. There is no real pure power difference. So I must agree with Colin above and say they are both virtually the same exact cards.
I just have to stick with purchasing Nvidia however for my 3D setup, no biggie.
I was wondering if the 6990 still had the aggressive AF optimizations which results in texture shimmering. I am referring to the AF optimization discovered earlier and brought up in an nViDIA blog.
I really hate texture shimmering, that is a deciding factor for me. If I have to switch setting around in Catalyst in order to get rid of shimmering the benchmark results would not indicate the actual performance I'll get from 6990.
Thanks in advance.
#benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12845&Itemid=47
Usually shimmering (if it's present) can easily be seen in Half-Life 2 in road or railroad parts of the map which extend long into the horizon.
I remember having horrible shimmering in HL2 back when I had 7800GTX.
In the Unigine night scene you mention, can you get rid of shimmering by setting Catalyst AI to high or turning it off altogether?
I suppose in the same Unigine scene , GTX 590 is not showing any shimmering?
Thanks for the reply btw.
##tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/grafikkarten/amd_radeon_hd_6870_h d_6850/s09.php
Can you get rid of shimmering by fiddling with Cat AI ? Does the GTX 590 show the same amount of shimmering as well? In HL2 particularly, since it can easily be detected when moving the camera.
Neither AMD nor NVidia are charities. You want a bleeding edge product, prepare to bleed the cash.
Yes NVIDIA does include HDMI with their cards, I can only assume it is up to AIB partners whether it will be mini-HDMI or a full size port.