| EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified: Overclocked |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Austin Downing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 17 November 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Overclocking MethodologyThe Microsoft DirectX-11 graphics API is native to the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and will be the primary O/S for our test platform. DX11 is also available as a Microsoft Update for the Windows Vista O/S, so our test results apply to both versions of the Operating System. The majority of benchmark tests used in this article are comparative to DX11 performance, however some high-demand DX10 tests have also been included. According to the Steam Hardware Survey published for the month ending May 2010, the most popular gaming resolution is 1280x1024 (17-19" standard LCD monitors). However, because this 1.31MP resolution is considered 'low' by most standards, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on higher-demand resolutions: 1.76MP 1680x1050 (22-24" widescreen LCD) and 2.30MP 1920x1200 (24-28" widescreen LCD monitors). These resolutions are more likely to be used by high-end graphics solutions, such as those tested in this article. In each benchmark test there is one 'cache run' that is conducted, followed by five recorded test runs. Results are collected at each setting with the highest and lowest results discarded. The remaining three results are averaged, and displayed in the performance charts on the following pages.
In order to get the highest stable overclock, my preferred method is to slowly increase the core clock speed by 10MHz and make five runs through our Crysis 2 benchmark. This creates enough stress to quickly discern if the overclock is stable, and if so I continue increasing the overclock by another 10MHz until NVIDIA's Forceware driver's crash. From that point I fine tune my overclock to get the most stability out of the system. After much deliberation I finally settled on 940MHz at 1.3v as the highest fully stable overclock that I could attain. Although this voltage is high for the speeds reached the Classified was designed to handle the higher voltages that are needed for record breaking speeds attained using extreme cooling solutions such as LN2 and Liquid Helium . It should be noted that since no software will correctly advertise the voltage being used by the Classified I used a multimeter to attain the actual voltage of the Classified while overclocking. Intel P67 Test System
DirectX-11 Benchmark Applications
Video Card Test Products
Disclaimer: Although we have pushed our card as far as we are able, your milage may vary based as each chip has its own characteristics.
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Comments
Based on newegg reviews owners got 900-920 mhz at default volt. I'm hoping to get the same. Extra 20 to 40mhz for a 0.2 volts extra is too much. Did toy try to oc without volt tweaking?
Can't wait to bench mine.
More seriously, I doubt you could get to 1000 watts without those liquid-He/Ni cooling ideas. Still, if you could get it to 600 or 700 watts using air or water, that would be amazing. It's already drawing more power than most people's entire systems - it'd be both humorous and educational to see if it could outdraw most enthusiast systems.
Anyway, another enjoyable article. You guys run an excellent operation here at BMR.
I can not test for anything over the power draw I had on during this test due to thermal constraints. Even so during our test I was drawing almost 500w just for this card.
Thank you for the compliment it means a lot to know that our readers appreciate our work.
Nice to see an unashamedly "enthusiast" review.
Seems a little late to the party ( evga ). I can't see getting the classified when Kepler is around the corner now ( the first round of consumer cards and then the enthusiast cards soon after )
FYI Even if you wants to buy this gpu you can't it has bin sold out since launch and available in limited quantaties. Meaning when kepler hit I should have no problem selling the thing due to the limited quantities and demand @ a good price. Besides how would I play skyrim with all the hd mods out there already as well as bf3 @ max!
#m.tweaktown.com/news/21713/rumortt_nvidia_s_28n m_desktop_gpu_roadma p_revealed_no_high_e nd_geforce_card_unti l_2h_2012/index.html
I hope not another fermi
OC is like over speed limit.....if ya going 10% over the 60 mph peed limit, that's 1.10 x 60 or 66 mph ....66/60 = 1.10 or 10% over speed limit
% Overclock = 100 x (OC Speed / Stock Speed - 1)
100 x (940/772 - 1) = 21.76%
Or another way ....
% OC = (OC speed - Ref Speed) / Ref Speed
(940 - 772) / 772 = 21/76 $ same answer