| EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Austin Downing | |
| Monday, 03 October 2011 | |
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EVGA GTX 580 Classified Video Card Review
Manufacturer: EVGA Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by EVGA. EVGA designed the GTX 580 Classified to be the ultimate version of what the GTX 580 could be. It was co-designed between EVGA and professional overclockers Vince "k|ngp|n" Lucido, and Illya "TiN" Tsemenko with the single goal to overclock unlike any card out on the market while at the same time looking great, and staying cool. Benchmark Reviews will see if EVGA has perfected the Fermi equation to provide great looks, extraordinary cooling, and extreme overclocking ability. When NVIDIA introduced the Fermi architecture in April 2010 with the GF104 and the GTX 480 it ran hot, and was very power hungry. Fast forward to November 2010 and NVIDIA is releasing the GTX 580 using the GF110 which uses the same Fermi architecture but now has access to all 16 streaming multiprocessors while at the same time bringing down power consumption and more importantly giving off less heat. Since then many radical designs have been released to help further control heat output but few have been designed from the ground up to set overclocking records. This is where EVGA comes in with its Classified line for its GTX 580 which was built from the ground up for extreme overclocking using LN2 and Liquid Helium Cooling. EVGA included a 14+3 VRM design, 2 x 8 + 1 x 6 power inputs, a second BIOS developed to deal with the Fermi cold bug, a 8 cm blower fan, and a somewhat redesigned heatsink. To top it off EVGA has also added a generous 73MHz overclock to the core clock bringing the core clock on the Classified to 855Mhz.
Since this is a top of the top of the line card we will only be using the most powerful of benchmarks. With a majority of upcoming titles being designed to take advantage of the DX11 API's Benchmark Reviews will focus on only the most powerful of DX11 benchmarks both synthetic and real world. EVGA GTX 580 Classified Features
GTX 580 Classified Specifications
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Comments
Also why does it need a HDMI port when you can convert straight from DVI to HDMI?
I want to see how it stands up to the 2GB 6970 OR the regular EVGA 3GB. You do realize that not all the Classifieds come with 3GB of Vram, right? Why not compare apples to apples? Why compare this to last years options?
It was compared to a Stock ASUS GTX 580 1.5GB which provides a pretty nice apples to apples comparison.
Really nice review! Maybe if you could put more pictures in the future which would be really nice :) keep it up!
I wasn't trying to be crass or mean. The review is wonderful.
I am considering purchasing a 3GB Classified HC and was anxious to see how it compared to say the normal EVGA 3GB or the Asus with more Vram, as well as the AMD 2GB 6970. Maybe you can do another review when those are available:)
That means the difference between the regular 3GB and Classy 3GB is the same as between the ASUS 1.5GB GTX 580 and the classy. around 4-6% at stock settings on both.
Except for price I really do recommend this card. It is beautiful, runs cool, and has a lifetime warranty.
Thank you for the compliment. This was a eye opening experience to say the least. I hope in the future to be able to provide for our readers even better.
#en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen
##msi.com/product/vga/N580GTX-Lightning-Xtreme-Edition.html#/?div=Driver&os=Win7%2032
Hmm. On one hand, this cooler doesn't exhaust as much air into the case. On the other hand, the MSI Twin Frozr III heatsink is very impressive. I guess overclocking headroom will decide it.
Now THAT would be an article. 580 Classy 3gb vs MSI GTX 580 Lightning 3gb.
Perhaps a overclocking competition between both?
The only other card worth looking at is the Asus ROG Matrix 580 Platinum. Other manufacturers of course have custom non-reference flagships, but the consensus seems to be that the MSI and Asus ones are the top (ex: Gigabyte).
The 580 Lightning Xtreme is at a similar price point and is also oriented for enthusiasts and ROG ... well, the name should say what the target audience is.
That said,......this is really a well thought out design and awesome performer too. I love it.
Also, Austin I think the OC competition between those two cards would be a GREAT article!