NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

by Rob Williams on November 10, 2010 in Graphics & Displays

NVIDIA launched its first Fermi-based GPU earlier this year in the form of the GeForce GTX 480, and it was met with mixed reception. Until now, it’s been the fastest single-GPU offering on the market, but certain downsides kept it from being the first-choice of many. Does NVIDIA’s first proper follow-up fix all that was wrong?

Page 11 – Unigine Heaven 2.1

While Futuremark is a well-established name where PC benchmarking is concerned, Unigine is just beginning to become exposed to people. The company’s main focus isn’t benchmarks, but rather its cross-platform game engine which it licenses out to other developers, and also its own games, such as a gorgeous post-apocalytic oil strategy game. The company’s benchmarks are simply a by-product of its game engine.

The biggest reason that the company’s “Heaven” benchmark grew in popularity rather quickly is that both AMD and NVIDIA promoted it for its heavy use of tessellation, a key DirectX 11 feature. Like 3DMark Vantage, the benchmark here is overkill by design, so results here aren’t going to directly correlate with real gameplay. Rather, they showcase which card models can better handle both DX11 and its GPU-bogging features.

NVIDIA said it improved tessellation performance on the GTX 580, and it shows here, with the card far surpassing the performance of the GTX 480.

Page List:

Top

1. Introduction
2. Test System & Methodology
3. Colin McRae: Dirt 2
4. Just Cause 2
5. Mafia II
6. Metro 2033
7. StarCraft II
8. Dead Rising 2; F1 2010
9. ArcaniA: Gothic 4; Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2
10. Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
11. Unigine Heaven 2.1
12. Power & Temperatures
13. Final Thoughts

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.