NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] When NVIDIA launched its Fermi-based GeForce GTX 400 series this past spring, I don't think anyone would have imagined that we'd see the 500 series by the end of the year. But, we did, starting with the GeForce GTX 580 last month. What it brought to the table was all of what made the GTX 480 powerful, but also refinements to produce something even faster, more power efficient, and cooler-running. As we discovered in our launch article, NVIDIA did well with this. After that launch, I had figured it wouldn't be until early 2011 when we'd begin seeing other GTX 500 models, but I was wrong. It's clear that NVIDIA is interested in replacing its GTX 400 models as soon as possible with the later parts, due to the number of improvements. As such, the GTX 570 is next on the list, set out to replace the GTX 470, as one might expect. Similar to the comparison between the GTX 480 and GTX 580, the GTX 570 is meant to be faster than the GTX 470, more power-efficient, cooler, and priced-right. We'll see throughout this article if NVIDIA hit its mark here as it did for the GTX 580. Closer Look. As it stands, NVIDIA doesn't offer a dual-GPU card for either its 400 or 500 series, and as such, the GTX 580 remains its highest-performing card. That card doesn't have enough oomph to outpace AMD's dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, but it does soar past the HD 5870 in most cases. Perhaps with further refinements, and also a die shrink, NVIDIA will once again push out a dual-GPU card. For those interested, here's a quick overview of NVIDIA's current GPU line-up (note that the GTX 470 is for the most part deprecated, but is here for comparison's sake). Model Core MHz Shader MHz Mem MHz Memory Bus Width Cores GeForce GTX 580 772 1544 4008 1536MB 384-bit 512 GeForce GTX 570 732 1464 3800 1280MB 320-bit 480 GeForce GTX 470 607 1215 3348 1280MB 320-bit 448 GeForce GTX 465 607 1215 3206 1024MB 256-bit 352 GeForce GTX 460 675 675 1350 1350 3600 3600 768MB 1024MB 192-bit 256-bit 336 336 GeForce GTS 450 783 1566 3608 1024MB 128-bit 192 As one might expect, the GTX 570 isn't quite a slouch when compared to the GTX 580, but it does have some aspects scaled back in order for NVIDIA to market it to a slightly different crowd, and at a more tempting pricepoint. Though some of the cores have been decreased, the biggest change is with the drop from 512 to 480 cores, a la GTX 480. NVIDIA is pricing the GTX 570 at $349, which at this point in time doesn't seem like much of a deal at all, or a way for the company to start taking back some of the market that AMD has claimed over the past year. NVIDIA claims that the new card will be about 20% faster than the one it replaces, the GTX 470, so in that regard the price hike is reasonable. But at the same time, if the card was priced closer to $300, it'd be a lot more tempting, especially when compared to AMD's HD 6870. We'll analyze this a bit more in our conclusion. For the sake of ease, and time, I am once again using NVIDIA's provided stock images for this review. If at first you think I borrowed the same images as used in our GTX 580 article, you're wrong, but don't worry... both cards are nearly identical aesthetically. That even includes the length, as both cards are 10.5" long. Like the GTX 580, the GTX 570 features dual DVI ports, and also a mini-HDMI port. This to me pales in comparison to what AMD is currently offering, as you can use a standard HDMI cable right out of the box with one of its offerings. I am hoping NVIDIA can refine the architecture enough here to be able to fit more outputs on the back, for the sake of convenience. Similar to most higher-end cards on the market, this one requires 2x PCIe 6-pin connectors, and a recommended power supply wattage of 550W. The total TDP for the card is 219W, which is a mere 4W higher than the GTX 470. Given the potential +20% in performance, that 4W could be well worth it. With the GTX 580, NVIDIA introduced its new "Vapor Chamber" cooler design, and as we saw in our launch article, it proved to be quite effective. That cooling design is brought back to the table with the GTX 570, and along with the further power refinements, the card should be able to handle a bit of pressure while running at modest temperature levels. On the next page, we'll talk a bit about our testing methodologies and also give the details on the test machine used, and following that, we'll get right into testing. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Test System & Methodology] At Techgage, we strive to make sure our results are as accurate as possible. Our testing is rigorous and time-consuming, but we feel the effort is worth it. In an attempt to leave no question unanswered, this page contains not only our testbed specifications, but also a detailed look at how we conduct our testing. Test Machine. The below table lists our testing machine's hardware, which remains unchanged throughout all GPU testing, minus the graphics card. Each card used for comparison is also listed here, along with the driver version used. Each one of the URLs in this table can be clicked to view the respective category on our site for that product. Component Model Processor Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition - Quad-Core @ 4.05GHz - 1.40v Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME - F13j BIOS (08/02/2010) Memory Corsair DOMINATOR - 12GB DDR3-1333 7-7-7-24-1T, 1.60v ATI Graphics Radeon HD 6870 1GB (Reference CrossFireX) - Catalyst 10.10 Radeon HD 6850 1GB (Reference CrossFireX) - Catalyst 10.10 Radeon HD 6870 1GB (Reference) - Catalyst Oct 5, 2010 Beta Radeon HD 6850 1GB (Reference) - Catalyst Oct 5, 2010 Beta Radeon HD 5970 2GB (Reference) - Catalyst 10.10d Radeon HD 5870 1GB (Sapphire) - Catalyst 10.8 Radeon HD 5850 1GB (ASUS) - Catalyst 10.8 Radeon HD 5830 1GB (Reference) - Catalyst 10.8 Radeon HD 5770 1GB (Reference) - Catalyst 10.8 Radeon HD 5750 1GB (Sapphire) - Catalyst 10.8 NVIDIA Graphics GeForce GTX 580 1536MB (Reference) - GeForce 262.99 GeForce GTX 570 1280MB (Reference) - GeForce 263.09 GeForce GTX 480 1536MB (Reference) - GeForce 260.63 GeForce GTX 470 1280MB (EVGA) - GeForce 260.63 GeForce GTX 460 1GB (EVGA) - GeForce 260.63 GeForce GTX 450 1GB (Reference SLI) - GeForce 260.63 GeForce GTX 450 1GB (ASUS) - GeForce 260.63 Audio ASUS Xonar D2X Storage Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 Power Supply Corsair HX1000W Chassis Cooler Master HAF X Full-Tower Display Gateway XHD3000 30" Cooling Corsair H50 Self-Contained Liquid Cooler Et cetera Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit When preparing our testbeds for any type of performance testing, we follow these guidelines: General Guidelines No power-saving options are enabled in the motherboard's BIOS. Internet is disabled. No virus scanner or firewall is installed. The OS is kept clean; no scrap files are left in between runs. Hard drives affected are defragged with Diskeeper 2010 prior to a fresh benchmarking run. Machine has proper airflow and the room temperature is 80°F (27°C) or less. To aide with the goal of keeping accurate and repeatable results, we alter certain services in Windows 7 from starting up at boot. This is due to the fact that these services have the tendency to start up in the background without notice, potentially causing inaccurate test results. For example, disabling "Windows Search" turns off the OS' indexing which can at times utilize the hard drive and memory more than we'd like. The most important services we disable are: Diskeeper 2010. Windows Defender. Windows Error Reporting Service. Windows Event Log. Windows Firewall. Windows Search. Windows Update. The full list of Windows services we assure are disabled is large, but for those interested in perusing it, please look here. Most of the services we disable are mild, but we go to such an extent to have the PC as highly optimized as possible. Game Titles. At this time, we benchmark with three resolutions that represent three popular monitor sizes available today, 20" (1680x1050), 24" (1920x1080) and 30" (2560x1600). Each of these resolutions offers enough of a variance in raw pixel output to warrant testing with it, and each properly represent a different market segment: mainstream, mid-range and high-end. Because we value results generated by real-world testing, we don't utilize timedemos. The possible exceptions might be Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage and Unigine's Heaven 2.1. Though neither of these are games, both act as robust timedemos. We choose to use them as they're a standard where GPU reviews are concerned. All of our results are captured with the help of Beepa's FRAPS 3.2.3, while stress-testing and temperature-monitoring is handled by OCCT 3.1.0 and GPU-Z, respectively. For those interested in the exact settings we use for each game, direct screenshots can be seen below: Colin McRae: Dirt 2. Just Cause 2. Mafia II. Metro 2033. StarCraft II. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Colin McRae: Dirt 2] It's not that often that faithful PC gamers get a proper racing game for their platform of choice, but Dirt 2 is one of those. While it is a "console port", there's virtually nothing in the game that will make that point stand out. The game as a whole takes good advantage of our PC's hardware, and it's as challenging as it is good-looking. Manual Run-through: The race we chose to use in Dirt 2 is the first one available in the game, as it's easily accessible and features a lot of GPU-pounding effects that the game has become known for, such as realistic dust and water effects, a large on-looking crowd of people and fine details on and off the track. Each run-through lasts the entire two laps, which comes out to about 2.5 minutes. Given that the price difference between the GTX 580 and GTX 570 is $150, it's nice to see the latter perform so well here. At the same time, we saw some considerable jumps in performance compared to the GTX 470. Graphics Card Best Playable Min FPS Avg. FPS AMD HD 6870 1GB (CrossFireX) 2560x1600 - Max Detail, 4xAA 76 96.555 AMD HD 5970 2GB (Reference) 2560x1600 -...

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

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Rob Williams