EVGA GTX 580 Classified Video Card Review

Manufacturer: EVGA
Product Name: GTX 580 Classified
Model Number: 03G-P3-1588
Price As Tested: $599.99 at NewEgg

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

• Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
• NVIDIA CUDA Technology with CUDA C/C+, DirectComputer 5.0 and OpenCL Support
• NVIDIA PhysX Technology
• NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology
• NVIDIA 2-way, 3-way, and 4-way SLI Ready
• NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Ready
• PCI Express 2.0 Support
• Two Dual-Link DVI-I HDCP Capable Connectors
• One EVBot Connector
• OpenGL 4.1 Support.

GTX 580 Classified Specifications

• Core Clock: 855Mhz
• Memory Clock 4212 Mhz Effective
• Sharder Clock: 1710 Mhz
• CUDA Cores: 512
• Bus Type: PCI-E 2.0
• Memory Detail: 3072MB GDDR5
• Memory Bit Width: 384 Bit
• Memory Speed: 0.4 ns
• Memory Bandwidth: 202.1GB/sec
• Texture Fill Rate: 54.7GT

EVGA GTX 580 Classifed Basic Details

Gone are the days of boring plain green PCB boards for video cards, instead each card is designed to be a piece of artwork inside of a user's case, while at the same time working to dissipate all of the heat it creates. EVGA did a great job covering both of these bases with the GTX 580 Classified with its sleek black exterior and large 8cm blower fan that is being used.

While many companies used unique color schemes or very flashy graphics to attempt to differentiate themselves EVGA went the completely opposite directions with its Classified card and instead opted for a matte black finish. At the same time the EVGA has ordained the top with its unique Classified logo further setting itself apart from other GTX 580's on the market.

EVGA designed the Classified for extreme overclocking, and from the start you can see this heritage come out. With 2 x 8 pin and 1 x 6 pin the Classified is designed to take over 1000w of power for the most extreme overclocking possible. At the same time EVGA provided pin outs allowing users to accurately check the voltages being used by the card during extreme situations.

From the rear you can see that EVGA has installed a high flow bracket on the Classified to help let out some of the heat that the overclocked GF110 generates. At the same time the extra-large cover used allows some heat to be dissipated into a user's case and in the case of the Silverstone Raven 2 straight out of the exhaust ports that are located at the top of the case. EVGA has included two dual link DVI ports and a port for a EVBot to connect to which allows overclockers to make on-the-fly adjustments to voltages and clock frequency.

From the bottom of the Classified you can start to see some of the changes that EVGA has made to help with overclocking. Along with the extra wide PCB board there is also a NEC/TOKIN capacitor, and all of the connections used for the VRM's that EVGA used on the Classified.

EVGA GTX 580 Classified Internal Details

For graphic cards with custom PCB's like the EVGA GTX 580 Classified a look under the hood can bring new found understanding to the purpose of a card.

Once we remove the plastic shroud surrounding the Classified we start see some of the magic that EVGA has included in its latest iteration of the GTX 580. First we have the large 8cm blower style fan that helps give some much needed extra cooling to the entire card. Following that we have a slightly redesigned heatsink that dissipates part of the heat generated into a user's system but for the most part will exhaust all heat out of the rear of the Classified.

To see the bare PCB of the GTX 580 Classified we must first remove a the heatsink that covers the entire PCB board helping give some much needed cooling to the VRM's and other components. Under that we have what looks like a normal GTX 580 except every component has been overdesigned to take the extra abuse that overclocking can generate.

Rather than Samsung GDDR5 memory that we are typically finding on cards we review on Benchmark Review EVGA has used twelve Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C 2Gb GDDR5 memory modules to create the 3GB framebuffer the Classified has. Each of these modules is rated for up to 5Gbps at 1.5v.

EVGA has included three NEC/Token 0E907 film capacitors on the Classified. Each capacitor is rated for 2.5v and 900uF and is designed to help provide a cleaner power input to both the GPU and the VRAM.

EVGA claims that the Classified is able to handle 1000w of power. In order to achieve this EVGA has used quite a large number of VRM's and power management circuits to help make sure all of this power is delivered in a safe and clean method so that users can get the best possible overclocks out of the Classified.

VGA Testing Methodology

The 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.

A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.

Intel P67 Test System

• Motherboard: MSI P67-GD65
• System Memory: 4 x 4GB 1866Mhz 9-10-9-28 1.65v
• Processor: Core i5 2500k 3.3Ghz @ 4.7Ghz
• Audio: Creative X-fi Titanium Fatal1ty
• Video: ASUS GTX 580
• Disk Drive 1: Patriot Inferno 60GB
• Disk Drive 2: 2 x 1TB Seagate 7200RPM RAID 0 Array
• Disk Drive 3: 1 x 500GB Seagate 7200RPM
• Optical Drive: DVD Burner
• Enclosure: Silverstone Raven RV02-EW
• PSU: Cooler Master SilentPro 1000w
• Monitor: ASUS 27.5" 1920x1200
• Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit Professional

DirectX-11 Benchmark Applications

• 3dMark 2011
• Crysis 2
  • Ultra Settings (Ultra Quality, 4x AA, DX11, Edge Blur, Hi Resolution Textures)
• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)
• BattleForge v1.2
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Auto Multi-Thread)
• Lost Planet 2
  • Extreme Settings: (16x AA, Very High Shadow Detail, High Texture, High Render, High DirectX 11 Features)
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.5
  • Extreme Settings: (High Quality, Exteme Tessellation, 16x AF, 8x AA)

Video Card Test Products

DX11: Aliens vs Predator

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, Sony PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Aliens vs. Predator utilizes Rebellion's proprietary Asura game engine, which had previously found its way into Call of Duty: World at War and Rogue Warrior. The self-contained benchmark tool is used for our DirectX-11 tests, which push the Asura game engine to its limit.

In our benchmark tests, Aliens vs. Predator was configured to use the highest quality settings with 4x AA and 16x AF. DirectX-11 features such as Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) and tessellation have also been included, along with advanced shadows.

• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)

Test Summary: Due to its age some would consider AvP to be the last gasps of the Asura engine. Still with the addition of DX11 this aging engine still can put lots of strain on a user's vide card. At 1680 x 1050 the Classified is hands down beaten by the 5970 trailing by 26.5% at 83.4FPS. Interestingly though the Classified regains some of its dignity at the 1920 x 1200 were it trades spots with the 5970 and instead is leading by a respectable 17.5% increase in FPS compared to the 5970 at 68FPS. My guess is that the larger 3GB frame buffer provided on the Classified helps it gain a lead in our 1920 x 1200 resolution.

DX11: Crysis 2

Crysis 2 launched in the US on March 22, 2011 and runs off the Crytek 3 engine. Although it had a rough start because of the lack of DX11 support and somewhat muddy textures it was later vindicated with the updated DX11 and Hi-Resolution texture package which enabled the "Ultra" Settings. With these additions Crysis 2 was turned into the DX11 beast that it was supposed to be.

Using the Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool v1.0.1.12 we will be going through the Central Park benchmark. The Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool will generate the same run through of the end game Central Park level which provides many different visual effects to help push our test system to its very limits while keeping track of our FPS for each run. We will be using the highest available setting for our Crysis 2 Benchmark.

• Crysis 2
  • Extreme Settings: (Ultra Quality, 4x AA, DX11, Edge Blur, Hi Resolution Textures)

Test Summary: Crysis 2 is extremely hard on a user's system and will push every part of a user's system to 100%. At the same time the Crytek 3 engine is partial to Nvidia GPU's. As such it ends up being that the Classifieds real competition is our stock ASUS GTX 580. At 1680 x 1050 we see a 3.8% boost in performance at 55.6FPS and at 1920 x 1200 we 4.4% increase in FPS at 48.7FPS.

DX11: BattleForge

BattleForge is free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) developed by EA Phenomic with DirectX-11 graphics capability. Combining strategic cooperative battles, the community of MMO games, and trading card gameplay, BattleForge players are free to put their creatures, spells and buildings into combination's they see fit. These units are represented in the form of digital cards from which you build your own unique army. With minimal resources and a custom tech tree to manage, the gameplay is unbelievably accessible and action-packed.

Benchmark Reviews uses the built-in graphics benchmark to measure performance in BattleForge, using Very High quality settings (detail) and 8x anti-aliasing with auto multi-threading enabled. BattleForge is one of the first titles to take advantage of DirectX-11 in Windows 7, and offers a very robust color range throughout the busy battleground landscape. The charted results illustrate how performance measures-up between video cards when Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is enabled.

• BattleForge v1.2
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Auto Multi-Thread)

DX11: Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2 is the second installment in the saga of the planet E.D.N. III, ten years after the story of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. The snow has melted and the lush jungle life of the planet has emerged with angry and luscious flora and fauna. With the new environment comes the addition of DirectX-11 technology to the game.

Lost Planet 2 takes advantage of DX11 features including tessellation and displacement mapping on water, level bosses, and player characters. In addition, soft body compute shaders are used on 'Boss' characters, and wave simulation is performed using DirectCompute. These cutting edge features make for an excellent benchmark for top-of-the-line consumer GPUs.

The Lost Planet 2 benchmark offers two different tests, which serve different purposes. This article uses tests conducted on benchmark B, which is designed to be a deterministic and effective benchmark tool featuring DirectX 11 elements.

• Lost Planet 2
  
  • Extreme Settings: (Antialiasing, 16x AF, High Shadow Quality, High Detail, High Geometry, Ambient Occlusion)

Test Summary: Lost Planet 2 is definitely a TWIWMTBP game and as such even our GTX 470 SC almost beats out the 5970. This mean that again the Classified is competing against a stock GTX 580 for best performance. At 1680 x 1050 the Classified sees a 5.8% gain in performance compared to the stock GTX 580, as we increase the resolution to 1920 x 1200 we see that lead shrink to only 4.9% with 55.7FPS total.

DX11: 3DMark 2011

FutureMark 3DMark11 is the latest addition the 3DMark benchmark series built by FutureMark corporation. 3DMark11 is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX-11 graphics cardperformance without vendor preference. Although 3DMark11 includes the unbiased Bullet Open Source Physics Library instead of NVIDIA PhysX for the CPU/Physics tests, Benchmark Reviews concentrates on the four graphics-only tests in 3DMark11 and uses them with medium-level 'Performance' presets.

The 'Performance' level setting applies 1x multi-sample anti-aliasing and trilinear texture filtering to a 1280x720p resolution. The tessellation detail, when called upon by a test, is preset to level 5, with a maximum tessellation factor of 10. The shadow map size is limited to 5 and the shadow cascade count is set to 4, while the surface shadow sample count is at the maximum value of 16. Ambient occlusion is enabled, and preset to a quality level of 5.

DX11: Unigine Heaven 2.5

The Unigine "Heaven 2.5" benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand. The "Heaven" benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX 9, DirectX-10 and DirectX-11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI Eyefinity support

Although Heaven-2.5 was recently released and used for our DirectX-11 tests, the benchmark results were extremely close to those obtained with Heaven-1.0 testing. Since only DX11-compliant video cards will properly test on the Heaven benchmark, only those products that meet the requirements have been included.

EVGA GTX 580 Classified Temperatures

Benchmark tests are always nice, so long as you care about comparing one product to another. But when you're an overclocker, gamer, or merely a PC hardware enthusiast who likes to tweak things on occasion, there's no substitute for good information. Benchmark Reviews has a very popular guide written on Overclocking Video Cards, which gives detailed instruction on how to tweak a graphics cards for better performance. Of course, not every video card has overclocking head room. Some products run so hot that they can't suffer any higher temperatures than they already do. This is why we measure the operating temperature of the video card products we test.

To begin my testing, I use GPU-Z to measure the temperature at idle as reported by the GPU. Next I use FurMark's "Torture Test" to generate maximum thermal load and record GPU temperatures at high-power 3D mode. The ambient room temperature remained at a stable 20°C throughout testing, while the inner-case temperature hovered around 36°C.

FurMark does two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than applications of video games realistically could, and it does so with consistency every time. Furmark works great for testing the stability of a GPU as the temperature rises to the highest possible output. The temperatures discussed below are absolute maximum values, and not representative of real-world performance.

AT 71C the custom cooler utilized by EVGA for the Classified is quite effective giving a 12.4% boost in performance compared to a stock GTX 580. During Furmark the 8cm fan will spin up a bit hitting around 45-50% usage but still being silent. This means that even on Air the EVGA GTX 580 Classified will have lots of room left for overclocking which we will be doing a separate article on the future.

VGA Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards turning "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that gets sent from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now.

For power consumption tests, Benchmark Reviews utilizes the 80-BRONZE certified Cooler Master Silent ProM 1000W, model RS-A00-AMBA-J3. This power supply unit has been tested to provide over 85% typical efficiency by Chroma System Solutions, however our results are not adjusted for consistency. To measure isolated video card power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International.

A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our test computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows-7 and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:

When we looked at the Classified's PCB board it was clear that EVGA designed the Classified to be able to use as much power as was need to reach the most extreme of overclocks. One thing that it appears that EVGA left out was the optional power management circuits designed to limit the amount of power that the GTX 580 Classified is able to consume. As such the EVGA GTX 580 Classified with its 2 x 8 pin and 1 x 6 pin connections set a new record for single GPU power consumption at 375 watts at the wall. Thankfully because this test was done using Furmark it is not representative of what real world consumption will actually be. Still users should be prepared for a larger power bill at the end of the month if they plan gaming extensively throughout the month.

For those wanting to figure out how much running a video card like the EVGA GTX 580 Classified will cost a simple calculation is

((Wattage x amount of time at full usage x the number of days in the year)/1000)*(the amount you pay per watt hour)

For example my system with SLI GTX 580's overclocked consumes around 875W of power when I run Prime95 and Furmark at the same time. In order to figure out how much it would cost would use if I played four hours of games every day of the year at $0.14 per kWh my calculation would be

((875 x 4 x 365)/1000)*(0.14)

This comes out to be around $178.85 per year which is not an unsubstantial amount of money.

EVGA GTX 580 Classified Final Thoughts

The EVGA GTX 580 Classified is an amazing accomplishment and the final hoora of the Fermi architecture as the Kepler chips are slated to come out sometime Q1 2012. EVGA has definitely designed an overclocking beast and with LN₂ have alread passed the 1.6GHz mark. For us mere mortals who just want to use a traditional air cooling EVGA pretty much nailed it, they have the extra cooling the overclockers demand without the negatives of a huge tri-slot card that dumps all of its heat into a user's case

EVGA GTX 580 Classified Conclusion

With a core clock of 855MHz the Classified provides users with a 4-6% boost in performance out of the box compared to a stock GTX 580. The Classified will easily run almost any game on the market at the highest of settings. Once users start creating SLI configurations they should expect to be able to play most major titles coming out in the ensuing years on the most extreme of settings without much trouble.

Although a personal taste I find the unannounced exterior of the Classified to be gorgeous. When you put the Classified in a case all you see is the military-esk matte black exterior with the beautiful Classified logo to let you know what you are looking at.

The EVGA GTX 580 Classified is very well built with a great amount of thought put into every component used. Even during our stressful Furmark testing in which we drew record amounts of power we did not see any type of graphical glitches. Adding to this is the fact EVGA stands behind their product providing a lifetime warranty should something go wrong during a Classifieds lifetime.

The functionality of the cooler being used with the Classified is amazing providing a 12.4% boost in cooling performance while at the same time creating less noise than a stock GTX 580. Personally I also appreciate that the Classified vents its exhaust out the rear of a user's case rather than recirculating all of that heat inside of the case.

Value for a video card like the EVGA GTX 580 Classified is a three part equation. First we need to look at the outright cost of the product which at $599.99 (NewEgg) puts it in the top tier of video cards. Next we need to look at availability, and currently the EVGA GTX 580 Classified is sold out, and even when in stock will only be around for a couple of days at most. Lastly the hidden cost of these high end cards is power, and at 375W of consumption can quickly add up especially in a SLI configuration.

As the final hoora of the Fermi architecture the EVGA GTX 580 Classified is a fitting card. With beautiful looks, high performance, and unmatched overclocking potential the Classified is exactly what a special edition graphics card should be.

Pros:

+ Beauiful design
+ Redesigned cooler increasing thermal performance without dumping heat inside of the case
+ 3GB frame buffer helps with high resolution gaming
+ Top of the line graphical performance
+ Quieter than the reference design

Cons:

- Very power hungry
- Limited production run

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.75
• Appearance: 9.75
• Construction: 10.00
• Functionality: 9.50
• Value: 7.00

Final Score: 9.2 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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