Four Overclocked GeForce GTX 580 Cards, Rounded Up

Thursday, 04 August 2011 06:00

Four Overclocked GeForce GTX 580 Cards, Rounded Up

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Today we put four factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 580 cards to the test: Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock, MSI’s N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC, Sparkle’s X580 Captain, and Zotac’s GeForce GTX 580 AMP²! Edition. Which one is worth its premium price?

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 is currently the fastest graphics card based on a single GPU. If you want more performance than what it can do, you need to look at a dual-GPU board or a pair of cards in CrossFire or SLI (and if you don't know what the card is capable of, check out GeForce GTX 580 And GF110: The Way Nvidia Meant It To Be Played).

As we've come to expect, there are board partners who deviate from the company's specification in one way or another in the interest of differentiation. Some employ overclocks straight from the factory, others implement custom cooling solutions, and nearly all try to offer unique features to set their products apart from the pack.

Four Overclocked GeForce GTX 580 Cards, Rounded Up

Today we're rounding up four premium GeForce GTX 580s, all of which arrive overclocked, and comparing them to a reference GeForce GTX 580. Our contenders include Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock, MSI’s N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC, Sparkle’s X580 Captain, and Zotac’s GeForce GTX 580 AMP²! Edition.

	Reference GeForce GTX 580	Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock	MSI N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC	Sparkle X580 Captain	Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP²!
Graphics Clock	772 MHz	855 MHz	800 MHz	822 MHz	815 MHz
Shader Clock	1544 MHz	1710 MHz	1600 MHz	1644 MHz	1630 MHz
Memory Clock	1002 MHz	1025 MHz	1024 MHz	1008 MHz	1025 MHz
GDDR5 Memory	1536 MB	1536 MB	1536 MB	1536 MB (3072 MB version expected soon)	3072 MB
Cooler	Reference	Windforce 3x	Twin Frozr II	Reference	Zalman VF3000
Size	11" x 5" x 1.8"	11.4" x 5.7" x 1.8"	11" x 5.2" x 1.8"	11" x 5" x 1.8"	11" x 5.3" x 2.5"
Connectors	2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI	2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI	2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI	2 x DL-DVI, 3x MiniDP	2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI
Form Factor	Dual-slot	Dual-slot	Dual-slot	Dual-slot	Triple-Slot
Price	$480 (Newegg)	$535 (Newegg)	$499 (Newegg)	$649 MSRP (1536 MB version)	$549 (Newegg)

As mentioned, all of these cards sport factory overclocks of varying degrees. But there are some unique features in the bunch, too. Let’s take a closer look at each unique spin on Nvidia’s design.

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