Hardware Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 3GB Review

All hail those "superior" nVidia drivers! lol!

 

You're sitting too close to your TV screen if that's case...

Sitting 1.2 foot from your 11" screen will give you a viewing angle of around 36 degree's

Sitting 5.6 foot away from a 50" screen will give you the exact same viewing angle and both screen's will be 16x9 so looking at both screens from a suitable distance based on the screen size is going to mean the images will both appear almost identical.

 

Disappointing review. Not quite enough games and not the ones I want to see (and other people too, judging by the comments posted over the last few months).

 

Talk about performance boost

 

I have not missed ANY CustomPC's since I first started reading them along with PC Extreme from about issue 8 in 2004, so there's no need to dig any urls out.
This fanboy has had about three times the amount of Nvidia cards over ATI cards in his rigs over the years!
In your 'Overclocking Masterclass' Issue 91, where are the AMD gpu overclock guides? 3 Nvidia ones and not a single AMD one.

I don't think I can be bothered to buy any more Custom PCs from now on either!

 

prefer my 580 sli duel gpu is a driver minefield as proven in the call of duty test to be honest. Both are too hot and too noisy and too long to fit in a standard case without alterations in 6990 case a water cooled 590 might be fun to see

the 5970 means ill never buy another amd product no matter how much better it is what a driver/bios hell that was no matter how much it got recomended. AMD need to up there driver production standards and that would be the major boost that might make them more well liked.

metro 2033 was not a great game
crysis is still a graphics demo
crysis 2 is console fied
aliens vs predator is a great looking game but not sure id want to see it reviewed.

Most games i play are MMOs review the cards in rifts or Wow would be more interesting to alot of foke. or racing games latest need for speed series is likely highly popular.

id bet most gamers dont even play the most demanding graphical titles.

6990 vs 590 is lose lose for all concerned unless you cant afford or dont want sli crossfire

6950 x2 with modded bios will outperform either card for around £ 400

570 and 580 sli blows this away and if your willing to spend £600 for a single gpu adding another £ 200 for sli 580s doesnt sound like the worst investment.

580 and 590 + 6990 are well beyound most peoples budgets value is something id like to see removed from these high end reviews. If you can afford to buy this sorta gear price is usauly a none concern which makes value a no concern

 

+1, LOL

2nd time they've released "card frying" drivers.

 

Fair enough, sorry for slurring you with the fanboy label.

Simple; we don't recommend any AMD graphics cards right now, so why waste space on further coverage (we've already reviewed them) on products we don't recommend and so readers are unlikely to own compared to products we do recommend (i.e. the cards that are in the feature). Similarly, you won't find the GTX 470 or 480 in the feature because we never recommended them.

 

seriously and people give crap about ATI drivers lol

 

Good review again missing them SLI comparisons

 

I've just run the benchmark in the demo of Arma II:OA and I must admit it looks very swish. I have basically set every setting as high as it'll go - visibility at 10000, Terrain Detail at Normal but every other setting is Very High. Res is 1920x1200. On my o/c GTX460 768MB I get a healthy 34fps! I was quite impressed/amazed! The post processing on Very High certainly makes the game look very pretty. It's very playable at those settings although the helicopter tutorial does my head in when you have to land it, damn it's tricky.

 

This is what techpowerup (http://www.techpowerup.com) had to say about it: With a card like GeForce GTX 590, that has so much latent performance, I couldn't wait to try bumping the voltage to see how much I could gain from it.

As a first step, I increased the voltage from 0.938 V default to 1.000 V, maximum stable clock was 815 MHz - faster than GTX 580! Moving on, I tried 1.2 V to see how much could be gained here, at default clocks and with NVIDIA's power limiter enabled. I went to heat up the card and then*boom*, a sound like popcorn cracking, the system turned off and a burnt electronics smell started to fill up the room. Card dead! Even with NVIDIA power limiter enabled. Now the pretty looking, backlit GeForce logo was blinking helplessly and the fan did not spin, both indicate an error with the card's 12V supply.
After talking to several other reviewers, this does not seem to be an isolated case, and many of them have killed their cards with similar testing, which is far from being an extreme test.

 

First off thanks for the apology on the fanboy comment.
I suppose I have a bee in my bonett, as after having to sell my 5870 due to unforseen circumstances last year, I waited to see what was the best pick from this gens gpu's.
After Custom PC's recommendation I opted for the 560 over the 6950 2GB. My brother (who reads PC Format and bought it after their unlocking recommendation) bought a 6950 2gb and unlocked it, something Custom PC has never mentioned!

Now I'm a huge fan of Dragons Age and after getting DA 2, it ran like a complete dog on Nvidias drivers. My brother offered me his unlocked 6950 to try DA 2 with the game and low and behold not only does it play DA 2 pretty perfectly, it plays all my other games better (Crysis, Warhead, BC2, Just Cause 2, Metro, GTA 4, FNV, Stalker cop) than my 560 did.

The 560 has since been sold and replaced by not one but two unlocked 6950's in xfire (which incidently beats both the 6990 and 590 and cost £400). Selling the 560 has left me at a loss of £40 being sold on.

This is from the card that Custom PC refers to this month as: 'The HD 6950 1GB makes a mockery of the 2GB version for single-screen gaming'

Before anyone tells me that the information was there on the net, I dismissed it as my beloved Custom PC had not gave me the thumbs up. This month they have only referred to the unlocking by stating that it being a 'problem' for AMD.

I have always bought my tech on recommendations by Custom PC, but on this occasion they have let me down badly.

Anyway rant over and goodnight from me.

 

Dam where's the Minecraft and Super Nintendo emulator benchmarks at?

Seriously someone is gonna pay $700 for a video card and play Black Ops on one monitor at 1680 x 1050 resolution? Come on what happened to you guys? I use to trust this website. I know reviews are time consuming but this is a joke of a review on some Ultra High end graphics cards.

Bad Company 2 and Arma II are great uses but how about across 3 monitors or in 3D? Isn't that what these cards are for.....please correct me if I'm wrong. Wow thanks to this review looks like a 590GTX will make my dedicated HTPC work good. Sorry but this review lacked meat for what these cards are truly made for.

 

How dare you question the good name of Bit-Tech and CustomPC, yet again for giving a positive review to another nonAMD product.

You people are a god damn disgrace.

Bit-Tech/CustomPC are one of the most trusted, independent and respected publications in the industry.

Just because you don't agree, doesn't make them wrong.

 

I know it's old hat and outdated but if crysis was re-included in reviews it would be the most read performance page. People don't think of it as a game when reading reviews of gpus on this end of the scale, they read it as a real world benchmark. I know metro ain't great but the point that seems to be lost is that readers who are interested in high end cards are looking to read how hard these cards can be pushed. If the game test set is not to be expanded add more tests with these cards against multi gpu setups and on 3 screen set ups. These are the comparisons that readers need to make informed decisions. Other than that great read and amazing gpu!

 

Have to agree.

 

I had to LOL.

 

are they serious? 1.2v?

even a single GTX 580 can only be overvolted up to 1.138v with reference BIOS. (i know this because i own a completely reference card) two GF110 with only 450w power connection and they try to put 1.2v through it?

 

I seriously don't know why you don't recommend the 6950 2GB!

So far 97% of cards are unlocking to 6970 specs!

If your are in the tiny 3% of people whose cards don't unlock, you're still left with a card that goes toe to toe with a 560ti for a little over £200.