ASUS GeForce GTX 590 3 GB

[alucasa]

Well, duh, so much for the hype, lol

 

[BraveSoul]

great review W1zzard, thank you
i wonder if custom pcb's will make it to market, with stronger MOSFETs

 

[the54thvoid]

Let's all be adults and call it a performance stalemate. If i was asked which one i'd like for free, I'd go with the quieter one, given the few % difference means feck all in real world gaming.

I'm sure the AIB/AIC's will do their own versions and quite likely with 3 power connectors to alleviate the voltage/power issues and maybe super dooper cooling.

The base summary is clear, AMD have the edge for 28nm because they have much better efficiency and design. I think the 590 is surprisingly good at these low clock speeds .

But i wouldn't buy either one. Total waste of money. Lets face it, if you have cash to buy one of these you have cash for a good mobo that would allow sli/crossfire. Give me two 6970's or two 580's any day.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Thats what i said, the 6990 is a better card.

It consumes a fair amount less in games, it doesn't blow up when you try to clock it, it's faster at the resolutions a that are used now (1200p and 1600p).

ATi hasn't released any new drivers (officially) since they released the 6990 (IIRC), so drivers ain't a comparion here.

Be interesting to see the SLi review. Wonder if the 590 will manage more than 20% scalling. Or are we once again limited by the console generation and 1600p being the max resolution in these reviews.

Maybe Wizz should invest in a 1600p tri-monitor setup to see if thats the case. Surely TPU has the power to request such kit.

fixed!

 

[Frizz]

590 Prices in AUD 1080-1090

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...gtx+590&spos=3

6990 Prices in AUD 790-860

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...hd+6990&spos=1

Can someone explain why Nvidia's prices are so appalling compared to AMD's in Australia? Judging from W1zzard's review there is not much that would justify a 590 to be bought over a 6990 in our country except for CUDA, PhysX, 3D surround. An extra 200+ AUD for those features just doesn't seem worth it at all.

 

[SammyHayabuza]

The Big winner is the 6970 in Crossfire!!!

 

[Razi3l]

590 Prices in AUD

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...gtx+590&spos=3

6990 Prices in AUD

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...hd+6990&spos=1

Can someone explain why Nvidia's prices are so appalling compared to AMD's in Australia? Judging from W1zzard's review there is not a single thing that would justify a 590 to be bought over a 6990 in our country except for CUDA, PhysX, 3D surround. An extra 200+ AUD for those features just doesn't seem worth it at all.

NVIDIA tend to always overprice their products. The price of a 590 here is also somewhat higher than a 6990 yet it is slower and likes to go ka-boom!

 

[Harlequin_uk]

so the 6950 in CF is faster in 1 or 2 dgames for alot less money

btw , what was asus reaction when you told then you blew the card up? got to pay for it now?

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

how do you figure that. the 6990 overall is 4% faster and with overclocking its even faster. Asus TOP card is clocked at 900mhz. that will smash the 6990. Also drivers come into play here as it did with the 6990 when it released.

The 6990 is also priced at $699

The low factory clocks are what is killing the 590 from winning in every situation. if they clocked it at 725mhz or so it would win.

Did you even read the review? The card BLEW UP when Wizz tried to take it beyond 815 MHz. I doubt that 900 MHz can be reached, unless the VRM-components are improved drastically and water cooling is used, which would lead to the card costing like 900$. Also, it's overall 4% faster. At bigger resolutions than 1920x1080, the 6990 is as fast/faster.

 

[Mussels]

Why oh why do you insist at reviewing at such ridiculously low resolutions for these monsters? These cards are made to drive multiple monitors or the VERY LEAST a single monitor at 1920x1080.

Second, how do you calculate performance per watt when you know that the Nvidia cards use power protection to attain lower power usage than the 6990.

If anyone want's to see a more accurate review, head over to [H]ardocp.

... you realise he tests multiple resolutions to make the cards comparable to their lower end brethren? you can read and/or scroll down in your browser, yes?

performance per watt is very easy to calculate... you measure the power they use vs the performance they give out. how can you get any more accurate than that? If the nvidia drivers/power protection hamper the performance by limiting the power, then that is going to be taken into account. its completely insane to think you'd measure it any other way, when thats how its going to behave for people gaming/benchmarking on the cards.


your argument for going over to [H] is... well, its not strong. lol.

 

[horik]

The Big winner is the 6970 in Crossfire!!!

nah,6950 CF

 

[Razi3l]

performance per watt is very easy to calculate... you measure the power they use vs the performance they give out. how can you get any more accurate than that? If the nvidia drivers/power protection hamper the performance by limiting the power, then that is going to be taken into account. its completely insane to think you'd measure it any other way, when thats how its going to behave for people gaming/benchmarking on the cards.

Well if he's worried about the power limiter throttling the card, he can always disable it and watch the fireworks.

 

[W1zzard]

Why oh why do you insist at reviewing at such ridiculously low resolutions for these monsters? These cards are made to drive multiple monitors or the VERY LEAST a single monitor at 1920x1080.

consider them additional free data points, dont look at them if you don't care. they do provide some insight to some people looking at this from a non-consumer perspective.

Second, how do you calculate performance per watt when you know that the Nvidia cards use power protection to attain lower power usage than the 6990.

nvidia's power capping reduces the clock speeds, which reduces power consumption and performance, effectively leaving performance per watt the same.

your precious hardocp measures power consumption at the wall and subtracts system wattage without graphics card in idle. ask yourself where the power is in that measurement that the cpu/memory/hdd/motherboard/psu inefficiency consume by going from idle without graphics card to 3d gaming load.

i wonder if custom pcb's will make it to market, with stronger MOSFETs

i know of someone working on a 3x 8 pin card without power limit that it designed like a tank

 

[Razi3l]

i know of someone working on a 3x 8 pin card without power limit that it designed like a tank

I guess that they are ASUS? Because none of their DCII cards have the power limiter. I bet it will also have a pretty big price tag, and I would imagine it will be like the ARES, so.. £1000 I bet. Anyways, great review. I had a feeling these may have trouble with voltage+overclocking

 

[2DividedbyZero]

so how long will we see arguments along the lines :

nVidia - yeah buts our card can rocks your poor Radeon effort

AMD - untils it blows up

 

[Jack Doph]

i know of someone working on a 3x 8 pin card without power limit that it designed like a tank

I'm sure that will stay within the ATX specs
Seriously though.. For a card to blow up like it did, are consumers at this end of the market truly expected to pay this price when they cannot even be guaranteed their card will survive, let alone beat the rival?
And to what end purpose?

 

[Frizz]

NVIDIA tend to always overprice their products. The price of a 590 here is also somewhat higher than a 6990 yet it is slower and likes to go ka-boom!

I just heard from a local PC store rep, they say the price is much higher in Aus due to the limited stock..?

Doesn't seem like PCcasegear.com.au have bought a batch of these cards to sell either, they usually have it up before release with coming soon or put it up for sale on release date so I guess that makes sense then.

 

[W1zzard]

I'm sure that will stay within the ATX specs

/care as long as it works, you can sell it and make money with it

there is no official spec beyond 2x 8 pin as far as i know

 

[Jack Doph]

/care

there is no official spec beyond 2x 8 pin as far as i know

Not the issue. Point 2 is though..

 

[mdm-adph]

The fact that the Asus 6990 4GB got a TPU score of 9.1 and this got a 7.0 does not bode well for this card.
I was hoping for a beat down on ATI so the GPU wars would continue. :/

Well, it's not a bad card -- it matches the 6990 in terms of raw performance. It's just not a good buy, because of the much extra power it has to draw to get there, and thus the lower score.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Price-wise both HD 6990 and GTX 590 are tied around $700 which is a lot of money to spend on a graphics card. My recommendation would be to go with a single GPU GTX 580 or 6970 and wait what the future brings in terms of games - most games are console ports, Crysis 2 is DX9. Developers! The PC needs more love from you.

This is what matters

edit: Fixed

 

[Jack Doph]

This is what matters

Agreed!
If only the price-point was the same the world over..

 

[Frizz]

Agreed!
If only the price-point was the same the world over..

+1 amen to that..

 

[Delta6326]

holy crap lots views! great review! i can't believe how close these 2 are but IT blew up in testing?! (sorry had to)

 

[catnipkiller]

155 users viewing lol i never thought it would blow up. poor nvidia