Display Outputs And Tessellation Performance
As previously mentioned, GeForce GTX 590 comes equipped with three dual-link DVI outputs and one mini-DisplayPort connector. You can use all four concurrently in productivity-oriented environments, but taking advantage of Surround or 3D Vision Surround limits you to three. Be aware that creating a single display surface via Surround mode kills HDCP compliance for things like Blu-ray movie playback.
This is one comparison where AMD comes out on top definitively. We’ve seen the company enjoy much success with Eyefinity, and that halo feature remains the reason I continue using Radeon-based cards in my production workstation. Even with two GPUs on a single card, Nvidia’s flagship cannot match the output connectivity of a single Radeon HD 6000-based board. Hopefully this compels the company to devote more attention to what has become a must-have feature for the growing contingent of folks who’d rather spend a couple hundred bucks each on three 1920x1080 displays versus $1500+ on a nice 2560x1600 monitor.
Another Look At Tessellation
I’ve been fairly critical of Nvidia’s scaling story when it comes to geometry performance. Titles like HAWX 2 have proven to be demanding enough to demonstrate the relative weakness of AMD’s Radeon HD 5000-series cards. However, I haven’t been able to show the real benefit of moving from eight Polymorph engines (in the GeForce GTX 560 Ti) to 15 or 16 (in the GeForce GTX 570 and 580).
Meanwhile, AMD’s Radeon HD 6990 showed us that four of the company’s own tessellation engines can maintain 76% of the card’s performance with the feature turned on versus disabling it completely.
The GeForce GTX 590 reestablishes Nvidia’s dominance by achieving 83% scaling, shedding just 41 frames when tessellation is turned on at 1920x1200. It probably bears further examination as to what, exactly, prevents better scaling on the single-GPU cards. But I don’t think the problem is related to geometry throughput.
Related Stories :
- Radeon HD 6990M And GeForce GTX 580M: A Beautiful Lie
- GeForce GTX 580M SLI Vs. Radeon HD 6990M CrossFire
- The AMD Radeon HD 6990 Dual GPU Card is Huge
- Radeon HD 7990 And GeForce GTX 690: Bring Out The Big Guns
- AMD Updates Radeon HD 7950 to Counter GeForce GTX 660 Ti
- AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review: Up Against GeForce GTX 580
- AVADirect's W860CU: Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Vs. GeForce GTX 285M
- GeForce GTX 480 Poses Next to Radeon HD 5970
- Radeon HD 5770, Radeon HD 4890, And GeForce GTX 275 Overclocked
- GeForce GTX 275, Radeon HD 4890 Now Available
Nvidia like ATI should have gone full copper for their coolers instead of using aluminum for the fins.
The clock speeds are a bit of a disappointment as well the high power draw and the performance is not that better than a 6990. Bleh !
Very comprehensive article! Nice job!
I'm impressed, good to see Nvida has started to care about the "livable experience" of their high end products.
Great card. But low clocks.
GREAT for overclocking!
Wow @ low noise
Draw! Win some loose some. What is the fastest card? Some will say GTX590 others HD6990 and they are both right.
MMMM... HD 6990.... OR GTX 590... HMMM I'll go with a HD 5770 CF setup because im cheap.
You can't say Nvidia wins based on the sound level of the cards. That's just flat out favoritism.
I'll be buying a 6990 and water cooling it. Nothing will beat it.
Draw! Win some loose some. What is the fastest card? Some will say GTX590 others HD6990 and they are both right.
Thats more or less how I feel. They both trade blows depending on the game.
I think both cards are faster in their own niches, for example in acoustics 590 wins, but in power which is the main issue to tackle as days go by, your bill will certainly go high, but you don't pay anything for the noise, so in that case AMD STILL has the fastest single graphic card on the planet.
AMD is still the winner, whichever you look at it though
You can't say Nvidia wins based on the sound level of the cards. That's just flat out favoritism. I'll be buying a 6990 and water cooling it. Nothing will beat it.
I think 2 GTX 580 will beat it. And costs about the same too, if you look hard enough.
I think both cards are faster in their own niches, for example in acoustics 590 wins, but in power which is the main issue to tackle as days go by, your bill will certainly go high, but you don't pay anything for the noise, so in that case AMD STILL has the fastest single graphic card on the planet. AMD is still the winner, whichever you look at it though
The 590 uses less than 10W more compared to 6990 in AUSUM. Compare that to 430W, and it's small change, really.
Well, at the moment 590s are not available to buy, so it does not exist beyond benchmarks and reviews...It is not a competition till we see real world pricing. Let the battle begin! btw 5870 price is hard to beat right now.
"Nevertheless, in a comparison between GeForce GTX 590 versus Radeon HD 6990, Nvidia wins."
"Not hearing it is a requisite"
Done a survey? How many says it's a requisite?
Also at performance preset, the GTX590 leads, wondering why there's no benchmark for extreme preset?
This is no nVidia victory, I'm sure of it, but it's such a small margin it sucks. That 1.5GB per GPU hurts the card where you'll be using it most: high res. It's like a tech KO by AMD, not a flat out punch-KO though.
Cheers!
The card blew up during testing at tech power up.Power limiting system does not work reliably
i wonder how long until AMD board partners use a fan instead of blower(blowers win on air flow, but they can be louder), i have seen several such coolers on other amd and nvidia cards.
Either way, the lower noise is impressive.
Does anyone else think that the 1680 benchmarks shouldn't be used in cards like this?
Paying >$600 for a GPU almost certainly means you have multiple monitor setups and/or high res monitor(s). Otherwise why not buy a better monitor and a lower costing card to use its full potential?
Thank you for posting the audio samples of both dual GPU cards. Getting to hear each one really made the difference telling. I'll be sticking with single gpu card arrangements, thank you very much. ^ ^ b