Video Clock

[STOPOT]

Hey,
Whats the difference between a GTX 580 772 MHZ and GTX 580 797 MHZ in terms of real gaming performance? Does 50 MHZ actually make a difference? Thanks

 

[joerge]

sometimes a manufacturer will clock a card slightly higher than the rest who sell them at stock speeds or close to clock speeds in an attempt to sell the card at a higher price,
changing the clock speed up 50 is relatively simple with the software that the card itself comes with,
never really toyed with nvidia cards to be frank but as far as amd goes that is how it usually is.

 

[STOPOT]

How much does 50 impact performance?

 

[Supernova1138]

It won't be a huge boost, the overclock might make the card about 5% faster, not going to be noticeable in most cases. A stock 580 will destroy just about every game out there at all but the ludicrously high resolutions (ie. 2560x1600), Crysis 2 being the major exception, though the GTX 580 one of the few single GPUs that can max out Crysis 2 at 1080p and still get an acceptable framerate.

 

[photonboy]

If we assume the graphics card is the bottleneck, and it probably is, then the MAXIMUM frame per second would be:

797/772

Which is 3%.

However I've tested this concept and your lucky to get a maximum of 2% due to the graphics card architecture (it's pretty complicated). Also, it only matters if you aren't capped, and you really should be attempting to run most games at 60FPS with VSYNC enabled. 60FPS is because that's the maximum most monitors can display and VSYNC is to synchronize updating the screen so you don't get tearing of the screen.

(VSYNC and Anti-Aliasing can be forced for AMD cards using RadeonPro if a game, like Mass Effect 1 or 2 doesn't support it; for ME use 4xAA SuperSampling if possible. Awesome tool. The only game I was unsuccessful was Witcher #1 and ATITraytools worked for it.)

So ignore such a small increase and look at PRICE, QUALITY and COOLING (NOISE). Also be aware of the recent micro-stuttering article. In otherwords, stay away from SLI or Crossfire.

If you really need a GTX580 then I'd be careful about the noise level so compare. My advice personally would be to get either a GTX560Ti or GTX570.

Be aware of the following, upcoming cards which use a 28nm process and will be roughly 2.5 to 3x the performance for the same power (which means MUCH, MUCH QUIETER):

AMD 7000 series (Q4 2011)
NVidia 600 series (Q2 2012)

I already have an HD5870, but money's no issue, however noise and micro-stuttering are. I have a few games that would benefit from a better card. Actually, it's annoying that even with only one graphics card I still get stuttering and other issues even at 60FPS.

Anyway, I intend to buy an NVidia card, hopefully in April 2012 which performs about 3x as well as my current HD5870. It's recommended to get more than 1GB for single-GPU cards because upcoming games will be using more VRAM. 1.5GB would likely be plenty.

I like AMD, however it seems that in general NVidia is getting slightly better results with improved drivers and talking to the video game companies. As well there's the whole PhysX issue. I only got the HD5870 (which is still great) because at the time the NVidia 400 series was far too hot and loud forcing a redesign which became the 500 series.

 

[STOPOT]

From the videos I've seen, AMD seems on average to be louder as well as larger. I was going to wait for the 600 series but looking back on nvidia's product life cycle, it seems the most likely date for replacements of 590 and 580s are at least march 2012. I was thinking if I get one 580 or 590 now, I can SLI them later when games get more demanding. I guess from what I'm reading above the 50 increase is just trying to jack up the price, from the choices that are given, I think if I was getting a 580, I'd probably go with the higher memory one than the high clock since memory is increased 100% while clock is only up 3%. Thanks for the replies.

 

[jryan388]

Be aware of the following, upcoming cards which use a 28nm process and will be roughly 2.5 to 3x the performance for the same power (which means MUCH, MUCH QUIETER):

Do you have a source for that information? 2.5 to 3x?
It seems that based on the current generation's architecture, a die shrink would yield only (28nm/40nm)^2 percent power usage. That equals 49%. And then take into account that the RAM chips will likely use the same power, and other parts of the card as well, so there won't be a significant reduction elsewhere.

And also, using the "same power" means the "same heat" and thus the cooling requirements will be identical. Radeon 7xxx and GTX 6xx will not be any quieter because of a die shrink. They may change the stock HSF to something quieter, but that isn't the point.

 

[STOPOT]

When 600s come out, will the 590 and 580's price drop lots?