Conclusion
Nvidia has improved a lot of things with this so-called new chip. The Geforce GTX 580 is the fastest single GPU card that we have tested so far. The cooler is improved compared to GTX 480; the card is definitely not as hot as before and you can see that average gaming improvement over the GTX 480 is some 20 percent. It can jump to 30 percent but only in a few specific usage scenarios.
Tessellation runs fine, but the lack of games with proper support is really spoiling the fun. However, make no mistake - this card is definitely a great solution when it comes to tessellation. AMD's Cayman is the riddle that we still haven’t solved and this is the only ATI chip that might counter this DirectX 11 single GPU in the high end.
Still, bear in mind that dual GF110 based cards should come out and be even faster. Also, the Antilles, a.k.a. Radeon HD 6990 dual cards should also end up faster. Both of them are scheduled for launch this year and traditionally should cost at least €100 or $100 more than single GPU cards. Unfortunately, pricing is something you can never claim with certainty. Of course, two chips of that magnitude will end up very hot.
With an average selling price of €439 and listings going all the way to €499, we cannot say it’s really a bargain. The US version is listed for $559.99 which sounds like a lot.
It’s well worth noting that the card ends up faster than even a dual chip Radeon HD 5970 card, but it also loses in at least a few tests especially at 2560x1600 and some DirectX 11 games. It obviously leaves the Radeon HD 5870 in the dust, and there’s no doubt it’s a much faster card.
Power consumption is slightly better than GTX 480 but it is still pretty high. It is not as hot as the GTX 480 and it’s also quieter, which can’t be ignored.
Overall the card is the fastest single GPU card available. This will be the case until Radeon HD 6970, a.k.a. Cayman single GPU card is here. Of course, there are no guaranties that this card will be out on time, or that it will beat the GTX 580.
Overall feeling is that this is Fermi done right, unfortunately a year later than it was supposed to appear. If you are after a single GPU card, you don’t care much about your power bill and you can afford it, there’s no reason to overlook the Geforce GTX 580.