8 Years Later: Does the GeForce GTX 580 Still Have Game in 2018?

[Evernessince]

Lol what?
The 580 was going against the HD 6970 (and it did beat it, most of the time anyway) and if we're talking about AMD's newer tech, HD 7870 absolutely destroyed the GTX 580, lol. The HD 7970 was twice as fast as the 6970 and today it's probably more than twice faster, also more than twice faster than the 580 as well probably. The 7970 these days is smacking the GTX 780 around.

The AMD 200 series competed against Nvidia 700 series, not the 7000 series from AMD.

AMD has released many great cards, and flickering has plagued them for years. You'll still constantly see it as an issue in driver changelogs. I remember flickering so bad when using two 6950's to run Crysis 2 and BFBC2 after BF3 was already out. Let's just say I was very disappointed.

I remember the flickering as well. It was very annoying. I tinkered around with my 7970 and ended up fixing it by flashing the BIOS. It wasn't really a fix though, as it require you to increase the 2D clocks.

 

[sliderider]

So just to get some dates in there for the whole this card competed against this card crap. HD 5870 was launch in Sept 2009, the GTX 480 launched in March 2010, these were both companies first dx11 architectures. The HD 6970 launched Dec 2010, the GTX 580 launched Nov 2010, this puts there second gen refreshed gpus in close competition for launch time. The HD 7970 launched Jan 2012, the GTX 680 launched march 2012.

The closest competitor the GTX 580 had from AMD at launch was the HD 6970, they were pretty close in performance, Nvidia could pull higher frames from certain games over AMD but did so with an additional 75-100 watts of power, the 6970 tended to overclock better as well. The HD 6970 got a driver improvement through 2011 that closed the performance gap (AMD has a tendency to do this), it was always more power efficient. In today's world the Fermi architecture wins (in the sense of whether you should buy it used or not) simply because nvidia still supports it with drivers, the HD5xxx and HD6xxx gens lost driver support at the end of 2015/early 2016.

Just because it is still supported in the latest drivers does not mean that it will run optimally with them. Trailing edge cards tend to suffer when nvidia releases new drivers as they are almost always optimized for newer cards that people are still using in larger numbers than the oldest generation still supported. Rolling back to an earlier driver version often increases performance in older nvidia cards so AMD cards being limited to older drivers isn't always a handicap. There is no point to continuing driver support to an older card if performance is degraded by the new driver.

 

[Robert Priest]

Is it supposed to say "lower is better" on the graphs ? or should it be Higher ?

It’s better for cooking potatoes on...

 

[captaincranky]

It wouldn't matter. There is an excellent video on YouTube comparing the 1050ti to the 680 and the 1050ti matches or exceeds the performance of the 680 across all the games tested.

I don't know if you're allowed to link yet as a "Rookie", but if you can, it would be nice to insert the video into your post. You just click on the "blue film frames" icon in the toolbar, and paste the video'saddress into the window which opens.

With a less advanced gpu, the 580 would still be slower than the 1050ti even with 3gb of memory on board.

What I got the biggest kick out of, was watching the GTX-1050 ti humiliating all those former high end cards, since with all the "real gamers" around here, it's pretty much an object of scorn.

That notwithstanding, you still need to jack up the PSU by a couple hundred watts, to run the 580 comfortably, and that would cost maybe 20 or 30 bucks extra. Calling the 580 + PSU together maybe $75.00, would be granted half what the 1050 would, (or at this point "should"), cost, $150.00, still makes it a bargain, IMHO. If only for the fact that for double the money, you get up to double the frame rates in many instances

Still heat kills electronics, and any old 580 would have put in long hours running almost as hot as a toaster. I'm not a gamer, but I splurged on a EVGA 4 GB 1050 ti, "FTW" edition. Running a single 1440p monitor, I have yet to see the fans start, which is supposed to occur at 50 C...

 

[Digitalzone]

Meh, the old and used GTX 680 (but with 4GB) at my market costs about 170 USD ! I weren't able to find others. But it look to me, that buying mid-class GPUs time to time is maybe better than byuing the top-level.

 

[Lounds]

Great article. I think this reinforces what most agree to: Unless you have to pay for the latest and greatest the mid-range option offers better value when you upgrade every other generation or so compared to dropping the $500+ for the top of the line.

That is unless you buy AMD. The sad part here is that the GTX 580 was going against the 7970 yet here it's beaten by the 7950 in both performance and power consumption by a wide margin. AMD cards just typically have a longer life span and are better for people who want to keep one card over a long time. That's probably why I have a 1080 Ti, because I'll upgrade every generation.

Is it supposed to say "lower is better" on the graphs ? or should it be Higher ?

Nice catch. It is supposed to say Higher is better on every graph except the power consumption one. After all, more FPS is always better.

I still use a 7870XT (7930) and it's still a really decent GPU for modern titles.

 

[Stark]

You got an article out of this? Way to go.

It's not the destination but the journey itself, in this case, which matters more.

 

[commanderasus]

My GTX580 1.5gb video card was laid to rest today after 7 years of service, 2 of those years with the computer on 24/7. It was a small burial service with myself and my cat in attendance ( he buried his "non responding" mouse).

I bought a GTX1050 and a LG 32 FHD monitor for $300 and I am good to go for another few years.

 

[fps4ever]

It wouldn't matter. There is an excellent video on YouTube comparing the 1050ti to the 680 and the 1050ti matches or exceeds the performance of the 680 across all the games tested. With a less advanced gpu, the 580 would still be slower than the 1050ti even with 3gb of memory on board.

I never stated it would beat the other cards. I would be curious how it stack up against the 1.5GB in games that take advantage of more video memory. Try and think outside the box here.

 

[EClyde]

It's not the destination but the journey itself, in this case, which matters more.

You been reading to many Facebook posters

 

[wiyosaya]

I have a GTX 580 that I just recently upgraded. I have a GTX 460 too, that I also upgraded. I was watching the specs and benchmarks along the way, and it just seemed that dropping so much on a new card that really did not offer that much improvement was a bad idea to me. Since I run BOINC, the 580 had better DP compute power than pretty much every generation after.

I upgraded the GTX 580 to a GTX 980 Ti (which is still behind the 580 for dp compute) that I bought used for $330 and the 460 to a GTX 1060 (the 1060 is a bit better at DP compute than the 580) that I bought new for about $260. In retrospective, it would have been a better buy to have gotten two, used 980 Tis.

The 580 and the 460 will be going on e-bay when I have the time.

 

[TwoSheds]

The AMD 200 series competed against Nvidia 700 series, not the 7000 series from AMD.

Exactly, but you said that the 580 went against the 7970, so that wouldn't add up.

It was:
GTX 580 vs Radeon 6970
GTX 680 vs Radeon 7970
GTX 780 vs Radeon 290X

There is always going to be a few months of overlap when one side releases their next generation before the other, but it is not like they are going head to head. It would be like being back in late 2005 - most of 2006 and saying that the Xbox 360 crushes Sony's PS2 in processing power. Of course it does, it is current-gen vs next-gen.

 

[sir cv0k]

The 7970 was a pretty good card when it came out though. The only driver issue I remember was screen flickering when running two displays.

TFW I'm still sometimes getting the same issue on my R9 270X in 2018...

 

[Evernessince]

TFW I'm still sometimes getting the same issue on my R9 270X in 2018...

Try increasing your 2d clocks / mem frequency through the driver. That'll fix the flickering most of the time.

 

[Mugsy]

I would be very interested in knowing how my old GTX670 stands up against newer cards. My own research says the improvement is minimal.

I'd like to upgrade, but I just can't justify spending $250 on a gtx1060 if the performance gain isn't at least 30% (or buying a second bargain 670/680 and SLI them.)

And I agree with the reader above who included "annual electricity cost" in the overall cost figures of continuing to run an older card vs the advantages of upgrading.

 

[pcgamingisdead]

8800gt still trucking along here and by the way who can afford GPU nowadays and not to mention CPU maker the greedy corporation been gouging their cow for the good past decade or so with their broken products and what funny is the clown from intel dumping his share, today announce his company stop being PC centric, how convenience.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Exactly how much performance could you buy for a dollar back in 2000 or 2010 for that matter? And how much performance would that dollar pay for today? To be honest I don't see gouging when compared to past performances. What I see is greedy people wanting more for less and falsely placing that greed blame on corporations.

 

[Evernessince]

Exactly how much performance could you buy for a dollar back in 2000 or 2010 for that matter? And how much performance would that dollar pay for today? To be honest I don't see gouging when compared to past performances. What I see is greedy people wanting more for less and falsely placing that greed blame on corporations.

GPU prices have remained mostly the same, with the exception of the titan cards and the recent card shortage. A GTX 580 would run you around $500 which equates to around $700 today, the price of a GTX 1080 Ti.

 

[cliffordcooley]

GPU prices have remained mostly the same

So should I assume you are saying performance has also remained the same?

 

[Evernessince]

So should I assume you are saying performance has also remained the same?

??

No, we all know that.

 

[cliffordcooley]

That was my point. GPU performance is a thousand times better, when the price has only slightly increased. Even IGP performance is a thousand times better than what we had. Anyone complaining about prices is the greedy one.

 

[Boilerhog146]

I would be very interested in knowing how my old GTX670 stands up against newer cards. My own research says the improvement is minimal.

.

My last Gpu was a pair of the 4 gig version of the GTX 670, and they out perform a GTX 970 in supported titles .like WOT. a single GTX 1080 gets about 40 frames more at 2560 x1600.

If yours is a 2 gig version ,it would run out of Vram also and start using system memory, which would cause some issues.a single 4 gig version would run out of processing power to use the 4 gig of Vram. but 2 x 4 gig cards was a sweet spot, and still runs great today,get the second 670 if you have a 4 gig card.then game happy and wait for next gen.unless you pay too much for power ..also be aware console ports and some newer games do not support multi GPU. your Nvidia sponsored titles are good to go..World of Tanks.... ROLL OUT.

Nvidia should have never built the GTX 580 with 1.5 gig. should have had 3 gig from the start, then a pair of those would still be rockin 1080p , and the power house.

My SLI GTX 480 @ 1080p in WOT runs from 75- 85 frames per.
My SLI GTX 670 @ 1600 x1200 in WOT runs from 116- 124 frames per .
My single GTX 1080 @2560 x1600 in WOT runs from 118 -130 frames per.

All at max settings. don't know about power consumption ,don't have one of those thingy's.

 

[TheHughMan]

Since GPUs are out of stock, the GTX 580 is more Relevant than a GTX 1080.

 

[Evernessince]

That was my point. GPU performance is a thousand times better, when the price has only slightly increased. Even IGP performance is a thousand times better than what we had. Anyone complaining about prices is the greedy one.

Yeah, I agree with that point. I never said anything about GPUs being overpriced, you are thinking of the other guy.

 

[cliffordcooley]

you are thinking of the other guy.

maybe so