Tough choice: Which 580 should I get?

I really don't believe the GTX580 is a big enough upgrade from a 470 to warrant spending the money on it now that the HD 7000 series is out, and with the new Nvidia 600 series just around the corner, even less so. If you simply want the performance level around a 580, consider the HD 7950. If you want to stay Nvidia because of PhysX, then you should wait for the new 600 series cards so you can either get one of those, or grab a 580 for a lower price.

I'll agree with the above post. The performance upgrade from a 470 to 480 isn't worth the purchase

As everyone else has mentioned, best to wait for the GTX 680. If scuttlebutt is to be believed, you only have a couple of weeks before it drops. 23rd March seems to be the date bandied around, although Charlie D, the misfiring doyen of all things anti-Nvidia is picking next week (unlikely as no one seems to have cards yet, and no one seems to be under NDA).

Kyle Bennett has hinted at a 40-50% improvement over GTX 580 in "canned benchmarks" (read synthetics- 3DMark11, Vantage, Stone Giant, TessMark etc.), which probably still means a handy performance boost in gaming. The single card surround ability may also be a feature that the OP may wish to take note of for future reference.
Worst case scenario is that the price of GTX 580's drops substantially in the wake of the 680 (or possibly 670Ti's) launch, and I don't think we're too far away from seeing what the new architecture brings if detailed pics are showing up on the net...

Guess I'll wait a little but I was surprised to read that there is no huge performance difference from the 470 to the 580!!
When you read the reviews you can see almost twice the difference.
https://www.techspot.com/review/423-gigabyte-geforce-gtx580-soc/page7.html

The GTX 580 will be a step up, but it's probably not worth a $500+ upgrade. Depending which games you play, your GTX 470 gets close to 60fps in most of them (except for games like Crysis 2, which wasn't very good anyway). Bear in mind that if your monitor is only 60Hz, you won't notice any difference above 60fps.

It's definitely worth waiting for the 600 series to come out, it's not like you're in desperate need of a faster graphics card right now.

Sounds as though W1zz over at TPU has his card(s)- so it sounds as though reviews aren't too far away.
Main points of interest seem to be:

Dynamic over/underclocking to maintain framerate in 3D applications where thermal/power limits allow (overclock), and to reduce power consumption (underclock) where framerates are excessive and non-productive (menu screens, older DX9/OpenGL titles ?). Sounds similar in theory to Turbo and power saving/downclocking measures already implemented in CPU tech.

Nominal stock clocks of 705MHz core, 1411MHz shader, 6008MHz memory (effective). Not beyond the realms of possibility that the shaders can run 1:1 with core as a power saving measure if the application does not warrant the higher hotclock.

GK104 die size ~300mm² ( Tahiti @ 365mm², Pitcairn @ 245mm² and GF110 (Fermi) @ 520mm² as reference)

2 x 6pin PCI-E power connection

According to Chinese forums GTX 670Ti (presumeably a lower clocked salvage part) is "7% slower than the HD 7970" (at what, and at what resolution and power usage is anyones guess).


While the GTX 680...


...scores ~300 points higher than HD 7970 (3DMark11 X-preset) with current 295.xx drivers, and ~500 points higher with 300.xx drivers @ 195 watt power.

Great - now I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight DBZ. I've got my money saved up for a pair of 680s if they impress me more than the 7970 and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for the last couple of weeks.

AMD have, in the past held graphics prices in check - playing the value-for-money card. Rory Read's revolution seems to have done away with the policy. I'm hoping that Nvidia, as well as going with the small die strategy, adopt the value pricing aspect also...though I'm not holding my breath.
Scuttlebutt seems to be that GK110 (GTX 690 / 780 ?) is shaping up as a latter day G80 (i.e. a game changer in the way the 8800GTX was)- so if Nvidia foresaw the GTX670/680 as a second-tier card they may well have some wiggle room on pricing once stocks fill up the channel.

you know if you overclock that gtx 470 you can get some serious power out of it like almost gtx 480 speeds. Look at my clocks on my card i run mine at 800 MHZ core and it is a beast.

klepto12 said:

you know if you overclock that gtx 470 you can get some serious power out of it like almost gtx 480 speeds. Look at my clocks on my card i run mine at 800 MHZ core and it is a beast.

Click to expand...

I have it overclocked at the same speeds you are using. Actually thats what got me confused as to which 580 to buy initially "before folks convinced me to wait". That specific line of Gigabyte has a 14 PWM, & triple performance fans that are barely audible & it overclocks nicely & stable.