The GTX 590

kristian221 · Apr 25, 2011

I have heard so many people saying not to buy a GTX 590 because it is so slow? I am going to build a rig designed for 3 monitors, and able to run all the latest games on max settings. I was very excited because I could run 3 monitors on a single card which is much cheaper than buying 2 GTX 580, which everyone seems to recommend. Yet that would cost near to $1,000! My question is why is everyone saying the GTX 590 is a bad card? Is there two cards I can put in SLI that would be cheaper and out preform the GTX 590?

Charr · Apr 25, 2011

Double GPU cards are always slower than their single counterparts in pairs due to the need to downclock them for heat concerns. If you can afford GTX580 SLI, it will be faster.

Romanrp · Apr 25, 2011

570 sli also beats the 590

kristian221 · Apr 25, 2011

Romanrp said:
570 sli also beats the 590

But would it be cheaper? It seems the GTX 590 is about as powerful as two 570s in SLI.

And as stated above wouldn't cooling become more of a concern and force me to buy more fans anyways?

Romanrp · Apr 25, 2011

Well, that depends on how much the 570s and a 590 costs where you are.
Where I am, yes its cheaper, but depends on what 570 you are talking about.

590s get really REALLY hot that many of them blew up.
Some even on stock clocks lol.
I wouldnt buy a 590 now, wait atleast until theres a new revision out or something.

kristian221 · Apr 25, 2011

I am buying from newegg, there is no where in my town to buy a graphics card other then best buy with their crap selection lol

So are the 570s capable of everything the 590 is?

Ethan E · Apr 25, 2011

The 590 will have much more vram than the 570's. When you sli, it mirrors vram, so the game will see only 1.25GB with sli'd 570's, where as 590 will show 3gb. If you want to do 3 monitors , you want as much vram as possible. The consensus seems to be that 2x 580 3gb will be more powerful than 1x 590 3gb, while still supplying the game with as much vram as possible.

kristian221 · Apr 25, 2011

Ethan E said:
The 590 will have much more vram than the 570's. When you sli, it mirrors vram, so the game will see only 1.25GB with sli'd 570's, where as 590 will show 3gb. If you want to do 3 monitors , you want as much vram as possible. The consensus seems to be that 2x 580 3gb will be more powerful than 1x 590 3gb, while still supplying the game with as much vram as possible.

Ah ok I did not know that it mirrored ram, I assumed they were combined. So really it is a contest between 2 580s and 1 590? From what I have seen while the 2 580s do slightly out preform the 590 it is not by a HUGE margin for the extra $300 that it would cost.

Bobnova · Apr 25, 2011

The gtx590 is SLI, it has two GPU cores each with it's own 1.5gb of ram.
So you're actually comparing 1.25gb to 1.5gb. Not that big.

Two 580s beats a 590 fairly handily, especially if you take OCing into the mix.
Two 570s beats it too, again moreso with OCing.
That said, both the 570s and the 590 have a dubious power section, bumping volts has been known to cause mosfets to explode on both of them.
The 580 does not have this problem.

arcanise · Apr 25, 2011

in either case any of the 500 series cards from 560 and up will do what ever it is you want to do, IMO this is not a game or set up that can really slow these cards down they are just pure power horses

kristian221 · Apr 25, 2011

Bobnova said:
The gtx590 is SLI, it has two GPU cores each with it's own 1.5gb of ram.
So you're actually comparing 1.25gb to 1.5gb. Not that big.

Two 580s beats a 590 fairly handily, especially if you take OCing into the mix.
Two 570s beats it too, again moreso with OCing.
That said, both the 570s and the 590 have a dubious power section, bumping volts has been known to cause mosfets to explode on both of them.
The 580 does not have this problem.

That certainly throws the entire thing out the window haha. So no overclocking on the 570 or 590, yet the 590 is the same price as 2 570s, so might as well rule out the 2 570s as from what I have heard the 590 is simply 2 570s anyways. Correct?

EDIT: Im really not sure any more and could really use some help, it sounds like 2 GTX 580s would be out of my price range. It would be $1,000. While the GTX 590 is only 700. But the two SLI 570s are around that price. So now it is between these two.

arcanise · Apr 25, 2011

go with 570 sli, better performance than the 590 and can overclock much better

Romanrp · Apr 26, 2011

the 570 sli provides low Vram which is needed for extreme resolutions like the OP intends to play at.

NOVAA · Apr 26, 2011

For 700 the 570 sli is a better value but obviously the 590 is better for smaller cases. At gtx 580 prices, a 6990+6970 provides much better performance for roughly the same price.pi

kommanderkodiak · Apr 26, 2011

so kris have you come to a decision?

Ethan E · Apr 27, 2011

If it is a choice now between 2x 570 sli and 590, I would go for the 590 in your specific case. The more vram the better in your situation, and 2x 570's will have 1.25 GB available, while 590 will have 2x 1.5 GB available (you were right BobNova). If you can, get the 2x 580 3GB cards, but if you really cant stretch the extra $300, the 590 will be the next best choice. This is assuming you want to stay with NVIDIA.

kristian221 · Apr 28, 2011

Ethan E said:
If it is a choice now between 2x 570 sli and 590, I would go for the 590 in your specific case. The more vram the better in your situation, and 2x 570's will have 1.25 GB available, while 590 will have 2x 1.5 GB available (you were right BobNova). If you can, get the 2x 580 3GB cards, but if you really cant stretch the extra $300, the 590 will be the next best choice. This is assuming you want to stay with NVIDIA.

I would LOVE to drop an extra 300 to get the 3gb 580s, but they are more expensive than that =/ Well right now I am considering memory, will I notice a huge diffrence between 1.5gb and 2gb? Like noticable?
If anyone can find me a link to buy a decent priced 3gb 580 I would really ejoy that haha all I have been able to find was one over $600.

Theocnoob · Apr 28, 2011

I would go with a pair of 580, 3GB each. With decent cooling if they were volt tweak models you could get to about 950Mhz per card and that'd be a really nice system.

Having said that,

You know AMD cards are much better for multi monitor gaming right? You can get a much higher framerate out of 3 2GB 6970s than 2 580s on 3 monitors. The cost would be about the same.

kristian221 · Apr 28, 2011

Theocnoob said:
I would go with a pair of 580, 3GB each. With decent cooling if they were volt tweak models you could get to about 950Mhz per card and that'd be a really nice system.

Having said that,

You know AMD cards are much better for multi monitor gaming right? You can get a much higher framerate out of 3 2GB 6970s than 2 580s on 3 monitors. The cost would be about the same.

I have always liked Nvidias drivers and interface, much cleaner with a better track record. That and most games these days were made for nvidia cards.

The GTX 590

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