Saturday, April 30, 2011

Sparkle GeForce GTS 450 (SXS4501024D5SNS)

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GeForce
GTS 450
$137.99
Sparkle 
Add to Cart
Specs: GPU: GeForce GTS 450; Core clock: 789MHz; Memory: 1GB GDDR5 (940MHz); Memory
interface: 128-bit; 192 CUDA cores













Just one and two steps down, respectively,
from the GeForce GTX 460 and 470,
the GTS 450’s performance difference in
benchmark results between these models
and can be significant. For example, prior
CPU tests on the GTX 460 were showing
3DMark results around P15000, and our
Sparkle GTX 470 reached P18959. In
contrast, this GTS 450 scores P11162.
That said, the GTS 450 still has
plenty to offer. The core, shader, and
memory clocks are all higher on the
GTS 450 than, say, the GTX 470. From
productivity apps by day to HTPC
movie use by night, Sparkle’s card delivered
solid, stable performance across
all three output ports.
Plus, let’s point out the solid job that
Sparkle has done with Nvidia’s chip. The
GTS 450 may be the fastest single-slot
card we’ve ever benched, and it doesn’t
fall prey to the loud fan issues that can
accompany Nvidia cards under stress.
Sparkle’s GTS 450 sports two DVI and
one mini-HDMI port, plus it includes an
HDMI cable and VGA-to-DVI adapter.
Tack on the 1GB of GDDR5, and this
emerges as a compact way to get a lot of
graphics muscle at a reasonable price.

Benchmark Results
                                Sparkle GTS 450                     Sparkle GTX 470
Core clock               789MHz                                   607MHz
Memory clock (effective)
 3760MHz                                3348MHz
Price                        $137.99                                   $249.99
3DMark Vantage
Overall                     P11162                                    P18959
GPU                         8812                                        15303
Unigine Heaven 2.1 (no AA, 4XAF,1920x1080)
FPS                          21.6                                         41
Scores                    543                                          1034
Minimum                   4.1                                           19.9
Maximum                 48.6                                         84.8
Aliens vs. Predator  1,920 x 1,200
25                                            47.3
Test system specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-980X; Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7; RAM: 12GB
OCZ PC3-10666 Gold; Storage: Intel 80GB X-25M SSD; PSU: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 850W;
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

 Article by Computer Power User Magazine
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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Tt eSports MEKA G1

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Mechanical keyswitch keyboards have
been making a bit of a comeback. A
few years ago, it was hard to find anything
but IBM Model M copies or rebranded
Cherry imports in the United States. Now,
there is an ever-growing array of mechanical
keyswitch keyboards available.
Unlike most other mechanical keyswitch
keyboards, the Tt eSports MEKA G1 by
Thermaltake is targeted squarely at gamers.
The MEKA G1 sports a standard layout
with seven multimedia function keys, a
removable wrist rest, and an ultra-heavyduty,
braided cable.
The board’s Cherry MX Black keyswitches
are rated for 50 million keystrokes.
Although some mistakenly classify all
mechanical keyswitch keyboards as “clicky,”
the Cherry MX Black keyswitches are
not. Cherry MX Black switches are linear,
which means there is no tactile bump when
depressed; there’s no audible “click.”

Specs: Interface: USB or PS/2 (via adapter); Switch type: Cherry MX Black; Dimensions: 40 x 430 x
160mm (HxWxD); Cable length: 1.5m; Compatibility: Windows XP/Vista/7
MEKA G1
$139.99
Tt eSports
usa.ttesports.com















Other features include headphone and
microphone jack pass-throughs, an integrated
two-port USB hub, and N-Key rollover.
Note, however, that true N-Key rollover is
only available using the PS/2 connection.
USB keyboards using the standard Windows
driver are limited to 6-key rollover.
Typing on the MEKA G1 is very
pleasing, and the board feels very solid.
Its status LEDs are a bit bright for my
tastes. The lack of a left Windows key
takes some getting used to, but many
gamers despise the left Windows key, so
we can see why Thermaltake decided to
replace it with a Function key. Gamers
who actually use their systems for work
as well should seriously consider checking
out the MEKA G1.

Article by Computer Power User Magazine
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Cayman Collision AMD’s Top-Tier Radeons Do Battle (2)

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Asus EAH6970 Overclock Edition
 Asus has done a couple of interesting
things with the EAH6970 Overclock
Edition. The EAH6970 OE is
based on the AMD reference design,
but Asus has tweaked the GPU clock
by 10MHz and integrated a thin, aluminum
cover over the fan shroud, in
lieu of a basic decal. Asus claims the
aluminum cover helps dissipate heat
more evenly, but since it’s affixed to
a thick plastic shroud, the effects on
temperatures are minimal.
In an atypical move for Asus, the
company’s EAH6970 Overclock Edition
ships with a standard accessory
bundle. Accompanying the card,
users will find only a driver/utility
disc, a basic installation guide, Cross-
Fire bridge connector, and a single
power adapter that converts a pair of
6-pin PCI-E connectors into a single
8-pin connector. We should point
out, however, that the utility CD does
include a copy of Asus’ proprietary
Smart Doctor tool, which gives users
the ability to tweak voltages and
further overclock their card.
At $379.99, the Asus EAH6970
OE is only $10 more than the stock
VisionTek and XFX cards, yet it offers
a factory overclock, manufacturersanctioned
voltage tweaks, and a
slightly modded cooler. We wish the
bundle had a few more accoutrements,
but we can’t really complain in light of
the competition.

EAH6970 Overclock Edition
$379.99
ASUS
Add to Cart














Sapphire HD6950
Short of its Sapphire branding
and custom fan shroud decal, there’s
nothing to separate Sapphire’s Radeon
HD 6950 from a straight-up reference
card: It adheres to AMD’s reference
specifications in every way. Sapphire,
however, goes the extra mile with
the accessory bundle in an attempt
to differentiate its card from competing
offerings.
Sapphire bundles a nice assortment
of goodies with its Radeon HD
6950. In the box are a user’s manual
and driver and utility disc, a case
badge, and a coupon for the
Sapphire Select Club,
which grants members
access to five
free promotional
downloads per year,
automatic RMA
registration, and
entries into Sapphire’s
contests and giveaways.
Along with the aforementioned
items, an HDMI cable, mini-DP-to-DP
dongle, DVI-to-VGA adapter, dual PCI-E
power adapters (6-pin), and CrossFire
bridge connector are included, too.
There’s also a copy of Sapphire’s TriXX
tweaking utility bundled with the card,
for some easy overclocking.
For just under $300, the Sapphire
HD6950 is a solid graphics card.

Sapphire Technology HD6950
$283.99
Customer Review
Add to Card
















Our Tour Of The Northern Islands
Looking over the results of our battery
of benchmarks, there are some
interesting aspects of performance
to consider. The most obvious is the
relatively large performance delta
separating the Radeon HD 6970 from
the 6950. Although both cards offer
strong performance, the additional
stream processors, texture units, and
higher clocks of the Radeon HD 6970
give it significant edge over the more
affordable 6950.
What’s also immediately evident
are the gains offered by the small
overclocks of the Asus, HIS, and MSI
cards. The HIS Radeon HD 6970
Fan Turbo was technically the fastest
card of the group due to its GPU and
memory frequency advantages over
the other 6970 cards, but its margins
of victory were correspondingly small.
The same can be said for the MSI
R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC. The MSI
card’s 10MHz edge in GPU frequency
over the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950
technically helped the MSI card to
outperform the Sapphire card across
the board, but the deltas separating the
two cards are tiny.
If you’re the type of user who doesn’t
like to manually overclock his graphics
card, we understand the appeal of a
factory-overclocked model, but the
takeaway from these results is that the
current crop of factory overclocked
cards simply doesn’t offer the kind of
performance improvements to warrant
the additional investment. Saving your
money and manually overclocking a
Radeon HD 6900 series card might
be the way to go. But then again, if
history teaches us anything, it’s that
these vendors will eventually introduce
Cayman-based cards with exceptional
overclocks, and those should be worth
waiting for.

 
Specs & Scores  

XFX Radeon           HIS Radeon HD      VisionTek Radeon             Asus EAH6970      Sapphire
HD 6970                 6970 Fan Turbo     HD6970                                   HD 6970                   HD6950
                                                                                                                Overclock Edition
Price        $389.99                   $399.99                   $369.99                                   $379.99                   $299.99
Core Clock
880MHz                   900MHz                   880MHz                                   890MHz                   800MHz
Memory Clock
1,375MHz                1,400MHz                1,375MHz                                1,375MHz                1,250MHz
Memory Interface
256-bit                     256-bit                     256-bit                                     256-bit                     256-bit
Memory  
2GB GDDR5            2GB GDDR5            2GB GDDR5                            2GB GDDR5            2GB GDDR5
3DMark11 (1,920x1,080, Extreme Preset)
OverallScore
1810                        1814                        1809                                        1811                        1610
GPUScore
1625                        1628                        1626                                        1627                        1441
Unigine Heaven v2.1
FPS          27.1                         27.3                         27.1                                         27.2                         23.8
Score      683                          684                          682                                          683                          600
Games 1,920 x 1,200
Left 4 Dead 2 (4XAA, 16XAF)
140.92                     143.21                     140.16                                     142.49                     120.16
Just Cause 2 (4XAA, 16XAF)
72.29                       72.97                       72.1                                         72.43                       65.12
Aliens vs. Predator (4XAA)
40.1                         40.3                        40.1                                         40.2                         35.5
Games 2,560 x 1,600
Left 4 Dead 2 (4XAA, 16XAF)
100.36                     103.1                       99.97                                       102.64                     83.41
Just Cause 2 (4XAA, 16XAF)
51.52                       52.74                       51.49                                       52.27                       44.68
Aliens vs. Predator (4XAA)
25.1                         25.2                        25.1                                         25.1                         22.3
Total System Power Consumption (watts)
Idle           156                          157                          156                                          158                          154
Load        337                          354                          338                                          341                          299
Tessellation and DoF enabled for Aliens vs. Predator tests. Bokeh Filter and GPU Water Simulation not available on AMD-based cards in Just Cause 2.

 Article By Computer Power User Magazine

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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Cayman Collision AMD’s Top-Tier Radeons Do Battle (1)

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AMD ushered in the DirectX 11
era with the GPU code-named
“Cypress,” which powered the Radeon
HD 5800 series of graphics cards.
Upon its arrival, the Radeon HD 5800
series offered more features and better
performance than any other family of
graphics cards to come before it. In
addition to the aforementioned DX11
support, the 5800 series was outfitted
with many forward-looking technologies,
such as ATI Eyefinity and an updated
UVD engine, and massive amounts of
memory bandwidth (thanks to its 256-
bit interface and support of ultra-fast
GDDR5 memory).
With the introduction of Cypress
and the Radeon HD 5800 series, AMD
wrestled the single-GPU performance
crown from Nvidia and didn’t relinquish
that title for close to six months. Even so,
AMD already had the Radeon HD 5970,
which has a pair of Cypress GPUs at its
heart, in its lineup, and that remains the
fastest single graphics card available today.
There’s no denying Cypress was
a well-designed GPU that struck

an exceptional balance
between performance,
features, and
power. It’s what allowed
AMD to cram two of them
on a single card and consume
less power than a single Nvidia
GF100, while at the same time
offering better overall performance.
But the relative strength of Cypress
also allowed AMD to remain highly
competitive and hold on to a leadership
position in the graphics space
for over a year without refreshing
the high end of its product stack. It’s
hard to believe that the Cypress GPU
and Radeon HD 5800 series hit the
scene way back in September 2009 and
that here in the early part of 2011, a
Cypress-based card remains on top of
the 3D graphics food chain.
Technology inevitably marches on,
though, and despite the strength of
Cypress, AMD has unleashed a new
high-end GPU, code-named “Cayman.”
The Cayman GPU powers the recently
released Radeon HD 6900 series of
graphics cards, which currently
consists of the Radeon
HD 6970 and 6950,
although a dual-
Cayman GPU-powered
card, the Radeon HD
6990 (code-named “Antilles”)
is coming down the
pipeline, as well. Although the
Cayman GPU borrows heavily
from Cypress, it is based on
a totally new architecture that’s
more efficient than AMD’s previous
designs and offers significantly
more performance.


What Sets Cayman Apart?
Cayman is different than Cypress
in a number of ways. First of all, the
Cayman GPU is outfitted with dual
graphics engines, whereas the 5800
series had one. Cayman also features
a new VLIW4 (Very Long Instruction
Word) design; the Cypress GPU used
a VLIW5 design. From head to toe,
so to speak, a Cayman GPU has 24
SIMD engines with a total of 1,536
stream processors, 96 texture units,
32 ROPs (which have been upgraded
from Cypress), and several tweaks to
improve GPU compute performance.
And, as we mentioned last month (see
page 36), the 6900 features AMD’s
eighth-generation tessellator.


Similarities Abound
With the Radeon HD 6900 series now
widely available, we decided to round
up a number of cards based on AMD’s
latest GPU to see how the current crop
of offerings stacks up. We have a half
dozen cards on tap for you here, but,
not surprisingly, most of them are quite
similar. The majority of AMD’s add-in
board partners have introduced Radeon
HD 6900 series cards based on AMD’s
reference design, and as such, there
is relatively little to differentiate the

actual cards. All of the cards featured here
sport 2GB frame buffers and the same
output configuration. All of the Radeon
HD 6970s have the same cooler. There
are a couple of ways each competitor
differentiates itself, but as you’ll see,
the hardware, and hence performance, is
ultimately very similar.


How We Tested
To evaluate the performance of the
Radeon HD 6900 series cards appearing
in this roundup, we used an assortment
of popular games and applications that
cover a wide swathe of the DirectX spectrum,
including DX9, 10.1, and 11. We
installed the cards in a system powered
by a 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-980X,
a Gigabyte X58 Express motherboard,
12GB of DDR3 RAM, and Windows
7 Home Premium 64-bit. We used the
latest available Catalyst drivers as of this
writing, v11.1a.



XFX Radeon HD 6970
XFX does a couple of things to help
its Radeon HD 6970 stand out from
the rest of the pack. Although the card
we took a look at was not overclocked
and is based on the reference design
PCB, XFX has outfitted its 6970
with a custom case bracket featuring
the XFX logo in its exhaust vents
and a custom decal on its fan shroud.
Other than that, this is a reference card
through and through.
XFX also bundles very little with its
Radeon HD 6970. Alongside the card,
all that we found inside the box was a
driver disc, a couple of basic manuals,
a warranty card, a catalog, a “Do Not
Disturb – I’m Gaming” door knob hanger,
and a CrossFire bridge connector.
Although the $369.99 asking price is
tied for the lowest of the group, we still
had hoped XFX would have done a little
more to help its card stand out.

Radeon HD 6970
$369.99
XFX
www.xfxforce.com















HIS Radeon HD 6970 Fan Turbo
Although it is physically indistinguishable
from other reference cards, save
for the custom decal on its fan shroud,
the HIS Radeon HD 6970 Fan Turbo
currently stands alone, as it is the highest
clocked 6970 in our roundup and
potentially the highest clocked
6970 on the market. That said,
its GPU and memory clocks
get only minor 20MHz and
25MHz bumps, respectively.
Regardless, higher clocks translate
to better performance, and
the HIS Radeon HD 6970 Fan Turbo
put up the best benchmark scores of
the group.
Included with the HIS Radeon HD
6970 Fan Turbo is a generic array of
accessories. Along with the card itself,
HIS throws in an obligatory driver CD
and basic user’s manual, along with a
case badge and a few cables and adapters.
There is a pair of peripheral-to-PCI-E
power adapters (one 6-pin, one 8-pin)
in the box, as well, in addition
to a DVI-to-VGA adapter
and CrossFire bridge
connector. Unfortunately,
there are no games
or other applications to
speak of.
Considering the fact that
this card is the most expensive
in our roundup, it would have
been nice to see some differentiating
features other than a minor overclock,
but in the end, the HIS Radeon HD
6970 Fan Turbo is still the fastest
6970 around.
Radeon HD 6970 Fan Turbo
$274.99
Customer Review
Add To Cart















VisionTek Radeon HD 6970
If it didn’t arrive in a VisionTekbranded
box, it would be nearly impossible
to tell where the company’s
Radeon HD 6970 came from. VisionTek’s
Radeon HD 6970 is devoid of any differentiating
features; the card adheres
strictly to AMD’s reference design and
doesn’t even sport any custom stickers
or decals. But that’s not necessarily
a bad thing. In fact, because all of the
Radeon HD 6970 cards featured here are
so similar, taking such a Spartan approach
allowed VisionTek to price its
card competitively.
Other than the actual graphics
card, there’s not much else bundled
with the VisionTek Radeon HD
6970. Alongside the card were only
a basic manual, a driver disc, a single
peripheral-to-PCI-E 6-pin power
adapter (with a high-end card like a
6970, an 8-pin PCI-E power adapter
would be more useful), DVI-to-VGA
adapter, and a CrossFire bridge connector.
What’s more, the driver disc
looked like it was a CD-R with its
label printed on an inkjet. There’s
definitely some cost cutting here,
but that’s probably why VisionTek’s
Radeon HD 6970 is tied for being the
least expensive of the bunch.

Radeon HD 6970
$340.00
VisionTek
Add To Cart
 

















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Friday, April 22, 2011

Nvidia Flagship Faceoff GeForce GTX 570s & 580s Open Fire (2)

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Sparkle Calibre GTX580
Sparkle’s very proud of its take on Nvidia’s
GeForce GTX 580, and rightfully so. The
GeForce GTX580 Calibre is one of the most
massive graphics cards we’ve ever had our
hands on. The three-PWM-fan-equipped
Accelero Xtreme cooler strapped to the GTX
580 reference PCB is fully three slots thick,
and the copper heatpipe/aluminum fin
assembly extends another inch beyond the
PCB on the end and a quarter of an inch on
the top. Interestingly, Sparkle claims that
the cooler is capable of effectively cooling
up to 240 watts, but the reference
GTX 580 is a 244-watt graphics card.
Despite the discrepancy, we didn’t notice
any performance issues, and the card ran
plenty quiet for our tastes. If you plan to
SLI a pair of these, use flexible connectors
and a motherboard with widely separated
PCI-E slots.
Sparkle cranked the core and memory
clocks to 810MHz and 1,008MHz, respectively.
Bundled accessories include a
driver disc, 8-pin PCI-E power adapter,
DVI-to-VGA adapter, and HDMI cable.
As you can imagine, the GTX580 Calibre
outpaced the reference 580 by a decent
margin in all tests and was only bested by
the higher-clocked Zotac GTX 580 AMP!
card. With such an impressive cooler, we’d be
surprised if you couldn’t push the clocks even
further, which could help justify this card’s
equally impressive price.

Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP!
(ZT-50102-10P)

With GeForce GTX 580 AMP!, Zotac
argues that much can be accomplished
with even Nvidia’s reference PCB and the
stock cooler. And Zotac’s right: This card
may not look like much, but the company
managed to increase the core and memory
clocks more than Sparkle, to 815MHz and
1,025MHz, respectively. All other features,
save the fire-breathing dragon sticker,
mirror those of the reference design,
including the pair of DVI ports and mini
HDMI port on the backplane and the
6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E power connectors
on the top of the card.
Calibre GTX580
$479
Sparkle
Add To Cart

















Extras include 6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E
power adapters, a mini HDMI-to-HDMI
adapter, and DVI-to-VGA adapter. The
580 AMP! also ships with Prince Of Persia:
The Forgotten Sands and the Zotac Boost
Premium software bundle, which includes
the Cooliris browser plug-in, XBMC, Kylo
browser for HTPCs, and CUDA-accelerated
demos of vReveal and Nero Vision Xtra.
In the benchmarks, Zotac’s card pushed
and shoved its way to the top of the heap,
thanks largely to superior core and memory
clocks. Although it’s priced significantly
higher than the stock card, Zotac’s impressive
overclock and bundled extras make it a
worthy option for gaming enthusiasts

GeForce GTX 580 AMP!
(ZT-50102-10P)
$549.99
Zotac
Add to Cart


















Nvidia’s Enthusiast Lineup
Having gotten our hands on several
overclocked reference boards and even
a few overhauls from the PCB-up,
we can confidently assert that the
graphics cards based on the GF110
are a hardcore gamer’s delight. There’s
a wide price spectrum here, too, so
any serious gamer should be able to
find something that works with her
budget. The GTX 580 and 570 won’t
make you better at the games you play,
but with any of the above, you really
can’t lose.


System Specs: Processor: 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition; Gigabyte X58-USB3; RAM: 6GB Patriot Sector 7;
Storage: 128GB Patriot Zephyr SSD; PSU: Antec TruePower Quattro 1200

Specs & Scores
                GeForce                  GeForce                                  GeForce                  GeForce                  GeForce                                                       
                GTX 570                  GTX 580                                  GTX570 Evga          GTX570 MSI            GTX 570 Palit                                                                          
Price        $399                        $499                                       $369.99                   $375                        $369.99

Core Clock
 732MHz                 772MHz                                   797MHz                   786MHz                   800MHz
Memory Clock
950MHz                   1,002MHz                                975MHz                   1,050MHz                1,000MHz
Memory Interface
320-bit                     384-bit                                     320-bit                     320-bit                    320-bit 
Memory(GDDR5)
 1,280MB                  1,536MB                                  1,280MB                  1,280MB                  1,280MB                                                                                                                                                                 
3DMark 11 Extreme*
3DMark Overall
X1693                      X1962                                      X1822                      X1819                      X1829
Graphics Score
                1530                        1773                                        1650                        1646                        1656
Physics Score
8398                        8394                                        8364                        8412                       8425
Combined Score
1794                        2154                                        1927                        1939                        1942
Graphics Test 1
7.84                         8.98                                        8.46                         8.44                         8.49
Graphics Test 2
7.95                         9.2                                           8.59                         8.56                         8.63
Graphics Test 3
7.52                         8.8                                          8.06                         8.13                         8.07
Graphics Test 4                     
4.66                         5.41                                         5.03                         4.99                         5.05
Physics Test
 26.66                      26.65                                       26.55                       26.71                       26.75
Combined Test
8.35                         10.02                                       8.97                         9.02                         9.03

Unigine Heaven
Frames Per Second
30                            35.2                                         32.2                         32.3                         32.4
Score
757                          887                                          811                          813                          817





Article By Computer Power User Magazine
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Nvidia Flagship Faceoff GeForce GTX 570s & 580s Open Fire (1)

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We’ve raved about the GF110 that
resides beneath the vapor-cooled
copper and aluminum block of both the
GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570; it’s all
the best parts of Nvidia’s Fermi (GF100),
with the excess heat (largely) excised and
noise all but completely silenced.
Other GF110 tweaks include the
capability to filter double the FP16 pixels
per clock compared to the GF100, and
it has a new Z-culling/rejection engine
for improved rendering in games. The
transistors that compose the highly complicated
GTX 580 and 570 GPUs are
also significantly less leaky than those of
the GF100. Like Nvidia’s latest DX11
graphics cards, these two support Nvidia
Surround multidisplay technology and
3D Vision (SLI required for both), as
well as PhysX, SLI, and CUDA-based
GPGPU computing.
Fermi 2.0 Figures
The GF110 in Nvidia’s reference GeForce
GTX 580 features a full complement of 16
SMs enabled, which gives it 512 CUDA
cores, 64 texture units, and 48 ROPs.
The GeForce GTX 570 utilizes the same
GF110, but with 15 active SMs, for 480
CUDA cores, 60 texture units, and 40
ROPs. Memory bandwidth on the GTX
580 is 192.4GBps, compared to the GTX

GeForce GTX 570
Superclocked
$359.99
Evga 
Customer Review
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570’s 152GBps. The former owes its
higher spec to the 384-bit bus and faster
1,536MB GDDR5 frame buffer, clocked
at 1,002MHz. The GTX 570’s 1,280MB
frame buffer runs on a 320-bit bus and is
clocked at 950MHz. The reference GTX
580 and 570 feature core clocks of 772MHz
and 732MHz, respectively, but as you’ll see,
there’s still room for improvement.
The GTX 580 is currently the fastest
single-GPU graphics card you can buy, and,
despite a slightly slower memory subsystem,
the GTX 570 performs right on par
with GTX 480 but costs significantly less.
At press time, there weren’t a whole lot of
nonreference GTX 580s and 570s available,
but the few we could get our hands on
performed admirably. Read on to see if any
of these 800-pound graphics gorillas tackle
your fancy.
How We Tested
Our testing platform consists of a
3.33GHz Intel Core i7-980X Extreme
Edition, Gigabyte X58-USB3, 6GB Patriot
Sector 7 memory, a 128GB Patriot Zephyr
SSD, and an Antec TruePower Quattro
1200 PSU. The system runs Windows 7
64-bit. We rated the cards’ raw tessellation
capabilities using Unigine Heaven;
synthetic gaming prowess using 3DMark
11’s Extreme setting; and real-world
DirectX 9/10.1/11 gaming capabilities
using Left 4 Dead 2, Just Cause 2, and
Aliens vs. Predator. We used the latest
Nvidia drivers available at the time of this
writing, ForceWare version 263.09.
Evga GeForce
GTX 570 Superclocked
Evga’s GeForce GTX 570 Superclocked
doesn’t look like much of a
contender at first glance, and like Zotac’s
GTX 580 AMP!, its PCB layout and
cooler are based on Nvidia’s reference
design. That doesn’t hold it back,
however; the stock GTX 570 is cool,
quiet, and a solid performer.
Evga did a little tweaking when it
comes to the core and memory clocks,
boosting them to 797MHz and 975MHz,
respectively. As with the stock models,
the backplane features dual DVI ports
and a mini HDMI port. A pair of SLI
connectors and two 6-pin PCI-E power
connectors can be found on the top
edge of the card. Evga bundles the GTX
570 Superclocked with a driver disc,
Evga Precision overclocking software, a
mini-HDMI-to-HDMI adapter, DVIto-
VGA adapter, and two 6-pin PCI-E
power adapters. With this card, you also
get Evga’s 24/7 technical support and a
limited lifetime warranty.
In the benchmarks, Evga’s 65MHz core
bump is enough to show considerable
gains on the reference card and also
outpace the lower-clocked GTX 570 from
MSI. Selling for considerably less than the
initial MSRP, Evga’s Superclocked 570 is a
solid buy for gaming enthusiasts.
MSI N570GTX Twin Frozr II
MSI was able to ship us its Twin Frozr
II version of the GTX 570, which uses, as
far as we can tell, Nvidia’s reference PCB,
but MSI saddled it with an impressive
nickel-plated copper and aluminum
heatsink bristling with five heatpipes
and covered with an attractive plate of
gunmetal gray aluminum. There are two
80mm fans and a low-profile heatsink
for the memory and other components.
MSI used all solid capacitors for this card.
According to MSI, the advanced cooler
is responsible for a 20 degrees Celsius
and 8.4 dB noise reduction, compared
to the reference GTX 570. From where
we’re sitting, this card runs as quiet as
any enthusiast card we’ve tested. MSI also
tuned the core and memory clocks to
786MHz and 1,050MHz, respectively.
Bundled accessories include a driver
disc, mini HDMI adapter, DVI-to-VGA
adapter, and dual PCI-E power adapters.
The included MSI Afterburner software
lets you boost the core and memory
clocks even further, and the three-year
warranty is a nice bonus.
Although the higher-overclocked
GTX 570s from Evga and Palit slightly
outperformed MSI’s card in 3DMark 11,
they both fell to the N570GTX Twin Frozr
II in Aliens vs. Predator, at both resolutions.
With its beefy cooler and overclocking
software, MSI’s GTX 570 gives you the
tools to crush the competition.
Palit GeForce GTX 570
Sonic Platinum
We’ve tested a number of Sonic Platinum
cards from Palit, and as a result, we had
high expectations for the GeForce GTX 570
Sonic Platinum; Palit didn’t disappoint. Of
all the cards in this roundup, Palit’s was the
only one with a redesigned PCB. Although
a PCB redesign can occasionally signal cost
cutting, Palit appears to have been at least
partially motivated by the desire to pump
more power to the GF110 under the hood;
there are 6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E power
connectors on the top edge of the card, like
those found on the GTX 580.
The cooler on the GTX 570 Sonic
Platinum is very similar to MSI’s, but there’s
a less revealing plastic shroud on the card.
We also love that Palit saw fit to include
N570GTX Twin Frozr II
$349
MSI
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DisplayPort and full-sized HDMI ports.
Palit pushed the core clock higher than both
Evga and MSI—to 800MHz. The memory
clock also saw a bump to 1,000MHz. Palit
threw in a driver disc, DVI-to-VGA adapter,
and a PCI-E power adapter.
In the benchmarks, Palit topped the rest
of the GTX 570s in our suite of synthetic
benchmarks, including 3DMark 11 and
Unigine Heaven. Real-world results were
very close, but Palit’s card only broke from
the pack in Just Cause 2 at 2,560 x 1,600.
Although priced similarly to Evga’s offering,
we think overclockers will get more bang for
their buck with this card.

GeForce GTX 570
Sonic Platinum
$349.99
Palit
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