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.
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.
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
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
Article By Computer Power User Magazine
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