10 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|JAN 2011 |www.maximumpc.com
QUICKSTART^
THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALLW
hen Nvidia launched the
original GTX 480, it shipped
an incomplete chip. One entire
functional block, known as a streaming
multiprocessor, was disabled. Whether
that was because of chip yield or power
issues was never disclosed. Ten months
later, Nvidia is launching the GTX 580,
using the same architecture as the original
part. The new chip is a complete re-spin
of the GTX 480 GPU, re-engineered at the
transistor level.
The GTX 580 does off er a few tweaks
to the original, such as improved FP
texture performance, which should lessen
the performance impact of high-defi nition
rendering. The biggest changes, however,
are at the process-technology level,
enabling Nvidia to ship a complete Fermi
chip with all the functional units enabled.
In addition, the clock rates have been
juiced a bit, with the core clock running
at 772MHz, or about 10 percent higher
than the GTX 480’s 700MHz. The memory
clock is running at 1,000MHz (versus the
original 924MHz.)
In addition to the GPU improvements,
the GTX 580 card has been redesigned.
A vapor chamber replaces the GTX 480
heat pipes, improving heat dissipation
and effi ciency. The paddlewheel fan now
has a rigid ring built around it, minimizing
fan-blade vibration. The plastic shroud
that channels air is beveled and the fanrecessed a bit more, which improves air-
fl ow in dual- and triple-SLI confi gurations.
Initial testing of the reference card
shows that the GTX 580 will likely run
about 10–20 percent faster in most games
than the stock GTX 480. While perfor-
mance per watt is better, the overall
power draw is about the same, and Nvidia
recommends a minimum 600W power
supply for systems running a single card.
Noise levels seem much reduced over the
GTX 480, particularly under heavy load.
Nvidia’s suggested retail price is $500,
but initial shipments of cards have been
running around $550. While the GTX 580
is, for the moment, the fastest single-GPU
card available, that’s still a pretty steep
price. Nvidia will be phasing out the GTX
480, but the GTX 470 will continue to ship
at reduced prices, with those cards cost-
ing less than $300. –LCFermi Made Whole: Nvidia’s GTX 580
A better process technology helps Fermi realize its
full potentialThe GTX 580 reference card features a vapor
chamber for cooling, in place of the GTX 480’s
heat pipes.3DMark Vantage Extreme 13,030 9,473 9,
Unigine Heaven 2.1 (fps) 35 17 30
Crysis (fps) 39 33 31
BattleForge DX11 (fps) 73 49 63
Far Cry 2 / Action (fps) 76 65 76
Far Cry 2 / Long (fps) 120 78 103
HAWX DX10 (fps) 149 92 121
STALKER: CoP DX11 (fps) 56 38 44
Just Cause 2 (fps) 50 37 47
Aliens vs. Predator (fps) 43 31 36
Dirt 2 (fps) 112 73 91
HAWX2 DX11 (fps) 167 64 145
Power @ idle (W) 146 142 153
Power @ full throttle (W) 385 290 357
Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7-975 Extreme Edition in an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard with 6GB of DDR3/1333 and an 850TX Corsair PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows Ultimate. All games are run at 1920x1200 with 4x AA.BENCHMARKS
GTX 580 XFX Radeon Asus
Reference HD 5870 GTX 480
Card XXX EditionGAME THEORYTHOMAS MCDONALDThomas L. McDonald is an editor at large for Games
magazine and blogs at sopgaming.blogspot.com.
You can follow him on Twitter at StateOfPlayBlog.S
ince I have a junior-high student living
somewhere in my house (I’m not sure
exactly where, but he might be nesting
under the eaves), I get to hear what the teen-
set finds “peachy keen” or “groovy,” in the
words of kids today. Almost all conversations
revolve around gaming, and no one is talking
about Kinect, Halo: Reach, or Black Ops... at all.
No, they’re all talking—incessantly—about
Minecraft. They trade recipes and tips, and talk
about their workbenches and adding new wings
to their houses. They pour over the Minepedia
like it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls and commiserate
on the challenges of obsidian farming.
Although I’d played it last summer, I was
surprised to find kids discovering this game on
their own. Minecraft falls somewhere between
a 3D Dwarf Fortress (albeit a version of Dwarf
Fortress playable by actual humans) and the
crafting element of certain MMOs, but done
with vintage early-1990s PC graphics. That’s
not a knock, by the way. Since the entire game
is based around cubes and their manipulation,
the blocky visuals actually suit the game quite
well, giving it a consistent cubist aesthetic
that’s oddly pleasing.
The game’s work-in-progress nature, it
turns out, is part of the appeal. Gamers not
only love playing it, but love being part of
its development, waiting for new update as
developer Notch Persson rolls them out. Two
weeks before the Halloween update, all I heard
was talk about Ghasts and portals in the kind
of excited tones little girls usually reserve for
discussions about Justin Bieber’s hair.
This is exactly what PC gaming needs,
because it is what PC gaming alone can do.
(Oh, OK: Mac too. Bleh.) I’ve been banging
on for years about how the receding waters
of mainstream PC gaming are going to draw
a wellspring of creativity to the surface, as
independents use Java and other tools to make
unique games to fill in the gaps. Minecraft’s
grassroots success is further evidence that the
wild frontier days of early PC gaming are upon
us once again.The Strange Allure
of Minecraft