I need to upgrade my graphic card, really I need to build a new machine... but time and money is low these days... so I'm looking to replace my aging GeForce 280 with a nice card that will give me another 2 years, give or take...

It has to be a single slot card, no SLI... was looking at the 590 for 750 bucks and the 580 for 469... both are kind of expensive, but I do want this card to play both BF3 and next year, ArmA3 without trouble... but I have no clue what is what, and why a 300 dollar gap... is there a cheaper b ut nearly as powerful option?Prefer to stick with Nvidea due to ease of swap out...

any advise/recommendations?

thx

What is your CPU, RAM, ect.?

Might be cheaper to get a GTX570 or HD6950 2GB for $280 or so, sell them next year and get the next $280 or so card ($360 or so total?). This will probably get you equal performance (eventually) to the GTX590 without worrying about SLI drivers, the size, heat, power, ect. of that card. I'd also measure the internals of your case to make sure it can fit as it looks extremely large.

ya we discussed this before, but it was more about size and power supply, which I have.

•Dell XPS 720
•Intel Core2 processor Q6600
•4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz
•NVIDIA GeForce 280 GTX
•SATA HDD
•16X DVD+R/RW CD-RW Combination Drive
•X-Fi PCI Sound Card
•Microsoft Windows 7

I was in a bizarre situation where I swapped a GTX580 with a GTX590.
The 590 is a cleaner design than the 580, about 50% faster, and quieter.

In terms of GPU, the 580 has a single GPU which is clocked so fast that requires 3 fans. The 590 uses 2 of the same GPU in SLI mode but runs them slower, so that only a single fan is needed.

I don't play Arma or BF3, but Clod, GP2010, DCS A-10 and the new F4 BMS run fine.

That 590 is going to need a really good PSU since it runs all that memory and two GPUs. With Cyber Monday just around the corner after Thanksgiving, I would wait, because on that particular day, there will be some great sales at the egg.

???

Who told you that? And why on Earth would someone do that? Was your 580 malfunctioning or was it too fast for you? 590 has 2 Fermi chips down clocked and running relatively hot. The biggest downside is cheap / poor VRM which makes for high number of deaths of this particular card => nothing but poorly done "SLI on a stick" which translates to driver / heat / loudness problems. 580 on the other hand is a fine engineered card that will chew and spit out anything thrown at it, while remaining cool and silent at the same time. A proper work hose. If you really want to go mental go with 2 580's and put them in SLI on x16/x16 MBO for maximum bandwith.

When you add OC headroom this card has, and awesome custom cooling / power regulation solutions out there - 590 really doesn't make any sense.




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With the above posted, I would strongly recommend looking into a CPU upgrade. I doubt that this Core2 will be able to fully utilize a single 580, let alone a 590 or 2 580's in a proper SLI. It would be like installing a monster engine into your car but not touching anything else.

Then there is a question about PSU...

In which situations was your 580 quieter than your 590?

My experience is exactly the opposite. In fact, with the 590 and a SSD C: drive, the PC is essentially silent.

I can not comment on that since I never owned a 590. I do however have 580 Lightning from MSI, which is dead silent due to its TwinFrozrIII cooler.

Even if the 580 is louder to some extent, the 590's power draw, cheap VRM's, 2 down clocked Fermi cores and unavoidable driver problems due to SLI, not to mention possible micro stuttering (also due to SLI) - 580 is a clear winner in my mind.

What was the exact model of your 580? Even stock variants are very quiet.

But all this is pointless since OP doesn't have a CPU to use these cards to their full potential and he stated that he doesn't want an SLI solution.

Back to the topic - with the current setup if you don't plan on upgrading anything else, I can recommend not getting anything more than a GTX 560 Ti 1GB or 6950 2GB from AMD.

I have to echo T}{OR's comments...........I have a GTX580 coupled with an i2500k. I'm currently running stock but have tested it at 4.6Ghz on air without any problems.

My old CPU was a Q6600, I will say Magnum that the CPU will hold back the GTX580 or 590 so you may want to go through your options again unless you are planning on upgrading the CPU/RAM and Motherboard any time soon. I used to have an ATI 5870 before the GPU upgrade and didn't see any difference whatsoever in going from that card to the GTX580 when using the Q6600. Arma 2 and DCS A10 had slightly higher average fps but literally 2 or 3 and nothing that it is worth dropping $300 on.

I had a good look at reviews and benchmarks comparing the Q6600 and the i5 2500k. The results were what swayed me to finally do the upgrade. Nearly every benchmark had the i5 2500k doubling framerates over the Q6600 with the same graphics card as it simply unharnessed the available power.

To give you an idea of BF3 performance with the GTX580 paired with the i5 2500k (can only refer to the beta) without vsync enabled I was getting an average of 80fps on the Metro map with lows of 70fps and highs of 130fps. (settings were at Ultra and everthing maxed out but I believe locked at Medium anyway - that's on a 1920 x 1080 resolution). On the Caspian Border map I was averaging 55-60fps with lows of 45 and highs of 80.

On F1 2011 as I know you own that, I am averaging 90-100 fps with at maximum settings. (same results with DiRT 3)


I also looked at the GTX590 over the GTX580 but couldn't justify almost doubling the price for a 50% gain in performance.

Same here, 2500k @ 4.5 GHz on air with NH-D14. Lovely combo these two. Nvidia cards pack raw horsepower, and need a powerful CPU to get the most out of them.



Exactly my point. For almost a double price you might as well get double performance - with another 580. 590 is under engineered "SLI on a stick". Don't let shop sellers convince you otherwise.