Review NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570: All the Features for Less
We’ve witnessed the awesome performance of GeForce GTX 580, NVIDIA’s latest flagship intended to replace the previous throne holder, the venerable-yet-insufficiently cool GeForce GTX 480. NVIDIA redesigned their GF 100 chip, optimizing its design down to every transistor, and came up with the brand new GF 110. This new chip has a better performance/ watt ratio and a much lower operating temperature. It appears that NVIDIA had done a good job with their homework this time.
So, after previously carrying out extensive tests on the GTX 580, now we bring you yet another exclusive review on an interesting new graphics specimen: the GeForce GTX 570. The graphics card had just been officially introduced by NVIDIA two days ago. It shares the same GF110 chip as NVIDIA’s current top-of the-line model, GTX 580. What are the differences between the two then? Have a look at the table below to learn about the technical specifications of NVIDIA’s current top-of the-line models.
Specification
GTX 470 | GTX 480 | GTX 570 | GTX 580 | |
Codename | GF100 | GF100 | GF110 | GF110 |
Fabrication Process | 40nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
Transistors | 3 Billion | 3 Billion | 3 Billion | 3 Billion |
Die Size | 320 mm² | 320 mm² | 320 mm2 | 320 mm² |
Core Clock | 607 MHz | 700 MHz | 732 Mhz | 772 MHz |
Stream Processors (CUDA Cores) | 448 | 480 | 480 | 512 |
Shader Clock | 1215 Mhz | 1400 MHz | 1464 Mhz | 1544 MHz |
Texture Units | 56 | 60 | 60 | 64 |
ROPs | 40 | 48 | 40 | 48 |
Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
Memory Size | 1280 MB | 1536 MB | 1280 MB | 1536 MB |
Memory Clock (effective) | 3348 MHz | 3696 MHz | 3800 MHz | 4008 MHz |
Memory Interface | 320-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit |
DirectX Version | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
Shader Model | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Power Connectors | 6-pin + 6-pin | 8-pin + 6-pin | 6-pin + 6-pin | 8-pin + 6-pin |
Min Recommended Power Supply | 550 Watt | 600 Watt | 550 Watt | 600 Watt |
Bus Support | PCIe 2.1 x16 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | PCIe 2.1 x16 |
TDP | 225 Watt | 250 Watt | 219 Watt | 244 Watt |
GPU Thermal Threshold | 105 C | 105 C | 97 C | 97 C |
The GeForce GTX 570 is based on the GF110 chip, also used by its “bigger brother” the GTX 580. As such, the two share a similar set of specification. Of course, some cut-downs are applied to the GTX 570 to position it a step lower than the flagship GTX 580. We can see that the GTX 570 has fewer shader processors and ROPs, along with lower frequencies and memory interface numbers. Those differences are offset by more affordable price and lower power consumption. GTX 570 needs only two 6-pin connectors, as opposed to the GTX 580 that needs one 6-pin and one 8-pin connectors. GTX 570’s TDP, therefore, should be lower as well.
Now, let’s talk about the technical specification. By deactivating one Streaming Multiprocessor cluster on the GTX 570, NVIDIA reduced the number of shader processors to 480. That amount is similar GTX 480’s. When both the GTX 480 and GTX 570 are put side-by-side on paper, the former may look slightly more powerful due to higher amount of ROP (48, versus 40 on the GTX 570) and wider memory interface. However, GTX 570 has slightly higher core and memory frequencies, at 732 MHz and 3800 MHz respectively. So, our main question would be something like: “Can the GTX 570 compete against the GTX 470 or even the GTX 480 in terms of performance?” The answer is intriguing, but before moving on to that, let’s see how the graphics card looks like!