Review ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 – The Fastest Single-GPU Card, Plus a Worthy Bonus

Conclusions

Just like most other graphics card manufacturers, ZOTAC relies on NVIDIA’s standard reference design for their GTX 580 product. However, we found some nice bonuses inside the sales package that should increase the overall value of this graphics cards before the consumers’ eyes. The “Prince Of Persia The Forgotten Sands” comes bundled alongside the ZOTAC Boost Premium, and that’s a worthy extra since you’re going to spend hundreds of dollars for a high-end graphics solution like this one. Also, the inclusion of a mini-HDMI to HDMI converter should come in handy when you need to output the display to a HDMI device.

As for its performance, the GeForce GTX 580 is undoubtedly the fastest GPU on the planet until now, so you can expect nothing less than the best. Even with the reference specification, ZOTAC’s GTX 580 gives us some of the best scores from a single-GPU graphics card we’ve seen so far. The frame rates across all our test remained well above 30 FPS, except in Metro 2033 under DirectX 11, very high graphics setting where it struggled to produce 28.517 FPS. But really, that’s not an issue worthy of your concern, since the game is almost impossible to play at its highest graphics setting without adding a second or third graphics card to assists with its graphics processing anyway. For any other game, you can turn the graphics detail sliders to their rightmost positions for maximum visual effects, turn on extra features (such as PhysX processing), sit back, and enjoy smooth, fluid gameplay. Whether you’re playing DirectX 9, 10, or 11-based titles, this graphics card is sure to give you some of the best gaming experiences possible.

Pros

• High Performance
• Comes bundled with mini-HDMI to HDMI and PCI Express power converters
• Nice software packages, including “ZOTAC Boost Premium” and “Prince Of Persia The Forgotten Sands” game

Cons

• Not all applications included in the ZOTAC Boost Premium package are freewares

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580

• Manufacturer : ZOTAC
• Info : www.zotacusa.com
• Price : Rp. 5.012.000 (around US$ 550)
• Indonesian Distributor : Asia Raya Computronix
• Phone : 021 – 62304048

TECHNICAL DATA

• Graphics Chip : NVIDIA GTX 580
• Interface : PCI Express 2.1 x16
• Memory Size : 1536 MB
• Core Clock : 772 MHz
• Shader Clock : 1544 MHz
• Memory Clock : 4008 MHz
• Stream Processor : 512
• D-Sub Output : N/A
• DVI Output : Yes (x2)
• HDMI Output : Yes (mini-HDMI)
• Display Port Output : N/A
• Memory Type : GDDR5
• Memory Interface : 384-bit
• Bundled Accessories: Driver Disc, User’s Manual, Quick Installation Guide, ZOTAC Boost Premium Manual, Guidance Sticker, ZOTAC Sticker, Prince Of Persia The Forgotten Sands Game DVD, Molex to 6-pin, 2x 6-pin to 8-pin, mini-HDMI to HDMI, and DVI to-D-Sub converters.