[GTX 590] Flashing & Overclocking Thread
The GTX 590 Flashing & Overclocking Resource Thread
Here we talk about the overclocking the GTX 590, notoriously known for not overclocking… or at least not easy for those who know a little something.
This thread is not to replace the Overclock.net Owner’s Thread (HERE) but to be supplemental to it. We do have new 590 users coming it every day, and it seems that there are many questions (which have been addressed) in some form or another. Since most of the answers are scattered throughout a hundred pages of posts & benchmarks, I thought I would sum up most of it as best as possible and add my own humble experiences.
Quick Links
Part 1: GTX 590 — Q&A — You Are Here. Continue Reading.
Part 2: GTX 590 — Power Draw Limitation Investigation
Part 3: GTX 590 — Overclock Prediction
Part 4: GTX 590 — BIOS Grabbing & Flashing
Part 5: GTX 590 — BIOS Info & Archive
Part 6: GTX 590 — Troubleshooting
Word of Caution
We, the 590 owners, are well aware of the issues brought up with launch. Any user who flashes their card, and lights their cards up Hiroshima-style, will know that they, and they alone are at fault. I bear no responsibilities for your actions.
I will however tell you that if you are cautious though, the risk is small. Only you will be able to determine if the risk is worth the reward.
~RC
Official Response From nVidia Regarding GTX 590 Overclocking:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ManuelG
In the web release driver of GeForce GTX 590, we have added some important enhancements to our overcurrent protection for overclocking. We recommend anyone doing overclocking or running stress apps to always use the latest web driver to get the fullest protection for your hardware. Please note that overcurrent protection does not eliminate the risks of overclocking, and hardware damage is possible, particularly when overvoltaging. We recommend anyone using the GTX 590 board with the reference aircooler stick with the default voltage while overclocking, and avoid working around overcurrent protection mechanisms for stress applications.This will help maintain GTX 590’s great combination of acoustics, performance, and reliability. NVIDIA has worked with several watercooling companies to develop waterblocks for GTX 590, and these solutions will help provide additional margin for overclocking, but even in this case we recommend enthusiasts stay within 12.5-25mV of the default voltage in order to minimize risk.
These are guidelines only — any overclocking/overvoltaging can void your manufacturer’s product warranty.
As of 24th March, 2011
Click to expand…
Source: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=196244
Questions and Answers
Quote:
So how do I overclock my GTX 590?
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Using driver set Forceware Betas 280.91 and newer, or 267.85 and older. Any drivers inbetween you have to use a BIOS flash.
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Is it safe to flash the BIOS?
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..
Well there are risks in anything, if you lose power in Windows when it happens, you may delete your ROM and have nothing to boot from. There is always the chance that you have a very weak card that won’t take too kindly to more voltage. In general though, its safe to flash your GPU if you know what you are doing.
Quote:
What does the BIOS flash do?
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It does one of three things depending on which one you are downloading.
1.) It either takes you back to stock (original factory.)
2.) It gives you a new minimum voltage.
3.) It gives you a new minimum voltage and a stock overclock.
It does not disable PDL or OCP, or anything else. The modified EVGA BIOSes also unlock the fan to 100%.
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Is it safe to overclock a GTX 590 in general?
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..
So far so good. We are not oblivious to the cards that died on release, we are aware a lot of people also didn’t like to see nVidia «skimping» on the VRMs and just think they cheapened the power delivery system. Tie that in with Sweclockers and W1zzard blowing up their cards very publicly and loud. Neither of them really admitted any responsibility and blamed the cards. W1zzard even scored the 590 a seven despite being extremely competitive to a 6990 which received a solid 9 out of 10. Listen I totally respect W1z, he seems like a great guy, and really analyzes the cards both hardware, software, and benchmarks, but I was disappointed by how he handled the 590s review.
I think everyone should use caution when overclocking this card, or any new card that comes to town. You have to know the limits of the cards, try and follow in the steps that other users have successfully overclocked (with cards that are still running obviously) and you shouldn’t (emphasis on shouldn’t) have any hardware failure.
Do cards die? Yes, all GPUs of every generation can be killed with overclocking & overvolting. The cards seem to be very resolute. The most damage I have ever seen is a BSOD, and I had the highest % overclock (on water keep in mind) until I was absolutely crushed by TiN. Excluding TiN and his evil creation, I achieved 30+% overclock for benchmarking on HWBot, on a card that every tells me is crap.
That can be found here:
HWBOT RangingCain Submission for Heaven Extreme
Quote:
What about those VRMs?
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We hear this a lot. Daily, even. It is usually everyones argument to not buy the GTX 590 when someone asks if they should. Anything from the card is «fail» to «its a weak death trap waiting to blow up, kill you, set you on fire, and then kill your dog.» To any outside observer, that sounds really negative, but since I have had a pair of these for a few months, as well as a pair of 580s for six months before that.
I can tell you that this cards is not fail, or a danger to your pets.
Quote:
The VRMs are weak though, right? They have all the issues that the reference GTX 570s have, right?
Click to expand…
If I recall correctly, your atypical 570 died with overclocking in a range of voltages that should not have even been allowed for in the first place. That is bad and definitely some responsibility lies with the manufacturers / nVidia. Similar to the issues with ASUS and its 590, or further more by nVidia themselves (who according to their own admission) had failed to turn on OCP / PDL (more on these two later.)
Analyzing the VRMS:
The GTX 580 has a 6 + 2 VRM design, 6 for the Core and 2 for the Memory.
The GTX 570 has a 4 + 1 VRM design, 4 for the Core and 1 for the Memory.
The GTX 590 has a 5 + 1 VRM design, 5 for the Core and 1 for the Memory Controller, for each GPU.
To separate it further from the GTX 570, it used a stronger type of VRMs like in the 580.
I don’t have the source so I will have to edit it in later, but its the same more robust VRMs of the 580 design. So it uses stronger VRMs in addition to having an extra one.
The use of the number of VRMs was the first thing that everyone picked up on and called it design flaw, even before a single person could buy one. I personally did not think it was a design flaw, although I agreed it definitely hampered its overclocking potential.
The GTX 580 was able to achieve 900~1000 MHz on 6 VRMs depending on the binning of the GPU, and without any other modifications was able to hit as high as 1100~1200 under LN2. The reduction in VRMs saved space on the PCB and saved money. Two things nVidia is probably always looking to do, or any company really. For two watered down 580 GPUs, there simply was no need for such a robust system, all things considered. I even anticipate if they really wanted to limit the potential of the card, they could have gotten it running on 4 VRMs per GPU.
Quote:
You seem pretty sure about the VRMs and their sturdiness, why is that?
Click to expand.
..
I am just a little more observant and I do assume the billions of dollars we have given nVidia, they spent a little on research, and that it is being at conducted by people with PhDs in the related field. So I analyze what they did, as if they designed it with purpose.
This is just one way to look at the design:
I am not saying this is how it works, but lets assume you needed 6 VRMs as a minimum for the speed of 772 MHz (stock) on a GTX 580. We all know that the 590 is two 580 GPUs sandwiched together and weakened. Physically, most of the parts are identical.
So lets make comparisons to the GTX 580. We can begin by observing the performance levels of 772 MHz by a factor of 6 to determine a VRM for each level of power.
772 MHz / 6 VRMs = 128.667 MHz / VRM, or for every increase of 130 MHz of GPU Core Frequency, you need an additional VRM to deliver the current necessary for that frequency.
We know the basic ratio, lets see how many VRMs a 607 MHz GTX 580 GPU would need:
607 / x VRMs = 130 MHz / VRM = 607 MHz / 130 MHz = x VRMs
x VRMs = 4.
669 VRMs
So, since we can’t have 0.669 VRMs, much like we can’t have 0.669 people, we round up to an even 5 VRMs. Which is enough for 607 MHz clocked GTX 580, and then it has some wiggle room.
That’s assuming you needed absolutely a minimum of 6 VRMs for the stock 772 MHz frequency on a GTX 580, and we know that the wiggle room on the GTX 580 was +230-500 MHz depending on the temperature.
I know the math I did doesn’t actually mean anything, and thats nowhere near how you calculate how many VRMs you should have on your card, but a lot of people saw 5 VRMs and just started talking trash without actually thinking about it. I just found one way that using 5 VRMs actually kind of makes sense for the clock frequencies using their associated voltages we saw on the stock GTX 590.
A lot of the GTX 590 «fail» and distaste stems from a few cards that were pushed beyond their limits, and pure opinion. I am not a circuit design expert. A lot of people are though apparently, but I still am not seeing any mass graves filled with these cards.
THAT does not mean you should overclock willy-nilly its safe. We know it has wiggle room but how much? That is for you to figure out.
Quote:
Which Drivers are SAFEST for overclocking and why?
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WHQL 275.33 or BETA 275.50. Both WHQL and BETA 275.50 employ very stringent software overclocking protection that amplifies (does not replace) the hardware’s over current protection (OCP) and the power draw limiter (PDL). These are two distinct things, but most users are only familiar with having an OCP on their cards. They also have the added a «voltage lock down» and THEN they limited max voltage (it even over-rides BIOS settings!)
Quote:
What is the difference with OCP and PDL?
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Over current protection is hardware on our GPUs designed to prevent damage to the circuity by controlling spikes or increases of current beyond the hardware specification.
Power Draw Limiter is just the phrase we have coined for the GTX 590s special brand of card protection. This feature acts like a strict governor on a car engine. Despite how powerful your engine is, there is a device that «governs» over the power output of that engine.
Quote:
Okay, I get OCP, but still don’t understand what the PDL does?
Click to expand…
PDL is a combination of hardware and software in order to limit the work your GPU can do
There is the standard performance limitation on the GTX 590, that once you go past this line, you enter the throttling realm. As you may have seen, and its even been documented to some degree by [H]OCP in their article on the GTX 590 overclocking. They didn’t do much research beyond finding where the upper limit is.
The software limitation seems sneaky and underhanded. IF there was a mistake in the design of the card, it was with PDL.
Contrary to what everyone says about the amount of VRMs, this would be the only mistake they made. I feel that when they had released these cards, the GTX 590 only had the standard performance limiting PDL. However, it was here through a combination of reviewers and some consumers going overboard with voltage, that they were able to fall through the cracks as the PDL wasn’t aggressive enough to prevent damage in some applications such as the notoriously rough Furmark. Furthermore, its apparent that PDL may have even not been activated at the time. So what they have done is created a series of profiles (similar to SLI Profiles) for each title, and some titles are more aggressively power limited than others now. There is a night and day difference in 3DMark11 and Unigine Heaven 2.5 Benchmark. These cards really shine in Heaven, where on the other hand they look very weak in 3DMark 11. To what degree does it affect games? No one knows for sure, and we will probably never see 100% performance unlocked on these cards.
More information on the [H] article can be found here:
[H]OCP Article — http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/03/asus_geforce_gtx_590_overclocking_followup/
Quote:
What does the voltage lock down and max voltage mean?
Click to expand…
Around driver release 267.91, we lost the ability to increase voltage with 3rd party utilities. nVidia even condone overclocking at the start (although small) it was enough to overclock about ~5% going on their recommendations. It seems they went back on their original claim and decided to remove everyones ability to overvolt.
The last driver to have the ability to increase voltage is 267.85. In fact, while normally they keep a back log of beta drivers in the archive. You will have a hard time to finding them anywhere on nVidia’s site, its almost like they didn’t exist.
While we only discovered this recently, it seems that not only did they remove your ability to increase voltage, they put a maximum voltage in the driver, for those of us who know a work around) which overrides any BIOS you have flashed on the cards.
Thats only in the more recent BIOS’s, the theoretical max voltage is driver 267.85 is still the reference GTX 580 max of 1.201v.
Quote:
So, I will most likely have to start juggling drivers depending on what setup I want?
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Yes and no. You will more than likely jump between two drivers depending on your mood for overclocking. That will be whatever the latest driver is, and driver set 267.85.
Quote:
You have mentioned that driver X Y Z is hard to find, so where can I get the driver?
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This is an easy question to answer. Visit LaptopVideo2Go.com. Don’t let the name fool you, they are the ultimate resource in nVidia / Quadro drivers. They have every driver ever tweaked, edited, leaked, or officially released by nVidia or any of its OEM partners. You simply browse the forums for the release you want.
There is nothing wrong with these drivers, LaptopVideo2Go original mission was to aid Laptops with dedicated and integrated GPUs who were receiving absolutely zero driver support by nVidia (who now also do mobile GPU drivers) or the timely (once every 12 months) release by the OEMs. Now a days, they serve mainly as a massive archive, and while their mission hasn’t changed much, it seems like nVidia and many companies woke up seeing how popular and necessary it was.
To get any driver you need head here:
LV2Go!
Quote:
Okay, so what is so special about using the latest drivers? I keep seeing the voltage of 0.963v, why is that? Is that the highest we can go safely?
Click to expand…
Well with the 275.33 WHQL and above, the voltage is still lock down, meaning its no higher than minimum but it can be adjusted lower. Furthermore, at some point in the driver releases, no matter how high of a minimum/maximum voltage you have set in BIOS, the drivers limit the voltage max to 0.
963v. To get an overclock that is higher, you have to go with the older drivers.
This is only desirable for benchmarking, its always more desirable to use the latest drivers due to patches/bug fixes/stability/driver performance/SLi Profiles.
Quote:
Is there anything I can do to improve performance using 275.85?
Click to expand…
Other than overclocking, yes there is. There is using the SLI Profile Enhancement from EVGA. That will improve game performance, benchmarking too. Alternatively, you would want to visit the next post regarding more about Experimental BIOSes, and understanding why we can’t overclock till it just crashes any higher.
Extreme Overclocking & Modding
Many of you know TiN or K1ngp1n by reputation, and yes, TiN decided to mod, freeze, mod again, freeze the GTX 590. His Frankenstein monstrosity can be found @ KingPinCooling.com. Big props to TiN for his achievement with these cards, as very few probably understand what he had to do, and even fewer of us understand that the scores he are getting with the cards are ridiculous.
Perhaps not in comparison to SLI 580s, but I don’t think its fair to compare the 590 to SLI 580s. Its just not the same for a variety of reasons, but regardless, he has done an amazing job with the 590!
You can find more on their forums here:
http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1279
GTX 590 Links & Information
- Overclock.Net — GTX 590 Owner’s Club
- nVidia — Response & Cautioning of GTX 590 Overclocking
- KingpinCooling — TiN w/ A Monster GTX 590[/URL]
- LaptopVideo2Go — Awesome Driver Archive
- [H] OCP — GTX 590 Overclocking Article
(Tested) ASUS GeForce GTX 590 Dual-GPU Graphics Card Review
- 1 – ASUS GTX 590 Overview
- 2 – ASUS GTX 590 Gallery
- 3 – ASUS GTX 590 GPU Caps Viewer Details
- 4 – ASUS GTX 590 Benchmarks
- 5 – ASUS GTX 590 Overclocking
- 6 – ASUS GTX 590 Conclusion
1 – ASUS GTX 590 Overview
The GeForce GTX 590, launched several months ago (March 2011), is a graphics card powered by two GF100 GPUs.
But in order to reduce the power consumption, both GF110 come with a lower GPU clock speed compared to the GeForce GTX 580: 607MHz for the GTX 590 against 772MHz for the reference GTX 580 board.
ASUS’s GTX 590 is available with GPU core clock speed slightly overclocked with an amazing +5MHz: 612MHz. The rest of card follows NVIDIA’s reference board specifications: 3GB of GDDR5 memory (1.5GB per GPU) clocked at 1710MHz DDR speed (or 855MHz real speed), the same two-slot height VGA cooler, and two 8-pin power connectors. For more information, check out ASUS’s GTX 590 homepage.
2 – ASUS GTX 590 Gallery
3 – ASUS GTX 590 GPU Caps Viewer Details
The following screenshots come from the versions 1.14.0 and 1.13.0 of GPU Caps Viewer.
4 – ASUS GTX 590 GPU Benchmarks
Testbed:
The testbed:
– CPU: Core i7 960 @ 3.
2GHz
– RAM: 4GB DDR3 Corsair Dominator
– Motherboard: GIGABYTE X58-A UD5
– Windows 7 64-bit
– Graphics drivers: R280.26 WHQL
– PSU: Thermaltake Thoughpower Grand 850W
FurMark 1.9.1 (OpenGL 2)
Settings: Preset 1080 (1920×1080 fullscreen, no AA, no postFX, 60sec, Burn-in mode).
| 3517 points (58 FPS) – GeForce GTX 480 SLI |
| 3457 points (57 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire |
| 2463 points (41 FPS) – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 2335 points (38 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 1769 points (29 FPS) – GeForce GTX 480 |
| 1618 points (26 FPS) – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 1183 points (19 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone |
TessMark 0.
3.0 (OpenGL 4)
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, no AA, no postFX, 60sec, tessellation level: moderate (8X).
| 60766 points (1012 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| 53863 points (898 FPS) – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 52188 points (872 FPS) – ASUS ENGTX580 |
| 45723 points (763 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 44090 points (735 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
| 38147 points (636 FPS) – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 30512 points (508 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone |
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, no AA, no postFX, 60sec, tessellation level: normal (16X).
| 36019 points (601 FPS) – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 35890 points (598 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| 32666 points (545 FPS) – ASUS ENGTX580 |
| 30179 points (503 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 25275 points (421 FPS) – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 19398 points (323 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
ShaderToyMark 0.
2.0 (OpenGL 2 – Pixel shader)
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, no AA, 60sec.
| 173 points (28 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| 109 points (18 FPS) – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI (AFR1 mode) |
| 88 points (14 FPS) – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 (GPU@880MHz) |
| 81 points (13 FPS) – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
Unigine Heaven 2.0 (Direct3D 11)
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, AA: 4X MSAA, 16X anisotropic filtering, tessellation: normal, shaders: high.
| 73.6 FPS, Scores: 1854 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 65.7 FPS, Scores: 1656 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
56. 4 FPS, Scores: 1421 – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 50.2 FPS, Scores: 1264 – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI (AFR1 mode) |
| 42.9 FPS, Scores: 1081 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
3DMark 11 (Direct3D 11)
Settings: Extreme mode (1920×1080).
| X3502 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| X3057 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| X2432 – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| X2151 – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI (AFR1 mode) |
| X1812 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
DiRT 2 (Direct3D 11)
Settings: 1920×1080, 4X MSAA.
| 160 FPS – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 155 FPS – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 151 FPS – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC |
| 130 FPS – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 129 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| 94 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
MAFIA 2 (Direct3D 9)
Settings: 1920×1080, no MSAA, 16x anisotropic filtering, CPU PhysX.
| 116 FPS – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
| 116 FPS – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 106 FPS – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC |
| 103 FPS – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 89 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
| 80 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
AvP: Aliens vs Predator (Direct3D 11)
Settings: 1920×1080, Texture Quality: 2, Shadow Quality: 3, Anisotropic Filtering: 16, SSAO: ON, Vertical Sync: OFF.
| 130.8 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 CrossFire (GPU@880MHz) |
| 103.7 FPS – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
79. 4 FPS – ASUS ROG MATRIX GTX 580 (GPU@926MHz) |
| 71.6 FPS – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC |
| 71.1 FPS – MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone SLI |
| 64.3 FPS – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 |
5 – ASUS GTX 590 GPU Overclocking
To overclock the GTX 590, I used MSI Afterburner because it allowed to overclock both GPUs while I don’t know why, ASUS’s GPU Tweak could only overclock one GPU. For this OC test, I used 3DMark 11 (Extreme mode) as well as Unigine Heaven 2 (D3D 11) to validate the GPU overclocking. The overclocking is stable is both tests are okay.
The max stable GPU clock I found is 670MHz, without change in GPU voltage (0.913V). Here are the 3DMark 11 and Heaven 2.0 scores with a GPU core clock of 670MHz:
Unigine Heaven 2.0 (DX11)
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, AA: 4X MSAA, 16X anisotropic filtering, tessellation: normal, shaders: high.
| 78.2 FPS, Scores: 1969 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@670MHz) |
| 73.6 FPS, Scores: 1854 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
3DMark 11 (DX11)
Settings: Extreme mode (1920×1080).
| X3455 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@670MHz) |
| X3057 – ASUS GeForce GTX 590 (GPU@617MHz) |
And the power consumption test with FurMark? NVIDIA has totally blocked FurMark with a too aggressive OCP (OCP = Over Current Protection –check out the score with FurMark 1.9.x) because the green firm wants to hide something…
But to give you an idea of the GTX 590 power draw under approved and gentle apps, here is the total power consumption of the tesbed at idle and under Heaven (1920×1080, DX11):
– Idle: 150W
– Load: 450W
The CPU power consumption under Heaven is roughly approximated at 25W.
Then we can estimate the GTX 590 power draw with a PSU efficiency factor or 0.9:
(450 – 150 – 25) * 0.9 = 247W
The TDP of the GTX 590 is 365W. With Unigine Heaven, we are far from this value. Wait a minute… I just found that one of my stress test apps is not too much capped by NV drivers, hehe… Here is the total power draw with this secret app:
– Load: 545W
Which leads to:
(545 – 150 – 25) * 0.9 = 333W
Do the GPUs run at full speed with this secret stress test app or is there a little capping? I don’t know.
6 – ASUS GTX 590 Conclusion
There are two problems with the GTX 590: correct support of SLI and power limiting system. When the application has an optimized SLI profile in NVIDIA drivers, GTX 590 GPUs are correctly exploited and you get high scores like in AvP, 3DMark11 or Unigine Heaven. But in other cases, the gain of two GF110 GPUs is not so obvious like in MAFIA 2 or in DiRT 2. The worst case is ShaderToyMark: a SLI of GTX 460 gets a higher score than the GTX 590.
But for me the biggest problem of the GeForce GTX 590 is the power limiting system. FurMark is limited with much exaggeration since the launch of the GTX 580 and with latest NV drivers and the launch of the GTX 590, we don’t know anymore if an application is capped or not by the power limiter. For example, scores in TessMark or in ShaderToyMark are meaningless: is it a problem of SLI profile or is there a power limitation?
If you know that the games you plan to play have a good support of the GTX 590 and if a high price for two GPUs is not a problem for you, then the GTX 590 is a correct choice, this card being in the top in many well profiled benchmarks ? Two GTX 460 / GTX 560 Ti in SLI would be, perhaps, a better idea: much less expensive for correct performance. Unless you really need a dual-GF110 card or you can’t live without a quad-SLI system (for 3D surround gaming…), robust single GPU cards (read: without hardware power limiter!) like ASUS’s Matrix GTX 580 or ASUS’s GTX 570 DirectCU II are, IMHO, good alternatives.
Now for a very robust dual-GF110 card, I’m sure that ASUS’s latest product, the MARS II (a kind of dual Matrix card), will satisfy your craving for big GPUs with no concession!
Geforce GTX 590 burns @ SweClockers.com
Software overclocking limit added to GeForce GTX 590
Analyzing the negative experience of using a software voltage increase on the GeForce GTX 590 graphics cores, NVIDIA forced NVIDIA to implement an overload protection system at the driver level. Also, some manufacturers have limited the allowable voltage increase thresholds at the BIOS level of video cards based on the GF110 to be safe. A new revision of the GeForce GTX 590 video card was also released.
In this revision, the hardware base of the video card was updated. The changes affected the overload protection mechanism when using the softmod.
The 502 circuit board has also been updated. With this step, NVIDIA wants to protect users from problems when overclocking the GeForce GTX 59 graphics card.0.
Recently, cases of users contacting a service center with burned-out video cards have become more frequent. For lovers of hardware overclocking, there will be no restrictions, you can still overclock a video card with a voltmod.
Author — Lenar Khairullin. Posted: 17 May 2011 14:17. Product — GeForce GTX 590
Palit Introduces RTX 4070 Ti…
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Intel Updated Arc Drivers and Doubled FPS in Games…
0004
NVIDIA is preparing a GeForce RTX 40 line for laptops…
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Palit GeForce RTX 4080 GameRock 16GB (NED40800…
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Insiders showed the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti chip …
Some time ago, there was information that NVIDIA plans to send its new look to the market …
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EL No.
FS 77 — 68301.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Review. Benchmarks and specs
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 graphics card (GPU) is ranked #283 in our performance ranking. Manufacturer: NVIDIA. Runs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 with a minimum clock speed of 607 MHz. The graphics chip is equipped with an acceleration system and can operate in turbo mode or during overclocking. The RAM size is 3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU) GB with a clock speed of 1707 MHz and a bandwidth of 327.7 GB/s. nine0004
The power consumption of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 is 365 Watt and the process technology is only 40 nm. Below you will find key compatibility, sizing, technology, and gaming performance test results. You can also leave comments if you have any questions.
Let’s take a closer look at the most important characteristics of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590. To get an idea of which video card is better, we recommend using the comparison service. nine0004
2.6
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General information
A basic set of information will help you find out the release date of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 graphics card and its purpose (laptops or PCs), as well as the price at the time of release and the average current cost.
This data also includes the architecture used by the manufacturer and the video processor code name.
| Performance Rating Position: | 344 | |||
| Value for money: | ||||
| Architecture: | Fermi | |||
| Code name: | GF110 | |||
| Type: | Desktop | |||
| Release date: | March 24, 2011 (10 years ago) | |||
| Starting price: | $699 | |||
| Current price: | $600 (0.9x MSRP) | |||
| Value for money: | 1.68 | |||
| GPU Code Name: | GF110 | |||
| Market segment: | Desktop | |||
Specifications
This is important information that determines all the power characteristics of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 video card.
The smaller the chip manufacturing process, the better (in modern realities). The clock frequency of the core is responsible for its speed (direct correlation), while signal processing is carried out by transistors (the more transistors, the faster the calculations are performed, for example, in cryptocurrency mining). nine0004
| Conveyors: | 512 | |||
| Core Clock: | 607MHz | |||
| Number of transistors: | 3,000 million | |||
| Process: | 40nm | |||
| Power consumption (TDP): | 365 Watt | |||
| Number of texels processed in 1 second: | 77.7 billion/sec | |||
| Floating point: | 2x 1,244.2 gflops | |||
| Maximum temperature: | 97 °C | |||
| CUDA Cores: | 1024 | |||
| Pipelines / CUDA cores: | 1024 | |||
| Number of transistors: | 3,000 million | |||
| Estimated heat output: | 365 Watt | |||
Dimensions, Connectors & Compatibility
There are so many PC case and laptop form factors available today that it’s important to know the length of your graphics card and how it’s connected (except for laptop versions).
This will help make the upgrade process easier, as Not all cases can accommodate modern video cards.
| Interface: | PCIe 2.0 x16 | |||
| Length: | ||||
| Additional power: | Two 8-pin | |||
| SLI options: | + | |||
| Tire support: | 16x PCI-E 2.0 | |||
| Height: | 4.376″ (111 mm) (11.1 cm) | |||
Memory (frequency and overclocking)
Internal memory is used to store data when performing calculations. Modern games and professional graphics applications place high demands on the amount and speed of memory. The higher this parameter, the more powerful and faster the video card. Memory type, size and bandwidth for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 + overclocking in turbo mode.
| Memory type: | GDDR5 | |||
| Maximum RAM amount: | 3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU) | |||
| Memory bus width: | 768-bit (384-bit per GPU) | |||
| Memory frequency: | 1707MHz | |||
| Memory bandwidth: | 327.7 GB/s | |||
| Shared memory: | — | |||
Support for ports and displays
As a rule, all modern video cards have several types of connections and additional ports, for example HDMI and DVI . Knowing these features is very important in order to avoid problems connecting a video card to a monitor or other peripherals. nine0004
| Display connections: | Three Dual Link DVI-IMini DisplayPort | |||
| Multi monitor support: | + | |||
| Maximum VGA resolution: | 2048×1536 | |||
| Audio input for HDMI: | Internal | |||
| HDMI: | + | |||
Technologies
Each graphics card manufacturer complements their products with proprietary technologies that are used both in games and in the workflow.
Below is a list of features that will be useful to you.
| 3D Vision: | + | |||
| CUDA: | ||||
| Surround: | + | |||
| DSR: | + | |||
API Support
All NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 supported APIs are listed below. This is a minor factor that does not greatly affect the overall performance.
| DirectX: | ||||
| OpenGL: | 4.2 | |||
General gaming performance
All tests are based on FPS. Let’s take a look at how the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 scores in the gaming performance test (calculated according to the game developer’s recommendations for system requirements; it may differ from actual situations). nine0004
Select games
Horizon Zero DawnDeath StrandingF1 2020Gears TacticsDoom EternalHunt ShowdownEscape from TarkovHearthstoneRed Dead Redemption 2Star Wars Jedi Fallen OrderNeed for Speed HeatCall of Duty Modern Warfare 2019GRID 2019Ghost Recon BreakpointFIFA 20Borderlands 3ControlF1 2019League of LegendsTotal War: Three KingdomsRage 2Anno 1800The Division 2Dirt Rally 2.
0AnthemMetro ExodusFar Cry New DawnApex LegendsJust Cause 4Darksiders IIIFarming Simulator 19Battlefield VFallout 76Hitman 2Call of Duty Black Ops 4Assassin´s Creed OdysseyForza Horizon 4FIFA 19Shadow of the Tomb RaiderStrange BrigadeF1 2018Monster Hunter WorldThe Crew 2Far Cry 5World of Tanks enCoreX-Plane 11.11Kingdom Come: DeliveranceFinal Fantasy XV BenchmarkFortniteStar Wars Battlefront 2Need for Speed PaybackCall of Duty WWIIAssassin´s Creed OriginsWolfenstein II: The New ColossusDestiny 2MEDLE-Evil Within : Shadow of WarFIFA 18Ark Survival EvolvedF1 2017Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (2017)Team Fortress 2Dirt 4Rocket LeaguePreyMass Effect AndromedaGhost Recon WildlandsFor HonorResident Evil 7Dishonored 2Call of Duty Infinite WarfareTitanfall 2Farming Simulator 17Civilization VIBattlefield 1Mafia 3Deus Ex Mankind DividedMirror’s Edge CatalystOverwatchDoomAshes of the SingularityHitman 2016The DivisionFar Cry PrimalXCOM 2Rise of the Tomb RaiderRainbow Six SiegeAssassin’s Creed SyndicateStar Wars BattlefrontFallout 4Call of Duty: Black Ops 3Anno 2205World of WarshipsDota 2 RebornThe Witcher 3Dirt RallyGTA VDragon Age: InquisitionFar Cry 4Assassin’s Creed Un ityCall of Duty: Advanced WarfareAlien: IsolationMiddle-earth: Shadow of MordorSims 4Wolfenstein: The New OrderThe Elder Scrolls OnlineThiefX-Plane 10.
25Battlefield 4Total War: Rome IICompany of Heroes 2Metro: Last LightBioShock InfiniteStarCraft II: Heart of the SwarmSimCityTomb RaiderCrysis 3Hitman: AbsolutionCall of Duty : Black Ops 2World of Tanks v8Borderlands 2Counter-Strike: GODirt ShowdownDiablo IIIMass Effect 3The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimBattlefield 3Deus Ex Human RevolutionStarCraft 2Metro 2033Stalker: Call of PripyatGTA IV — Grand Theft AutoLeft 4 DeadTrackmania Nations ForeverCall of Duty 4 — Modern WarfareSupreme Commander — FA BenchCrysis — GPU BenchmarkWorld in Conflict — BenchmarkHalf Life 2 — Lost Coast BenchmarkWorld of WarcraftDoom 3Quake 3 Arena — TimedemoHalo InfiniteFarming Simulator 22Battlefield 2042Forza Horizon 5Riders RepublicGuardians of the GalaxyBack 4 BloodDeathloopF1 2021Days GoneResident Evil VillageHitman 3Cyberpunk 2077Assassin´s Creed ch Dogs LegionMafia Definitive EditionCyberpunk 2077 1.5GRID LegendsDying Light 2Rainbow Six ExtractionGod of War
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
Horizon Zero Dawn (2020)
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
nine0003 1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
Death Stranding (2020)
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
F1 2020 (2020)
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
Gears Tactics (2020)
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
Doom Eternal (2020)
low
1280×720
med.
1920×1080
high
1920×1080
ultra
1920×1080
QHD
2560×1440
4K
3840×2160
| Description | |
| 5 | Stutter — The performance of this video card with this game has not yet been studied enough. Based on interpolated information from graphics cards of a similar performance level, the game is likely to stutter and display low frame rates. nine0102 |
| May Stutter — The performance of this video card with this game has not yet been studied enough. Based on interpolated information from graphics cards of a similar performance level, the game is likely to stutter and display low frame rates. | |
| 30 | Fluent — According to all known benchmarks with the specified graphic settings, this game is expected to run at 25 fps or more |
| 40 | Fluent — According to all known benchmarks with the specified graphics settings, this game is expected to run at 35 fps or more |
| 60 | Fluent — According to all known benchmarks with the specified graphic settings, this game is expected to run at 58 fps or more |
| nine0550 May Run Fluently — The performance of this video card with this game has not yet been sufficiently studied. | |
| ? | Uncertain — testing this video card in this game showed unexpected results. A slower card could provide higher and more consistent frame rates while running the same reference scene. nine0102 |
| Uncertain — The performance of this video card in this game has not yet been studied enough. It is not possible to reliably interpolate data based on the performance of similar cards in the same category. | |
| The value in the fields reflects the average frame rate across the entire database. To get individual results, hover over a value. | |
Based on interpolated information from graphics cards of a similar performance level, the game is likely to show smooth frame rates.
AMD equivalent
AMD Radeon RX 560X
Compare
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 in benchmark results
Benchmarks help determine performance in standard NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 benchmarks.
We’ve compiled a list of the world’s best-known benchmarks so you can get accurate results for each one (see description). Pre-testing the graphics card is especially important when there are high loads, so that the user can see how the graphics processor copes with calculations and data processing. nine0004
Overall performance in benchmarks
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750
15.66%
NVIDIA Tesla C2075
15.58%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590
15.46%
NVIDIA Tesla C2070
15.16%
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M
15.07%
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Benchmark: Graphic card performance test results. Check out the 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics GPU test results at hitesti.com
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590
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3DMark 11 Performance GPU Benchmark: Graphic card performance test results.