Nvidia GTX 560 or 580? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 09:04:50 pm
content: I'm building a new PC and I'm wondering which video card to get. The two that caught my attention are the Nvidia GTX 560 and the GTX 580. The 580 is more than twice the cost of the 560 but doesn't give quite twice the performance. Is there some other reason for going with the 580? The motherboard I'm going to use (Intel DX79SI) supports up to 3 video cards so I can just add more 560s as I need to.The PC will mostly be used for development and other electronics-related work. I don't forsee using any AutoCAD-like programs and the games I play every once in a while would run fine on the 560, but I do want good VDPAU and CUDA support. Is it correct that the 560 is still the better value?I will be designing a power supply system that includes integrated battery backup/alternative energy support and high efficiency at low loads to support a secondary platform based on an Intel Atom. Both the main and secondary platforms will run Gentoo.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 09:21:51 pm
content: Apart from playing the latest and greatest games, the GTX-560 will be plenty powerful enough for CAD software. I own an Alienware Aurora R3 with the GTX-590 (two underclocked GTX-580's) and my father has a Gateway computer with a GTX-560Ti and to be honest, I don't notice any difference in standard desktop perfomance. Perhaps graphical design programs like Maya or even mechanical engineering software for structural design would make better use of GPU architecture then EE CAD software, but unless your software is designed to make use of CUDA or has optimizations for the higher end card, then you're probably better off spending the extra cash on a better CPU (at LEAST a i7-2600k).

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 09:44:00 pm
content: The (main) CPU will be a 6 core i7, so it's basically the best one available for desktop systems.The main application of CUDA I'm looking at would be SDR, audio/video processing, etc.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 09:53:56 pm
content: A new six core i7 would be choice. As far as the GPU is concerned, if you're going as far as to get a beast of a CPU (preferably water cooled) then i'd say why not go full out and buy a high-end graphics card. Check out tomshardware.com for charts on which GPU's are best for your purposes (I'd suggest at least a GTX-580, preferably 2x GTX-570 or a GTX-590).

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 11:01:40 pm
content: The reason I chose the 6 core is because I work for Intel and can get it along with the motherboard for about half price.

author: FenderBender
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2012, 11:57:56 pm
content: I haven't looked at PC stuff in a few years. But from what I do know, the 560 is quite powerful, and will handle your CAD programs quite well.So since you work for Intel, I guess it would be sacrilegious to buy an AMD part...They really do have some good offerings for the money. But your call.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 12:29:51 am
content: With a workstation, there are other things to consider, like power consumption, heat and noise.When you option a PC right up, then it has to get rid of a massive amount of heat. A GTX580 outputs over 400watts of heat, and the tiny fans on the heatsink have to try and dissipate this. It runs so hot that you can burn yourself on the heatsink, and that is not good for long term reliability. If the computer is going to be on all day, you have to think about the cost of electricity, the heat it is dumping into the room, and how annoying the cooling fans are when you can hear them everytime you start working.Here is the big problem with noise. If a GTX580 is running at full speed, the fan noise is just too loud. So if the CAD program really need the full power of a GTX580, you better invest in a water cooler mod for the card. If it doesn't need the full power of a GTX580, why are you wasting all that money for the card and the electricity?If you can use ATI boards instead, you could possibly be better off with something like a HD5850. Almost as fast as the GTX560 and runs at about 40% less power. Not the top of the range, but still very capable and affordable. It will do a great job.At some point with CAD programs, the software becomes processor bound and you get absolutely no improvement with faster graphics cards. The only way to find if a faster card makes a difference or not is to test it, or find someone else who has done the tests. With some cad programs I have seen, a $200 graphics card is as good as a $800 graphics card.Richard.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 01:47:54 am
content: The main system is not going to run 24/7 - that's what the secondary system based on the Atom is for. There will be a control system that handles the switching between the main and secondary systems as well as interaction with the power management system.I have avoided ATI since the 64 bit days. Back then, ATI/AMD cards just didn't work very well on 64-bit. (Which was ironic - AMD's video cards didn't work well with their CPUs!) I'm sure the situation has changed but Nvidia has always just worked for me, even in the early days of 64-bit. Now that I work for Intel, it would just be too ironic to go for an AMD product.I'm going for the 560 since it gives more performance per dollar and I could add more cards later on.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 02:01:47 am
content: Strange time for an Intel worker to be looking at making a new machine. Ivybridge (die shrink and tweak) is due in a few weeks. Nvidia is due to bring out their new chipset at the end of Feb / early March. Even if you don't intend buying these, they will push down the price of existing CPUs/GPUs. The new ATI 7970/7950 has already pushed down their existing cards by 10% or so.

author: damo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 02:03:21 am
content: I agree with a lot of what has been said here already, especially wrt non-gaming requirements. You shouldn't need a big high end card to run a cad program. I've seen cad programs run on low end dell desktops with the mobo graphics. If you plan to do some serious gaming in the future, do go with a high end card. I game and I have a GTX 560TI OC which handles modern games at 1080p easily. My recommendation would depend on the resolution of the monitor you will be using, but generally you should be able to get away with a cheap ati 5450 for most resolutions and not loose much on performance because you'll have the 6 core i7 to compensate.As far as audio/video processing, traditionally practically all of this is done on the CPU so your GC will only do the final render (usually in 2 frame buffers on the vid RAM in a update-flip cycle). VDPAU is specified for the gForce 8 series (e.g. gts8800) which is generations behind the 560 and CUDA will also run on an 8 series GPU (according tohttp://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus)Edit: Oh, you're going with the 560. Good choice, forget everything I said

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 04:08:13 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 05, 2012, 09:04:50 pmAs far as I remember - the GXT580 is a lot less noisy than the GTX560. (And you can mod it to be a "Tesla" Card - so CUDA can work without being logged in) Quite neat if you use it for transcoding of videos.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 05:24:09 am
content: Quote from: Zad on February 06, 2012, 02:01:47 amThe "workstation class" Ivy Bridge is not coming out anytime soon - the ones that will be available are the "ordinary desktop" kind. And the employee discounts are time sensitive.QuoteDepends on what you're doing. Back in high school, I have seen an AutoCAD rendering (of a house) that was so detailed that a 9700 Pro (one of the best ones back then) slowed down to just a few FPS. Fortunately, unlike most games, it's often acceptable for a CAD program to run a little slow. I once did, however, make an AutoCAD drawing on a PC with a 9000 Pro and later tried to open it on a PC with a GF2 MX. It took minutes to render a frame!QuoteProbably the most demanding game I will play would be D2X-XL. Since that game runs quite well (55FPS or so at 1080p) on my quite outdated 8600 GT, what kind of framerate should I expect out of a 560? Can I expect a framerate high enough to really make use of a 120Hz or even 240Hz LCD? (Assume the quality settings remain the same, even though I'll most likely turn it up.)QuoteNoise isn't that much a concern - just as long as it's not excessively annoying. And if I'm understanding it correctly, wouldn't modding a video card into a Tesla make it useless for outputting video?

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 05:44:11 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 06, 2012, 05:24:09 amMy GTX580 works fine in tesla mode with video out. I had to modify the bootstrap's - so it acts as a C2070 tesla card. But some tesla's have video out. You can enable and disable the "server" (MCC/TCC) modes from command line and a reboot. It does not get all the C2070 performance - but can be used via remote desktop (which "normal cuda" cant since RDS does not use the normal Video Drivers) - but it is a neat option to have. I think the 560 can be bootstrapped as well - but I have not worked out the straps for that. :-)

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 06, 2012, 01:01:55 pm
content: I don't game and got a GT520 and it did make my system nipier, it has cuda support and crunches away at boinc work while i use the PC, I'd get the cheaper.