ASUS GTX 580 Matrix Platinum review

Product Showcase

Okay then, first photo should normally be the packaging, typically which we always show you so you know what to look for in the stores. However this sample was rushed over here, without the retail packaging.

Above you can see the GeForce GTX 580, Matrix edition It will become available for roughly 539 USD/525 EUR. The first impression 'it looks cool', but then you'll realize that it is one huge card alright. A 3 slot cooling design. The ROG MATRIX GTX 580 series is clocked at 816MHz and features1.5GB of 4.8GHz GDDR5 memory. We had hoped to have seen 3 GB.

Let's look at the card from several different viewpoints. The GTX 580 card is quite good looking with dark and monitor connectors and then that revised cooler. Cooling down cool the MATRIX GTX 580 series is the cooler which has a revised DirectCU II thermal design that puts copper heat pipes in direct contact with the GPU to effectively dissipate heat.

Funky is a MATRIX LED load indicator that provides an at-a-glance, color changing display of the card’s overall load in real-time, too.

Connectivity wise, we see two dual-link DVI connectors supporting all high-resolution monitors and all the way to the left you can see an HDMI and a DisplayPort connector. Above it a button, which we'll show you later on.

Here we can see the backside, and that looks gangstah alright. The card measures roughly 27cm in length. Overall, a clean dark looking PCB, lots of smaller components though. We see a NEC “Proadlizer” (Prompt, Broadband, Stabilizer) capacitors which offer ultra-high capacitance ratings. Basically they clean up the power signal creating better stability and more overclock potential. We like the massive shield on the backside (backplate).

The GeForce GTX 580 has a maximum power consumption of roughly 250 Watts, as such you'll need to power the card with two 8-pin PCIe PEG connectors from your power supply. We recommend a 600W power supply to start with, and that is with one card of course.

Located to the right, like any high-end GeForce graphics card, NVIDIA will allow you to opt for the multi-GPU road with SLI as an option. You can pair two or three cards in one PC and have them do a decent workout.

At the frontside side you'll also spot switch that denotes safe mode. Should you mess up, you can revert here to a second BIOS.