eVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified review - Introduction

eVGA just released a new series of GeForce GTX 580 based cards, an interesting move because that really indicates there won't be a new high-end product in Q4 Christmas season, a first ever for NVIDIA really.

And yeah, the GeForce GTX 580 is now officially a year old, as it originally was released in November 2010. In Spring and Summer we already have seen some outstanding enthusiast redesigns and there is a myriad available of them, like the Lightning series from MSI, the DirectCU versions from ASUS, the SOC version from Gigabyte and more and more.

eVGA now releases the GTX 580 Classified. It is released in three flavors, the 'regular' version with air cooling, a liquid cooled version and then for the 0.000000001% of pro overclockers a kit with LN2 sub-zero cooling pots. In-between these models you can opt for 1.5 and 3 GB versions as well.

The card tested today comes with a funky dual-slot cooling design based on an 8 cm fan. eVGA overhauled the PCB design and wanted just the best on it so you'll spot a customized VRM and 14+3 phase design , NEC Proadlizer capacitors, voltage probe points, 3 MHz shielded inductors and there even is an EVBot connector for on-the-fly overclocking with an external control pod you may purchase.

Also tiny intricate insertions like dual BIOS and voltage status LEDs have been embedded.You better gear up with a proper power supply though as you need to connect two 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI Express power connectors. The 512 shader processor encounting GPU runs factory overclocked, 855 MHz and 1710 MHz for the GPU and shaders, respectively. The graphics memory comes clocked in at at 4,212 MHz.

We are flabbergasted by the nice looks, yet are a little restless by the cooling as you'll learn in this review. Display connectivity includes two DVI connectors. the card been released as we speak and small volume availability can be found at major retailers. So for that first hands on experience, where else do you need to be other then at Guru3D.com ? Next page please where we startup the review.