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To test this high end card today we have built a system with suitable matching components, based around a liquid cooled 12 core Intel i7 970 processor overclocked to 4.33ghz with 6GB of GKILL memory running at 1800mhz with tight timings. We will be mixing the resolutions, as we know that less than 1 percent of the audience have access to a 30 inch screen.
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell U2410 UltraSharp, LaCie 730, Iiyama Prolite E2472HDD x2
Other graphics cards for comparisons:
Nvidia GTX590
Nvidia GTX580
Nvidia GTX570
XFX HD5970 Black Edition 4GB (QuadFireX)
AMD HD6990
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5870
AMD HD5850
MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II
nVidia GTX570
nVidia GTX460 OC (715/900)
Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.4
Forceware 266.58 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
ShaderToy
Stone Giant Benchmark
HQV 2.0 Software
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Games:
Mafia 2
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Metro 2033
Colin McRae Dirt 2
STALKER: Clear SKy
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Dead Space 2
Total War: Shogun 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.
Considering ive seen the HD6990 for £50 more, Zotac clearly have forgotten to check the pricing on this one,.
I always hate to see high end cards with special names, just having a sticker over the reference design. its lazy and I cant believe they think they can get away with charging £70 more than the reference card. Does it cost £70 to flash the bios? Most 580s hit those speeds without any effort. easy way to save the money.
£450? eh, surely thats a typo on scans store.
£900 for 3 screen gaming, bargain lol
£900 before you buy the three screens !
Seriously though, this is a great card, but I agree, the pricing is about £80 too high. I hope people dont realise that every 1mhz of overclock should cost about a £5. most reference GTX580’s hit higher than these clocks without any effort.;
I bought a reference 580 in January for £370 on ebay and I have it running at 850 core and 1100 memory. Basically identical to this, bought two months ago for less money.
My sticker isn’t as nice though :p
GTX580 is nvidias best card, no doubt about it. the pricing is semi reasonable too on most of the models
Wow I was hoping Zotac would have had a nice zalman cooler on this, they normally work with them on these AMP! special models. very poor showing.
After the Asus model that was reviewed here a while ago, this does look rather lacking. I always dislike when companies release a card with a reference cooler, its fine at launch time, but its been a very long time since the 580 was released. a little moer effort from zotac would have been good.
The results are good, but the temperatures due to the reference cooler could have been a lot better. I am not sure I like the asus 3 slot cooler however, but Zotac could have approached this from a higher ground rather than aiming for the entry style cooler on such a high clocked model.