Which 580 should I get?

[Anders_And]

Which one of the following 580s should I consider? Which one of them will give me the best performance? is the 3gig version alot better or just waste of memory? and why do the DDR5 show show such a diff. in speed? (1ghz vs 4Ghz)

MSI GeForce GTX580 TwinFrozr II aktiv Retail
1,5 GB GDDR5 (1 GHz)
384 Bit
800 MHz

or

Gigabyte GeForce GTX580 aktiv Retail
1,5 GB GDDR5 (4 GHz)
384 Bit
795 MHz

or

ASUS GeForce GTX580 aktiv Retail
1,5 GB GDDR5 (4 GHz)
384 Bit
782 MHz

or

Zotac GeForce GTX580 aktiv Retail
3 GB DDR5 (4 GHz)
772 MHz
DirectX Version: 11

or

Zotac GeForce GTX580 AMP2! Edition aktiv Retail
3 GB DDR5 (1,25 GHz)
: 384 Bit
815 MHz

or

Palit GeForce GTX580 aktiv Retail
1,5 GB DDR5 (4 GHz)
384 Bit
783 MHz

or

MSI GeForce GTX580 Twin Frozer III aktiv Retail
1536 MB GDDR5 (4 GHz)
384 Bit
: 810 MHz

or

Zotac Geforce GTX580 AMP! Edition aktiv Retail
1536 MB GDDR5 SDRAM (4,1 GHz)
384-bit
815 MHz

Thx and best regards

[Ataros]

Go for 3 GB one o save for 680

[Jaws2002]

Any 580 with less then 3GB of ram is waste of money now. EVGA also makes some good cards, and have awesome waranty.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

Any 580 with less then 3GB of ram is waste of money now.

and you think so because ..... ?

a few facts and pointers might be useful there, as many other people here are looking at the next gen cards

[Anders_And]

Originally Posted by Ataros

Go for 3 GB one o save for 680

Well is the 680 with two gigs better than the 580 with 3 gigs? I havent seen any game that uses more than 1gig... What about power consumption?!

[Winger]

680 all the way. Believe me the 680 ROCKS!

Memory above 1,5 GB does only matter at higher than 1920x1200 resolutions. If you dont drive higher res dont bother about the ram.
As for the power consumption the 680 is much more efficient than the previous generations since it automatically clocks down and drives power down if in 2D or idle mode.

Winger

[Dr str@nglove]

i have this one http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/43487-gigabyte-gtx-580-super-overclock-review.html

[ATAG_MajorBorris]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

Any 580 with less then 3GB of ram is waste of money now. EVGA also makes some good cards, and have awesome waranty.

Good info Jaws, I'll add a little more.

To the OP

EVGA has a lifetime waranty with overclocking promoted(so dont waste $ on o.c. cards), register your card with in 30 days and add the 3 day cross shipping for $30 (you call on the phone tell them you want a new card, 3 days later viola)and future issues are all but forgotten.

The step up program offered by EVGA means you can purchase a 580 today and "step up" to a 680 within 90 days if you decide to later.(read all faqs so you know how it works).

Many pc games will use more than 1.5 gb today @1080p(last year for that matter), the reason you have not seen any games use more is they cant on your pc or they are console ports or the settings are turned down.

Here are some games that can use more than 1.5gb and up to 2.5gb vram @1920x1080p:

Crysis 2(hd texture pack)
Shogun2
Metro 2033
Civ5
Il2 Cliffs of Dover

See ya in the air!

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Anders_And

Well is the 680 with two gigs better than the 580 with 3 gigs? I havent seen any game that uses more than 1gig... What about power consumption?!

Do you play this game? If you do, you'll see it uses more than 1GB. That if you have it.
My game is using close to 1.5GB of video ram, because the game can't see the other 1.5GB on the second GPU in my dual GPU card.

People that have 2GB cards can confirm that their game is using close to two GB of video memory.
I think with 2GB you should be fine, but now, with all this 3GB cards on the market, I wouldn't spend a penny on a card with less then two GB per GPU.

The more you have, for this game, the better.

[Jaws2002]

I forgot. I would get the 2GB 680 over the 3GB 580 any day of the week. I would get the EVGA version and sign up for step up program and if the next best thing is released within 90 days, I'd just switch to that by paying the difference.