Which GTX 570/580 do I choose?

SecondWind-SK wrote on 12/13/2013, 11:54 AM

Been looking at posts about GPU acceleration for preview and video Fx. I'm sold. Thinking of a used GTX 570 or 580. Some have 1.5 Gb DDR5 memory. Some have 3 Gb. How important is more memory. There are also some variations in output connectors with DVI x 2 and MiniHDMI being the most common. Anything else I should think about, when choosing one of these cards?

Desktop system:
i5 @ 2.7 GHz
8 Gb RAM
Win 7/64-bit SP1

Comments

OldSmoke wrote on 12/13/2013, 1:06 PM

I am actually selling my two ASUS GTX570 currently on aBay. I upgraded to two GTX580 water-cooled. I doubt that more memory on the card will improve performance by much. You certainly need a good power supply, 750W minimum. Non reference cards like my ASUS are bigger but run a lot cooler. It takes away three slots and it's also quite long. Best used with Win7x64 and driver 296.10.

DavidMcKnight wrote on 12/13/2013, 1:28 PM

Linky to the auction please? :)
<EDIT> Found them actually, and the forum admin might not approve of links to stuff for sale. I forgot about that.

SecondWind-SK wrote on 12/13/2013, 2:39 PM

How many monitors are you using? I currently have a Dell 27" and an Asus 24".

SecondWind-SK wrote on 12/13/2013, 2:40 PM

Old Smoke...explain "non-reference cards", please.

OldSmoke wrote on 12/13/2013, 2:49 PM

I am using 4, 3 on my desk and 32"HDTV on the wall.

There is reference design which is the design Nivida has released and past on to manufacturers.These cards usually have only one fan located in the rear and are only 2 slots wide, look for EVGA. Then there is non-reference like the ASUS. It has two fans and is 3 slots wide. The size comes from the much bigger air cooler but there is no difference in performance; I would rather say that my GTX570 is almost as good as the GTX580 reference design I recently upgraded too. I just couldn't find reasonable priced ASUS 580s on eBay.