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ASUS Matrix GTX 580 Platinum Unboxing Review GTX580 P/2DIS/1536MD5

V2-V3
Level 8
The ASUS Matrix GTX580 Platinum is the premier Republic of Gamers graphics card. With its deep ROG bloodline ASUS engineers have designed an extremely impressive video card for Gamers, Overclockers and enthusiasts alike. On the outside the Matrix 580 has an intimidating appearance similar to its non ROG brother the GTX 580 Direct Copper II. Sharing an NVIDIA Fermi 580 graphics processing core, the Matrix and and DCUII support 512 Shader cores, NVIDIA 4-Way SLI and 1.5 Gigabytes of onboard GDDR5 memory. Both cards have two dual link DVI ports, one HDMI 1.4a and one full size Display port and the much desired Direct Copper heat pipe cooling system. How ever, on the inside we see something much more beautiful and well refined about the Matrix. The release of ASUS's Matrix 580 Delivers new features such as GPU TweakIt allowing high performance overclocking and optimization from within windows through a software interface. No more hardware voltage mods required Onboard voltage adjustment buttons (+ -) provide for convenient tuning of your graphics cards core voltage. Asus has raised the bar once again by including a Safe Mode button for quick and easy operational restoration of a corrupted BIOS or failed flashing. ROG engineers have taken the hugely successful GTX 580 Direct Copper II and given it an appropriate ROG makeover with the true embodiment of an Overclocker.


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ASUS has a strong history of excellent retail packaging with its motherboards, today I can say that tradition has been fully shared with the ROG graphics card series. Conveniently topped with a carrying handle the retail packaging follows suit with Republic of Gamers mother boards in its ROG red color scheme and bold shimmering title. Looking at the box we first see a very powerful explosion as if the performance of this card can not be bound within the limits of its box. The logos for DirectX 11, NVIDIA CUDA, Phys X, and NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready are seen at the bottom of the box.

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When we turn the box over we can see Asus has provided the owners with a brief overview of the cards features. Flip open the front of the box and we find an informative section with more detail of the ROG Overclocking aspects ad features. On the left side of the box we see pictures depicting the physical TweakIt voltage buttons. Also shown is the GPU Tweak software for GPU Core and Memory tuning and monitoring. Near the bottom there is a nice photo of the GPU's 19 phase power design as well as an exploded view of the Direct Copper II cooling system. Additional information on the inside flap of the retail box informs us of the graphics cards specifications. The Matrix Core is factory overclocked to 816MHz and is complemented with 1.5 Gigabytes of GDDR5 onboard memory through a wide 384bit memory bus. The GDDR5 is also overclocked and comes stock at an amazing 4.8GHz. System builders should note ASUS recommends using a 700 Watt or greater capacity power supply with two 8 pin EPS 12 Volt PCI express power connectors.

The inside flap provides even more detailed information of the unique attributes of this card. The Matrix heatsink acts as a graphics load indicator light blue lights on the Matrix logo represent a light load while red lights represent extreme work load conditions.




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After working our way around the box we arrive to find a beautifully crafted GPU with a larger than life feel. Behind the stylishly cut window the pinnacle of graphics cards sits perched as if it is taunting us to let it out!


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Located inside the retail box is an elegantly packaged accessories kit. The accessories kit supplied by Asus includes several useful items. Included in the kit a flexiable NVIDIA SLI Cable for connecting two NVIDIA graphics cards for increased performance seen in the upper left. Below the SLI cable are two six pin to 8 pin PCI express 12 volt converters. These cables are used when an older powersupply does not contain enough 8 pin PCI express power cables to power the card.. moving to the top right we see the Graphics Card Speed Setup guide for effortless installation and configuration of your new graphics card. inside you will find quick answers to your questions about the graphics card installation, layout, features and options. Below the setup guide is the ASUS provided driver support DVD The support DVD includes ROG CPU-Z, ROG GPU-Z, GPU TweakIT as well as the required hardware drivers and software for overclocking and tweaking your system. The last two items at the bottom of the picture are a ROG sticker presumably to be installed on your computer case, the last item is an old school DVI to VGA DSUB 15 adapter. The adapter is intended to provide backwards computability to legacy LCD and CRT monitors.

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Enough about the retail box, its accessories and their uses! Here is what we have been waiting for! The ASUS Matrix GTX580 Platinum graphics card. Immediately I noticed the long standing tradition of the ROG red and black color scheme, from the heavy armored feel of the fan shroud to its sexy red accents and tapered edges. At the center of the card are two appropriately sized 90mm cooling fans. These fans will provide massive airflow through its enormous cooler. As if packed to survive the Armageddon the card fits snugly in its protective foam enclosure for shipping ensuring your Currier will need to go above and beyond the call of duty to damage this beast!

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Turn the card over and we find the GPU back plate for the stabilized mounting of the cooler. The back plate also provides assistance in supporting the 11" long PCB reducing component stress by limiting board flexibility. I find this back plate to very comforting as it helps eliminate deadly accidental short circuits or physically damaged components on the back of the card. Located directly under the GPU core we see the ultra-quality NEC TOKIN proadlizers (prompt, broadband and stabilizer) This is used to reduce high-frequency noise in power supplied to the GPU core. Notice the series of holes in the back plate. These holes are intentionally placed as to allow sufficient airflow for passive cooling of the cards printed circuit board. Directly below the GPU core is the GPU's serial number, you may want to take note of serial number during installation as it may be difficult to access in a fully assembled system. On a side note this graphics card is slightly taller than the reference GTX 580 as the PCB stands taller than the I/O support bracket.

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The I/O panel of the GTX580 Platinum is very impressive and feature rich for a graphics card. This card sports an unprecedented Safe Mode BIOS switch to be used in situations of a corrupt BIOS or when flashing the graphics card firmware results in failure. Safe Mode is very useful for Overclockers and trouble shooting in a time crunch. The Matrix has two dual-link DVI-I outputs, a full size version 1.4a HDMI output, and a full size display port for professional workstation displays. To the right of the I/O ports we see the rear thermal exhaust vent for the graphics card cooling system. Note, not all of the heat is removed through the cards I/O exhaust. The open cooler design also dissipates heat into the systems chassis.

ASUS MATRIX GTX580 PLATINUM RESOURCES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MATRIX GTX580 PLATINUM : UNBOXING
MATRIX GTX580 PLATINUM : SYSTEM BUILDING
MATRIX GTX580 PLATINUM : OVERCLOCKING
MATRIX GTX580 PLATINUM : EXTREME OVERCLOKING
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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25 REPLIES 25

ive been really trying to push this card. I spent a good chunk of the other day just running benchies. Ive got what i would consiter a really nice oc here but i know this card has so much more to offer. I have cross checked my results to others who are pushing their 580s to the max using both LN2, H2O and some impressive stock air overclocks. I still feel the Matrix has the most to offer for 580s as far as oc is concerned. One thing i know i need to do is increase my volts beyond what is offered using utilitys such as gpu tweak. 1.150 is the max i can push it because of my limmited knowledge on this subject. Anyone who is higher both in points or max coreclocks are also using 1.8v-2v or higher. Also their cpu clocks are well above 4GHZ where as mine is 3.9GHZ. Two things i can claim is that my Matrix oc is higher than anyone i can find at my volts, most are higher temps and all are under what i have for a mem oc plus core oc so that is awsome. Says alot for build quality forsure. I am wondering if my running the card in 8x pciE slot is somewhat limmiting my scores....dont know but ill have to live with it as my waterlines dont allow for the card to be raised to the 16x slot.
Two things im going to look into. One will be to turn turbocore on, with stock 3.9GHZ turning that on should allow me to push 4.4GHZ on three cores and i only use one core for 3dmark11. Ill not need to increase voltages as the requirments will not change in that respect.........still just a thought at this point. There is not alot of 1055t processors that like it above 4GHZ anyways and im not willing to screw a rock solid oc for the sake of a few points.
The H70 mod is amazing, so much more than i expected, perhaps the reason for the impressive core/mem ocs, i dont know but i would like to think i plays apart.

So without anything else to add ill post my new oc scores and go play some BF3 beta..WOOT

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Something on overvolting the card would be nice too, 1.150v is holding me back

Retired
Not applicable
Hi, i have a question, my build is the following

ASUS M4A77T AM3
AMD PHENOM II X4 965 BE SOCKET AM3 € 120.00
4GB GSKILL RIPJAW X DDR3 1600MHZ (9-9-9-24) (2x2GB) € 29.90
ARCTIC COOLING FREEZER 13 PRO € 32.00
CORSAIR AX750

Can this build handle this card?

Jcmarques - Yes that build will be fine. Your Corsair PSU is powerful enough although your bottleneck might be the AMD CPU unless you OC it a little 🙂

Cravinmild - Official GPU Tweak will be out v.soon which opens up more options for OCing this Matrix!

Eerazer - Let us know how you get on (in SLI?) Want PICS!

MarshallR wrote:
Jcmarques - Yes that build will be fine. Your Corsair PSU is powerful enough although your bottleneck might be the AMD CPU unless you OC it a little 🙂

Cravinmild - Official GPU Tweak will be out v.soon which opens up more options for OCing this Matrix!

Eerazer - Let us know how you get on (in SLI?) Want PICS!


Just a single card setup for me from now on, I'm selling my 6970's and replacing them with this. ATI's drivers make crossfire not worth using any more for me. That also means I'm not interested in SLI either, too many problems and I don't need to push hundreds of frames in my games with a 1080p monitor 🙂

1 really great GPU will suit my needs much better.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 1100T X6 4.0GHz
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair V Formula
Memory: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1333MHz
Graphics Card: ASUS ROG Matrix GTX 580 Platinum
Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 60GB SSD Western Digital 500GB X2
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium
Power Supply: Corsair TX850W V2
Case: Fractal Designs R3 Black Pearl
CPU cooling: Thermalright Silver Arrow
OS: Windows 7 X64 Ultimate
Monitor: HP 2510i 25"

Eerazer
Level 7
I just ordered one. 🙂
CPU: AMD Phenom II 1100T X6 4.0GHz
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair V Formula
Memory: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1333MHz
Graphics Card: ASUS ROG Matrix GTX 580 Platinum
Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 60GB SSD Western Digital 500GB X2
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium
Power Supply: Corsair TX850W V2
Case: Fractal Designs R3 Black Pearl
CPU cooling: Thermalright Silver Arrow
OS: Windows 7 X64 Ultimate
Monitor: HP 2510i 25"