Customer Reviews

Smart Buy Nvidia Quadro FX580 Pcie 512MB 2PORT Dvi Graphics

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The tag line "by Hewlett Packard" should read "FOR HEWLETT PACKARD ONLY!"

This card was purchased to replace an ATI Radion Card that was failing to the point of barely usable.

I work with a dual monitor setup and use Adobe's suite of graphics programs and View 7, etc. So I needed the rendering capabilities inherent with the Quadro series cards. After a thorough explanation of my work and usage habits to Customer/Technical Support at Nvidia, (very limited gaming) they recommended the 370. Given the price, stepping up to the new FX 580 seemed like a no-brainer, and it was.

However, the only choices for card manufacturers were HP and PNY. PNY's Customer/Technical Support ratings were poor so I went with HP. It was purchased on Amazon on a Wednesday evening and it came in on Friday morning. Perfect. Unfortunately, it was not clear prior to purchase that the card was intended for HP workstations ONLY, or that use in other systems would void the warranty. My bad, should have researched that further.

Nevertheless, I installed the card anyway, and then downloaded the latest drivers from the Nvidia website and it worked fine. The card was very easy to install. It only draws 45 watts of power so there was no need to upgrade the power supply. It is also very quiet. So far the 580 has proved more than capable of handling everything that I have thrown at it with fanstatic results.

I tested this Nvidia Quadro FX580 card with Autodesk Maya 2009 on Windows XP 64. In the viewport the fps does not appear to be faster than any other gaming or professional card but as expected the geometry and the wireframe looks great with very decent antialiasing and no artifacts. The color in shader mode ( 5 key) looks more accurate. I was expecting some acceleration with Hight Quality Rendering under the Rendering submenu but it is too slow, way more than the Default Rendering on the same card. 1/4 aprox. in texture mode ( 6 key) and 1/6 in lighting mode ( 7 key). So I am using the Default Quality Rendering. You can feel the card working because it stars slower rotating heavy models and in less that a second it gets to its top speed and stays there. It is very stable, looks great and accurate and never crashes. I have been using this card for more than 2 weeks.

Anyone, like me, expecting faster manipulation, rotating or scaling in the viewport window with professional graphic cards may be a bit disappointed. I think this is a software limitation in Maya because I can observe a similar top speed limit with other cards on Macs and PCs, even gaming cards have similar manipulation speed. But once you see how stable, accurate and smooth it runs you will never want to go back to gaming cards. And if you want better quality and faster hardware rendering speed the more expensive and powerful professional cards are the way to go.

Installation was not so painful but I needed to restart Windows 2 times to see the card perfectly working and as advised you need to remove any prior graphic drivers from ATI or Nvidia. I installed the latest Maya drivers from the Nvidia website and then I selected Maya as the 3D environment in the Nvidia control panel with 4x antialiasing. Not so manny choices there and I am not an expert in this regard so maybe with more experience someone could take more advantage of this card.

I went with this particular model from Nvidia because in my research this was the best entry level card around $160, even better than the ATI 3750 with 256 MB of memory. It is a bit faster than the similar ATI card, has more memory and is faster in more professional applications. On many reviews this card is almost as fast as the top Pro cards in general. I am using this model with a Shuttle PC with 4MB 800 DDR2 Corsair memory and a Q6600 at default 2.4 ghz. This machine makes a great portable and affordable "mobile" workstation. Be aware that if you install this HP card on a non qualified HP machine you will lose the warranty but on the positive side is cheaper than the PNY FX580.

As mentioned by another reviewer, this card is commercialized by HP for HP workstations, and includes a sticker saying that the warranty is void if used in a different machine. Documentation is sparse, and I there is nothing about the card connectors, especially the two on the board. I believe one of them is used for SPDIF audio passthrough to the HDMI/DP connectors, but I will have to do trial and error here. Even though the card is the same one, either sold by Nvidia, HP or PNY, the information and warranty varies, as well as the price. Still I prefer the HP that costs significantly less than the PNY, though now warranty in my case. I used the latest driver from Nvidia site and worked fine.

I am a Professional Avid Editor and I am really happy with this card. Avid only supports NVIDIA cards and I was afraid I would have to spend an arm and a leg for a really good one. My system is new and I have already done a lot of effects heavy projects with no glitches, so I feel confident to recommend this one for the price and functionality.

this device is well built and performs well
however.. the connectors are 1 DVI and 2 Displayport
-- cables alone to match to HDMI or Displayport to DVI are expensive..
not that I would have changed.. but what a nightmare to find
and find reasonably priced.

Got this card for the CUDA capabilities..
if it works for me I will sell this on Amazon.
and upgrade to a more expensive card with more CUDA (cores) GPU's.
this is one of the smaller version.

We just got these cards for our new computers, and notice a speed change on the 3D portion of Revit 2011. I recommend these Quadro Cards to any body doing serious Revit or 3D work. These are not intended for Gaming but do quite well. For work stations at our Architecture office they improve quality and speed work. Seconds and minutes add to hours and speed is money. I recommend them highly for a serious Architect office.

Home build;Asus P7p55D, I5, windows 7 pro, two 1T Black WD HDD, 4gb ddr3 12800.
Not much of a gamer, Mainly video and editing.
Works smooth, installed easy, Have not pushed it very hard but have been more than pleased with it's quiet,fast,cool, and it's diverse applications.
Not happy with the output connectors but it is easy to deal with.

Used as a replacement in an older Dell Poweredge - works great. Just be sure in non-HP Workstation PC's use nvidia driver download for FX580 (not HP disk).

Pros: A good nVidia design, many features.

Cons: Implementation ruined by PNY.
Third party components are of an inferior quality.
Consider PNY support: simply put - awful.

HP also manufactures FX 580, which and it seems to be of better quality.

Resume: While the intention was good, implementation by PNY is of no match.