Overall and FV
When EVGA announced the GTX 580 Classified, I along with everyone else followed the thread over on EVGA’s forums closely waiting to get details as they trickled out. When I received it and opened everything up its massive cooler was finally in front of me I could tell right away that EVGA accomplished something. It’s rare than anything short of a new video card from Nvidia or AMD gets people foaming at the mouth like EVGA did with the GTX 580 Classified. I think the three power connectors did a good job of getting everyone’s attention also. So in the end is it worth it?
On one hand the Classified really does require a professional overclocker to reach its full potential. We were able to get more of an overclock on this card than we have seen on our other GTX 580’s, but we barely scratched the surface of what it’s truly capable of. If the price different between this card and a standard 3Gb GTX 580 wasn’t so close I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone other than professional overclockers. But the reality is this card as it sits today is $10 more than a standard card. For $10 you are getting a card that is built to be pushed to the limit and should have no problem running for a very long time at the loads the average gamer is going to put it under. You are also getting upgraded cooling at still continues to (mostly) push the hot air out of the back and support from EVGA who actually encourages you to overclock the card!
The downside for the average gamer is those three require power connectors. If you plan on running SLI in the future you are going to need a total of four 8 pin connections and two 6 pins. Because of that you will be shopping for triple SLI power supplies. Even though I love the cooler, I was a little disappointed to find out that the added inch on top vents hot air directly into your case. This is still an improvement over other high end coolers, but when you are trying to push the hot air out of a case the last thing you want to have to fight with is more hot air from your video card.
