Introduced just two short weeks ago, the GTX 580 from NVIDIA gave us what we had been waiting for since November 2009 — a Fermi-based graphics solution that was not a cut-down version of the architecture. We finally got the fully functional version with its 512 CUDA cores instead of 480 or fewer with the lower class cards, the GTX 470 and 460. The performance delivered by the GTX 580 rivaled that of the HD 5970 2GB in some games and easily out performed the GTX 480 and the best single GPU card in the AMD product stack, the now year+ old HD 5870. This means that the green camp has a new performance leader with the GTX 580. It runs cooler, uses less power (for those who use that as a measure of a successful product), and just plain kicked ass when put to the test! While I have looked at the reference version of the GTX 580, this one is from ASUS and comes to us equipped with a slightly higher clock speed on the core and the ability to tweak voltages using the ASUS Smart Doctor utility for added performance — something that was not available with the reference version. The claim from ASUS on the voltage tweaking ability is an improvement of "Up to 50%" by using this technology. Without the voltage tweak ability, the reference card delivered less than stunning overclocking increases based on a percentage basis. But after playing with the Smart Doctor software, the ability to increase the voltage brings on the pain without the fear of the hardware-based current monitoring kicking in to limit performance. So let's see just what ASUS gives us with its version of the GTX 580.