NVIDIA to Launch Three GPUs Next Month?

When NVIDIA launched their GTX 200 series in June, I don’t think anyone had an idea of how fast they would be overshadowed, but leave it to AMD… it was done. Since then, NVIDIA hasn’t had a truly competitive high-end part, but it appears they’re working towards changing that with a few upgraded releases.

To help better compete this holiday season, The Inquirer is reporting that the big green will be launching three ‘new’ models – GTX 270, GTX 290, and get this, a GX2. The reason why the GTX 260/216 wasn’t called the GTX 270 becomes clear with these findings. Both cards take advantage of a die shrink and clock boosts.

When the GTX 200 series first launched, a GX2 version of the cards seemed unlikely due to the sheer size of the GPUs, but thanks to these forthcoming die shrinks, it’s going to be possible. It doesn’t seem to be clear whether it will be based on the GTX 260 or GTX 280, but it will likely have to be the latter in order to overtake ATI’s HD 4870 X2.

Two problems I foresee with the GX2 is heat and the fact that it still seems to use a dual-PCB design, which in my experience, is nowhere near as reliable as having two cores on the same PCB. Sharing the same PCB makes it easier to share other components, like memory, and on top of it, the card’s production cost should be lower in the end. The dual-PCB factor was cute at first, but we really need to see a change here. You know… if this rumor is at all true.

NV is in a real bind here, it needs a halo, but the parts won’t let it do it. If they jack up power to give them the performance they need, they can’t power it. Then there is the added complication of how the heck do you cool the damn thing. With a dual PCB, you have less than one slot to cool something that runs hot with a two slot cooler. In engineering terms, this is what you call a mess.