NVIDIA to Release Dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 Next Week?

According to the Taiwanese industry-tracking website DigiTimes, NVIDIA is set to launch its dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 next Tuesday (March 22). If true, then the glory AMD has been enjoying for the past couple of weeks with its Radeon HD 6990, also a dual-GPU offering, might be short-lived. There are few reliable details out about the GTX 590, so all we can judge things by is speculation at this point.

Similar to previous NVIDIA dual-GPU cards, the GeForce GTX 590 is slated to have the heart of 2 x GTX 580s, but a down-clocked core and memory clock. If true, the GTX 590 should feature a total of 6 billion transistors, 1024 cores, 32 streaming multi-processors, 3GB of memory, and computational output of 2.5 TFLOPS.

While the GTX 580 includes a core clock of 772MHz and a shader clock of 1544MHz, the GTX 590 is rumored to drop those to 612MHz and 1224MHz, respectively. On paper, those look to be more like plummets than simple drops, and as a result, 2 x GeForce GTX 580 will undoubtedly prove the better overall performer. Similar also to AMD’s Radeon HD 6990, the GTX 590’s memory clock might also see a drop, from 4008MHz to 3420MHz.

If not for the vastly decreased core and shader clocks, the GTX 590 would have, without a doubt, obliterated the Radeon HD 6990. But, with such decreased clocks, we might see it perform on par with the HD 6990, or even a bit worse. Or, it could be that NVIDIA’s taking a unique approach to this dual-GPU card, and it ends up being majorly impressive anyway. Oh, the suspense!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

Nvidia will release its GeForce GTX 590 graphics chip on March 22 to take on AMD’s recently released AMD Radeon HD 6990, according to industry sources. The AMD Radeon HD 6990 is priced at US$699.