The race between ATI and NVIDIA continues with NVIDIA announcing release of the Dual-GPU GTX 590. There was rumor in the market that NVIDIA might delay introduction of its Dual GPU to gain an advantage over ATI. NVIDIA had already confirmed that it would be soon introducing a dual GPU. It has named its latest processor as George GTX 590. NVIDIA has made an intelligent move by timing its dual GPU George GTC 590 at the same time when ATI is expected to release its much anticipated dual GPU Radeon HD 6990 “Antilles”. The NVIDIA launch is intended to catch AMD off-guard similarly as it did during launch of the predecessor GeForce GTX 580. AMD had earlier announced that it would be introducing “Antilles” in February 2011. NVIDIA’s recent announcement was a big surprise for AMD as the dual GPU GeForce GTC 590 will directly compete against its dual GPU Radeon HD 6990 “Antilles”.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTC 590 has its foundation on the 40 nm fabrication process. NVIDIA has announced in its press release that the GeForce GTX 590 will be equipped with 2 GF110 GPUs each having a 512 CUDA core of its own. The card will also have 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, 2 x 384 bit memory interface and enhanced support for DirectX 11.
NVIDIA has made significant changes in the design process of its dual GPU GeForce GTX 590. It has also increased GPU frequencies, thus providing more effective solution. NVIDIA has confirmed that the dual GPU GeForce GTC 590 clock frequencies are set at lower level than its predecessor GeForce GTX 580, which has only one GF110 GPU. NVIDIA has not mentioned how much power the dual GPU GeForce GTX 590 will consume. Experts say that such things will only be known when the dual GPU from NVIDIA hits the market. Experts also have an opinion the power consumption of the new dual GPU will be far greater than its predecessor GeForce GTX 580. The reason given for this is the new dual GPU features two GF110 GPUs, while the GeForce GTX 580 has only one GF110 GPU.
Experts believe that NVIDIA has already decided the design and unnamed sources tell that the dual GPU will have a big 90-mm radial fan fixed in the center of the full cover cooler. The size of the GeForce GTX 590 will be closer to GeForce GTX 295 model. However, the dual GPU will be bit longer than its predecessor.
The GF110 cores used in GeForce GTX 590 are manufactured at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). The dual GPU board is packed with 128 texturing units, 1024 stream processors and 96 ROPs (Render Output Units). NVIDIA has said that it has brought the dual GPU in market to capture the demand of performance market as the sales of entry level GPU is dwindling.
