GeForce GTX 590 is the confirmed name of NVIDIA’s coming graphics card flagship. With dual GF110 GPUs the beafy graphics card will offer 1024 CUDA cores and 3GB memory. Perhaps the most exciting is that the launch is set for February, in the same timeframe as AMD Radeon HD 6990 is expected to arrive.
NVIDIA’s Fermi architecture have gone from being a laugh in 2009 to being the father of a very respectable graphics card family that boasts the fastest single-GPU graphics card around – GeForce GTX 580.
The company is on a roll now and is expected to follow up the launch of GeForce GTX 560 Ti with a new flagship. The new graphics card comes with dual graphics circuits and according to reliable sources the name is set to GeForce GTX 590.
Many CUDA cores before high frequencies
The new graphics card comes with two GF110 GPUs and NVIDIA has chosen to go all in with the shaders. It goes with the top model of GF110 with 512 CUDA cores, which results in 1024 CUDA cores in total and 2 x 384-bit memory bus.
The reason NVIDIA has chosen to use the maximal number of CUDA cores is that this becomes a more efficient solution than turning of shader blocks and increasing frequencies. GeForce GTX 590 will instead get considerably lower clock frequencies and voltages than GeForce GTX 580 that use a single GF110 GPU. This is a pretty obvious sacrifice considering that GTX 580 is rated 244 watt TDP, with just one GPU.
| GTX 590 | GTX 580 | GTX 480 | GTX 285 | |
| Node |
40nm | 40nm | 40nm | 55nm |
| Die size |
2 x 529 mm2 | 529 mm2 | 529 mm2 | 470 mm2 |
| Transistors | 2 x 3 000 M | 3000M | 3200 M | 1400 M |
| Shaders | 1024 | 512 | 480 | 240 |
| Texture units | 128 | 64 | 60 | 80 |
| ROPs | 96. | 48 | 48 | 28 |
| Memory type |
GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR3 |
| Memory buffer |
3072 MB | 1536 MB | 1536 MB | 1024 MB |
| Bandwidth | 2 x 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 512-bit |
| DirectX support |
DX11 | DX11 | DX11 | DX10 |
| Max. consumption | A lot |
244W | 250W | 183W |
The exact levels for the frequencies and voltages NVIDIA has chosen we don’t know, but with a thousand or so CUDA cores there will be plenty of power and clock frequencies that can be increased by the end user. Overall it seems like the smart thing to do.
With dual GF110 GPUs comes a big memory buffer. GeForce GTX 590 gets 3072 MB graphics memory work with and with dual 384-bit memory buses bandwith shouldn’t be a problem.
Reference design set with large centered fan
We have no pictures to show of the card since NVIDIA is holding everything tight before the launch of the new flagship. According to reliable sources to NordicHardware the reference design is set and as expected the card will get a full-cover cooler with a large radial fan in the center. The fan will be around 90mm in diameter and hte card will be very similar to GeForce GTX295 (generation 2), but most likely a bit longer.
A photo that leaked by the end of last year and is claimed to be an early version of GTX 590
Launch in Febrary with a surprise
NVIDIA has already set the launch date of GeForce GTX 590 to sometime in February. The exact date was not revealed and from what it seems like it is aiming for a launch similar to the one of GeForce GTX 580, in other words as soon as possible to surprise competitor AMD and the media.
Today we know more about GeForce GTX 590 than we know about Radeon HD 6990 “Antilles” that sporting dual Cayman GPUs will arrive in February. NVIDIA beat AMD with the new performance series a few months ago, but the question is if they will do it this time too.
