NVIDIA seems decided to spin the heads of the consumers before the big launches from rival AMD. The company first published the name on its website and has rolled out a new driver where it clearly mentions the new flagship.
GeForce 261.00 32-bit contains code strings for seven new graphics cards, whereof one is GeForce GTX 580. We also see two other concrete graphics card names, GeForce GTX 455 and GeForce GTX 405. It has another four not yet identified models so far named NVIDIA D13U. It’s worth noting that we first found out about AMD’s new Northern Islands models in a similar manner.
NVIDIA_DEV.0E22.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460”
NVIDIA_DEV.0E23.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce GTS 455”
NVIDIA_DEV.0E24.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 “
NVIDIA_DEV.0E38.01 = “NVIDIA GF104GL”
NVIDIA_DEV.0E3E.01 = “NVIDIA GF104-ES”
NVIDIA_DEV.0E3F.01 = “NVIDIA GF104-INT”
NVIDIA_DEV.1080.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580”
NVIDIA_DEV.1081.01 = “NVIDIA D13U”
NVIDIA_DEV.1082.01 = “NVIDIA D13U “
NVIDIA_DEV.1083.01 = “NVIDIA D13U “
NVIDIA_DEV.1098.01 = “NVIDIA D13U “
NVIDIA_DEV.10C5.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce 405”
Which these cards represent and which segment NVIDIA will be targeting is unclear, but most likely they are stripped down versions of the new GF110 GPU for mid-range and budget segments. THe focus is on performance and GeForce GTX 580.
GeForce GTX 580 (?) vs. GeForce GTX 480
The big question we ask ourselves is how much of these leaks are from NVIDIA, and if any of them are intentional the sollw-up question is why. A qualified guess is that NVIDIA wants to steal some lime light from AMD who is expected to launch the new flagship Radeon HD 6970 in November. Whether GeForce GTX 580 will be available by then is not that likely. Information leaks can be used to keep consumers away from AMD and its new cards and gain some time for its own products to launch.
