NVIDIA will launch its new graphics card flagship GeForce GTX 590 next week. Dual GF110 graphics circuit paired with 3GB GDDR5 memory and a big cooler. If we are to trust the information we have received on the clock frequencies it looks like AMD will keep the performance crown, which simulated tests now confirms.
Our Finnish colleagues at Muropaketti have published a performance article where it connected two GeForce GTX 580 cards in SLI and crippled the frequencies to 600 MHz GPU and 850 MHz memory (3400 MHz effectively), the same numbers we told you about last week.
This configuration should provide a hint of how GeForce GTX 590 with dual GF110 graphics circuits performs and in comparison to AMD’s new flagship Radeon HD 6990 it looks like NVIDIA will have to struggle to keep up, even when the card from AMD runs at stock speed.
AMD Radeon HD 6990 comes specified to 375W TDP with its stock frequencies, but also has an extreme mode where an overclocked BIOS circuit increase the frequencies from 830 MHz GPU to 880 MHz GPU, which also increase the power consumption to staggering 450W.
According to the latest rumors NVIDIA will lock its GeForce GTX 590 to a TDP of 365W, which strengthens the fact that the clock frequencies of GeForce GTX 580 (244W) has been turned down.
Muropaketti’s benchmarks shows Radeon HD 6990 (375W) offering better performance (avg fps) in all 5 tests, than GeForce GTX 580 SLI with lowered clocks. At the same time, the two GTX 580 cards consume more power, which can be explained by the fact there are two of them with more components in total. Notebworthy is that e.g. Alien vs. Predator could be limited by the 3GB graphics memory of GeForce GTX 590, at least compared to the 4GB found on Radeon HD 6990.
We should not draw too much from this as these are simulated tests with leaked specifications. But much point to that AMD will keep the performance crown even next month.
