nVidia has once again upped the ante when it comes to graphics hardware on Windows machines. The company announced that they have launched their brand new GPU based on their 40nm-based Fermi architecture, the GeForce GTX 580 into stores.
nVidia is saying that the card now has the worlds best and fastest support for DirectX 11 based games, though how the card will perform in real-world tests will be left to the gaming hardware review sites and user forums. It does seem, however, that many sites have already posted their opinions on the hardware with most stating that the performance of the GTX 580 shows an increase of up to 30 percent in some titles.
Another benefit of the card is that it is proving to not only be a great performer, but it is also far cooler and uses less power than expected. One of the main complaints about nVidia cards in the past has been how hot they run and all of the noise that they make whilst playing games or doing general computer work. The cooler and quieter performance is all the result of the new vapor chamber thermal design that NVidia has come up with. The card is once again a long one with a length of 10.5 inches and a dual-slot fansink design.
The cost of the card is stated as $499 by nVidia, though many companies are selling them for the much higher price of $550 at the moment, while UK pricing is standing at around £425. There are a large number of companies selling the card right now, including Palit, POV, KFA2, Gainward, Gigabyte, EVGA and Zotec.
Here are a few of the main details on the new GeForce GTX 580 card:
- 512 cores and 16 PolyMorph engines deliver massive tessellation and compute firepower for games
- Hard launch with immediate availability at an estimated SEP of $499 USD.
- Up to 35 percent improvement in performance/watt efficiency
- New vapor chamber thermal solution results in the quietest GPU in its class
- New level of geometric realism—2 billion triangles/second
It will be interesting to see what AMD has up their sleeve now that nVidia has upped their game. The tussle between the two companies has been going on for years and doesn"t look like it will let up any time soon.