Vortez have reported on Nvidia's upcoming dual-GPU card several times recently, including distant speculation on release schedules and a sneak peek at EVGA's version of the upcoming card at CES 2011. Now, NordicHardware report that the GF110 GPU cores will be hand-picked from the production line, with only the very best examples making the grade to be in the upcoming dual-GPU GTX 590.




What does this mean? We've seen EVGA preview their PC-SIG certification breaking 8-Pin/8-Pin GTX 590 and now we're learning that the chips are going to cost a significantly larger amount to produce. This points to the GTX 590 being an extremely power-hungry and expensive card. Production is also very likely to be extremely limited. Could be be looking at another exorbitantly-price specialist dual-GPU card, such as the ASUS Mars or ASUS ARES? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, read on to see why.




The GTX 590 will use two GF110 cores in its design. This means you can expect a total die size of over 1000 mm^2, which will require significant cooling, around 6000 M transistors, 1024 shaders, 128 textures units, 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM as well as DX11 compatibility and a total TDP likely to be around a whopping 375W.

In short, Nvidia looks poised to take the ultimate performance crown, which has been held by AMD and it's HD 5970 for some time. Meanwhile, AMD are set to release their HD 6990 dual-GPU Cayman based card at the end of February. It is likely the releases of the two cards will be close. AMD's HD 6990 will not break PC-SIG specifications, and will come with a more reasonable TDP of 300 W. It will also likely be much more affordable, though all suggestions point to it not being able to match Nvidia's offering in performance.

Source: Nordic Hardware

What do you think about this news? Will you consider buying a GTX 590 or HD 6990? Let us know or simply share your thoughts in the forums.