Print
Playing with beta drivers comes with certain risks -- like instability -- but can also be rewarding in not always obvious ways. Those who went and snagged Nvidia's 266.7x beta driver for GeForce videocards, for example, uncovered a couple of interesting lines that seem to indicate Nvidia is on the verge of releasing at least two new graphics cards, including a dual-GPU model. The lines read:
NVIDIA_DEV.1244.01 = "NVIDIA GeForcet GTX 550 Ti"
NVIDIA_DEV.1083.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590"
The GeForce GTX 590 is a dual-GPU videocard built using two GF110 chips and has 3GB of GDDR5 memory. According to VR-Zone, the above referenced GeForce GTX 550 Ti sports a single GF116-400 GPU with 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
That's an exciting discovery for Nvidia fans who have been waiting for the GPU maker to come out with a Radeon HD 5970 killer.
Comments are closed on this article
mofitgti
February 17, 2011 at 1:21pm
Well i bought a gtx 480 couple months before 580 was released, but hey its a killer card. Sure it gets up to 90c+ with fan @ 70% but its fast lol, dont think i'll ever sli it, the sounds of dual 580 seems more practical, go quad sli instead. Why cant money grow on trees. Upgrades are inevitable but do so with some smarts
maleficarus™
February 17, 2011 at 8:50pm
Wow, I own an Asus GTX460 DirectCU and I idle 30C and under load 55C with fan 35 percent. Seems Asus got it right. Should have bought an Asus!
nhskier4life
February 17, 2011 at 10:51am
Every time I am on the verge of upgrading my video card I get word of an upcoming release, and I am left fearing I will make an expensive purchase only to have the price drop in a month.
Case in point, a few years ago I purchased a 9800 GTX when it was the fastest card on the market for $350. Less than a year later I bought a 2nd identical card for SLI at $99 and there were 5 better cards on the market.
So goes the upgrade gamble.
Silver925
February 17, 2011 at 2:46pm
There's no 'gamble' here. As soon as a new piece of tech comes out of the anti-static bag, something is being released (or soon will be) that is better. The trick is timing your purchase correctly, and buying as far 'up the curve' as you can afford.
In your case, 2.5 ears ago the 9800 GTX was on it last leg. Yes it was the fastest, but the new 2XX series was on the verge of release. (I almost made the same purchse, but the 2XX series arrived as I was choosing hardware, and I went that route) When a 'new generation' of tech is released (as in this case) the old generation of hardware plummets in price. Had you purchased one of the 2XX for roughly the same price, you would have seen the value drop much more reasonably. You can see the same thing happeneing with the 4XX series now that 5XX is out.
When buying tech, buy as far up the curve as you can, and then don't even LOOK at hardware prices if you don't want to feel sick. Or, just learn to accept, and recognize that you don't NEED something new untill you find the system isn't able to do what you want. Sweatting over 5% here, and 10% htere isn't worth it.
bpstone
February 17, 2011 at 12:42pm
I've found it to be pointless to spend big bucks on the latest and greatest anymore. You can build a high-end system without the overprice retail. You can cram a rig with quad SLI and a 990x, but realistically how many games would it benefit and how much a difference would it make. If you can max the settings on a quality CPU with one card or a cheaper dual SLI setup, that would make much more sense to me. That saves a lot of money to upgrade your hardware in the future to keep up with standards. Spending money wisely is just as much a bragging right as overspending on a rig.
jason2393
February 17, 2011 at 2:30pm
I agree. My main gaming computer is still using an 8600gt that I paid less than $100 for several years ago. Thanks to overclocking, I can still play modernish games at 1080p with a decent framerate. Not a bad value for a 3 year old $300 computer. And now I can afford two HD 6950s in crossfire, which cost the same as but absolutely kill a single GTX 580.
paranoid6199
February 17, 2011 at 4:53pm
I don't get the point in always upgrading your computer. My computer still has the GeForce 9800GTX and i have a 2.66ghz duel core processor and i can STILL play all the games on the market today on high graphics(crysis on gamer not enthusiast).
someuid
February 17, 2011 at 10:38am
Man, I feel so old school already with my new 6870. Hahahaha. Not really. But it is fun to see competition at its best.
