If we look back on the shape of the GPU market not two months ago, not many would have predicted that 2010’s Christmas shopping season would be one of the most exciting in recent memory. A few weeks ago NVIDIA surprised everyone by preempting AMD’s HD 6900 series launch with a flagship card of their own called the GTX 580. To make matters even more interesting, this new card was widely available at launch with plenty of stock in the retail channels and featured improved thermals and acoustics over the product it usurped. The remainder of this year will also see the launch of the aforementioned HD 6900 series as well as yet another enthusiast-grade NVIDIA card: the GTX 570.
Not satisfied to simply go quietly into the night while AMD’s Cayman products creep ever closer, NVIDIA has decided to attack another price point as quickly as possible. Performance will naturally be paramount in order to fend off whatever Radeons are waiting in the wings so the GTX 570 comes packing some incredible specifications into a sub-$400 card. It also incorporates all of the features from the higher end GTX 580 such as a vapor chamber-based heatsink and architectural improvements which lead to an overall increase in rendering efficiency. The result is a card which is roughly 25% faster than the GTX 470.
NVIDIA has been very, very quiet about this launch and for once there have been very few leaks. This is all to keep AMD guessing which will in turn give them less time to react with any changes to upcoming architectures. However a plan like this can also act as a double edged sword since actual availability can suffer if board partners are kept in the dark. Nonetheless, it looks to us like there will be decent numbers of GTX 570 SKUs making their way onto store shelves as you read this. We just have to remember that due to the $350 price of this card, it will surely be a best seller during the Christmas shopping season.
With NVIDIA quickly rolling out their 500-series, it seems increasingly like they have headed off AMD’s upcoming juggernaut at the pass. Considering the GTX 570 uses the same DNA as the GTX 580, we are definitely expecting great things from it.
Not satisfied to simply go quietly into the night while AMD’s Cayman products creep ever closer, NVIDIA has decided to attack another price point as quickly as possible. Performance will naturally be paramount in order to fend off whatever Radeons are waiting in the wings so the GTX 570 comes packing some incredible specifications into a sub-$400 card. It also incorporates all of the features from the higher end GTX 580 such as a vapor chamber-based heatsink and architectural improvements which lead to an overall increase in rendering efficiency. The result is a card which is roughly 25% faster than the GTX 470.
NVIDIA has been very, very quiet about this launch and for once there have been very few leaks. This is all to keep AMD guessing which will in turn give them less time to react with any changes to upcoming architectures. However a plan like this can also act as a double edged sword since actual availability can suffer if board partners are kept in the dark. Nonetheless, it looks to us like there will be decent numbers of GTX 570 SKUs making their way onto store shelves as you read this. We just have to remember that due to the $350 price of this card, it will surely be a best seller during the Christmas shopping season.
With NVIDIA quickly rolling out their 500-series, it seems increasingly like they have headed off AMD’s upcoming juggernaut at the pass. Considering the GTX 570 uses the same DNA as the GTX 580, we are definitely expecting great things from it.
