Nvidia releases GTX 580M, 570M mobile graphics chips

As you're undoubtedly aware, while the GTX 580M and 570M may bear similar branding to their desktop counterparts, they aren't packing the same silicon. Unfortunately, Nvidia hasn't revealed precisely what GPU architecture is inside its new parts, but judging by their core configuration, the GF114 seems a likely candidate. That's the same chip behind Nvidia's mainstream GTX 560 Ti and 560 (non-Titanium) desktop cards.

	GTX 580M	GTX 560 Ti	GTX 570M	GTX 560
CUDA Cores	384	384	336	336
Core Clock	620MHz	822MHz	535MHz	810MHz
Processor Clock	1240MHz	1645MHz	1150MHz	1620MHz
Memory Clock (GDDR5)	2048MHz	4008MHz	2048MHz	4004MHz
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	96GB/s	128GB/s	72GB/s	128GB/s
Transistor Count	1.95B	1.95B	1.95B	1.95B
Fabrication	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm	TSMC 40nm

So, "can they play Crysis?" Probably. Although their core specs are closest to the recent GTX 560 desktop cards, their diluted frequencies will probably put them more in line with last summer's GTX 460 1GB. Based on our review last year, the GTX 460 1GB managed to yield 37 frames per second when playing Crysis Warhead with max quality at 1920x1200, and 46 frames at 1680x1050 -- hardly perfect but playable nonetheless.

It's worth mentioning that Nvidia released a video yesterday showing a dual-GPU notebook fetching over 30 frames in Crysis 2 at 1920x1080 with DirectX 11 and high-res textures enabled. The company didn't say what GPUs were powering the system, but considering today's announcement, two SLIed GTX 580Ms seems highly probable. The new parts should be available immediately via the 18-inch Alienware M18x and MSI's GT780R.