Nvidia allegedly working on dual-GPU, GK110-based GTX 790

Most of Nvidia's GeForce GPU lines of the past few years have included a dual-GPU model, and it seems the 700 series will be no exception. Sources have told VideoCardz that Nvidia is working on a new high-end graphics card, most likely the GeForce GTX 790, designed as a response to AMD's upcoming 'Hawaii' graphics cards. The GTX 790 is said to include two of Nvidia's top-end GK110 GPUs, used on the GTX Titan and GTX 780.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti expected by mid-August for $299

Nvidia is reportedly set to finally expand its Kepler-based GPU lineup beyond the current high end offerings (and a lone $99 GeForce GT 640).

According to Sweclockers, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti will arrive at some point between August 13th and 19th with an MSRP of $299, making it a direct competitor to AMD’s Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition which received a price cut just last week.

Similar to the GTX 670, the GTX 660 Ti would be based on the GK104 core architecture with 7 SMX units enabled for a total of 1344 CUDA cores. Their specs are expected to differ when it comes to memory, however.

While the GeForce GTX 670 has either 2GB or 4GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit interface, the GTX 660 Ti will reportedly have 1.5GB or 3GB of GDDR5 memory with a 192-bit interface. Clock speeds should be lower as well but no specific numbers have been quoted.

Images of a purported GeForce GTX 660 leaked in May so it’s possible that a further scaled down version of the card without the Ti moniker might also be in the works and ready to launch in August. The card would presumably target the all-important ~$250 price point to counter AMD's Radeon HD 7850.

Nvidia's GeForce 304.48 beta offers up to 18% more performance

Nvidia has released new beta drivers offering GeForce 400, 500 and 600 series owners up to 18% more performance depending on the title and settings. In a blog post, Nvidia published some of its own tests in which the GTX 680 saw a 17.6% boost over last month's 301.42 WHQL release in Batman: Arkham City, 12.4% in Dragon Age 2, 9.8% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and 4% in Lost Planet 2 when running the games on high or max settings. A 5.8% to 15% bump was recorded with a second GTX 680 in SLI.

As a second example, Nvidia shared the GTX 560's results when shifting to the beta drivers, including 14% more performance in Arkham City, 6.7% in Lost Plane 2 and 5.5% in Dragon Age 2. When paired with another GTX 560, the combo delivers 11.9% more frames in Arkham City, 5.2% in Battlefield 3, 6.1% in Dragon Age 2, 4% in Lost Planet 2, 5.3% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and 7.9% in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Nvidia's article provides more information about how each game was configured.

The beta release also fixes a bug in Shogun 2: Total War that reduced frame rates by up to 60%, another that caused intermittent vsync stuttering with GTX 600 series cards as well as a bug that prevented some overclocked cards from running at their higher clocks. Nvidia has also added or improved a handful of new SLI and 3D Vision profiles for games including Torchlight II, Tribes: Ascend, F1 2011, Planetside 2, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, and The Walking Dead.

Download GeForce 304.48 Beta (release notes -- read the download pages, no PDF available)

Desktop: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Download GeForce 302.80 WHQL (release notes)

Desktop: Windows 8 32-bit | Windows 8 64-bit

Mobile: Windows 8 32-bit | Windows 8 64-bit

Download GeForce 301.42 WHQL (release notes)

Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Meanwhile, Diablo III, L.A. Noire, Rayman Origins, and The Secret World have gained antialiasing support in the Nvidia Control Panel, and Star Wars: The Old Republic's ambient occlusion can be set in the Nvidia Control Panel. FXAA, Nvidia's antialiasing solution, has been disabled in Windows programs like Media Player and Movie Maker. Although FXAA has been well-received, its effects were being applied to Windows applications when set to run globally, making text difficult or impossible to read.

Skyrim gets up to 25% performance boost via GeForce beta drivers

Nvidia has unleashed its latest GeForce beta driver with a few updates, including -- and perhaps most significantly -- performance optimizations for Skyrim players. Version 290.53 should offer GeForce owners up to 25% more frames per second. Nvidia reports a 25% boost over last month's290.36 beta drivers while playing with cards such as the GeForce GTX 560 at 1920x1200 on Ultra quality settings.

Download GeForce 290.53 beta
Desktop: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit
Mobile: Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

That's a best case scenario, the company admits. The 25% gain was recorded indoors, while outdoor scenarios only run up to 2-3% better. Your mileage will vary depending on your specific GPU, system configuration and in-game location. Nonetheless, it's hard to complain about a double-digit increase indoors considering much of your time is spent in smaller environments, be that caves or buildings.

Skyrim players can also look forward to improved Ambient Occlusion, an Nvidia Control Panel quality setting that enables more realistic shadows. The company added Ambient Occlusion support for Skyrim with 290.36, but 290.53's effects are "faster" and should eliminate the tacky shimmering users have reported. Nvidia has also updated the 3D Vision crosshair to better match Skyrim's default 2D pointer.

There's not much else to see for folks without Bethesda's latest RPG. Build 290.53 includes SLI profiles for Afterfall: InSanity, Trine 2 and WRC 2: FIA World Rally Championship 2011 along with new or updated 3D Vision profiles for Trine 2, Orcs Must Die!, Stronghold 3 and a few lesser-known titles. The beta driver also resolves triangular artifacting in Battlefield 3 and a default panel resolution-timing bug.

GeForce driver v267.52 could overheat GTX 590

SweClockers along with other tech review sites have discovered a flaw that could cause Nvidia's new dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 to burn up in a plume of smoke. After frying two sample cards, the Swedish site blamed the driver they were supplied with. When overclocking the GTX 590 with GeForce driver version 267.52, the card supposedly draws more power than it can actually handle causing it to overheat. SweClockers has documented the issue on video:

The solution? Avoid driver v267.52 like the plague -- especially if you intend to overclock your GTX 590. Nvidia has released a new driver (v267.85) with improved overcurrent protection and SweClockers has confirmed that this solves the problem. It may be common sense, but Nvidia says that anyone who's overclocking or running stress tests should use the latest driver available on the company's website instead of the disc-supplied driver, which is inevitably outdated.

Download: Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 32-bit | Windows Vista/7 64-bit

Although driver v267.85 has enhanced overcurrent protection, Nvidia notes that it's still risky to raise your card's default clocks and voltages. The company recommends leaving the GTX 590 at its stock voltage when overclocking with air cooling, while folks with liquid cooling should remain within 12.5-25mV of the default voltage. Nvidia believes SweClockers pushed the GTX 590 beyond its limits by running it as high as 1.2V instead of the default 0.91V to 0.96V.

Nvidia's dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 rumored for March 22

With AMD's Radeon HD 6990's arrival this week, the ball is in Nvidia's court to deliver a competitive alternative. The GeForce GTX 590 was expected to appear sometime last month but obviously that didn't happen. We haven't seen any release dates from Nvidia yet, but EXPreview has reportedly heard that the company's dual-GPU offering is slated for Tuesday, March 22 -- the same day that Crysis 2 will land on North American store shelves.

Although its release date remains under wraps, some of the GTX 590's specifications have slipped out. According to a leak in January, the card will pack two GF110 graphics processor with a total of 1024 CUDA cores as well as 3027MB of GDDR5 memory, dual 384-bit memory buses, 128 texture units, 96 ROPs. The GTX 590 essentially doubles the hardware of Nvidia's current single-GF110 flagship, the GTX 580, except it will likely have lower clocks.

In other Nvidia news, the company has announced plans to host a special booth for PC gamers at PAX East 2011. The event kicks off on March 11 at Exhibit Hall A, Booth #524 and will let attendees experience today's "hottest" games (including some unreleased titles) in 3D and Nvidia 3D Vision Surround. Nvidia also plans to give away $20,000 worth of prizes along with showcasing various gaming PCs and upcoming Tegra handsets and tablets.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti to launch on March 15

The upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti, based on the new GF116 chipset is expected to launch on March 15. Although the GF116 is a mainstream chipset, NVIDIA has chosen to name its new card the GTX 550 Ti, and not the GTS 550. Performance is estimated to be up to 35% faster than the current AMD Radeon HD 5770, which also means the new card will tread into the GeForce GTX 460 family's territory. More juicy details inside.

It is interesting to note that NVIDIA's upcoming card will be called the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and not the GTS 550 even though it will be based on a new mainstream GF116 chipset. Like its bigger siblings, the GF110 and GF114, the GF116 will undergo a similar transistor-level rework for better performance-per-watt.

By carrying a 'GTX' tag, we should expect the new card's performance to be considerably faster than its GF106-based predecessor. According to leaked material, the new GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be (up to) about 35% faster than the AMD Radeon HD 5770 in DirectX 11, and about 20% faster in DirectX 10; it becomes apparent that the GeForce GTX 550 Ti will perform nearly as fast as the GeForce GTX 460 family.

Like the GF106, the GF116 will come with one 64-bit memory controller (out of three) disabled to form a 128-bit memory bus. The PCB will have a total of 12 pads, but only eight will be populated to provide 1024MB of GDDR5 memory.

Physically, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti retains a similar printed circuit board (PCB) design to the GeForce GTS 450. The reference board is expected to have a 3-phase voltage regulation module (VRM) for the core and a single-phase for the memory.

There will be two dual-link DVI-I ports and one mini HDMI port for display output.

The thermal design power (TDP) for the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is no more than 110W. As the TDP rating remains virtually the same as the GeForce GTS 450's 106W, the new card will retain the same sunflower cooler as the latter.

Currently, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is expected to launch March 15, 2011. Pricing is not available yet, but we estimate it to be around the US$200 mark.

NVIDIA dual GPU GTX 595 Video Card Leaks

If you are a computer gamer you are probably drooling all over, your keyboard right now at through of the gaming prowess that you can get from the GTX 595 pictured here. This dual GPU beast will supposedly host a pair of GF110 GPUs that are linked by a bridge chip thought to be the NF200.Naturally, NVIDIA hasn’t offered up any hard specs or confirmation on this card, this is a leak and as such, a grain of salt or two is needed. According to the rumor, circulating alongside the leaked images the card will have 3GB of RAM, which makes sense considering individual new GPUs have 1.5GB.

Outputs apparently include three DVI-D ports, which would make for some impressive 3D Vision Surround gaming for sure. The card will suck down the power as evidenced by the dual 8-pin PCIe power-connectors. Before we get all excited the GF110 GPUs are not confirmed, the card could have the less impressive GF114 GPUs. What we can bet on is if/when NVIDIA drops this card into the market, it will probably be the card Big Green uses to grab the “world’s fastest video card” title back from AMD. All I know is that I want two.