Report: Nvidia Pushes Back Launch of GeForce GTX 590 Card

According to a rumor published in Fudzillaon Friday, Nvidia is likely to postpone the release of its dual GF110 graphics card until the first quarter of next year, despite the fact that sources at the company say Nvidia and its partners are ready to launch the product.

Nvidia chose to delay its offering in response to AMD's decision to postpone the new version of its own high-end dual-core GPU, the Radeon HD 6950 card, code-named Antilles.

AMD was expected to release the Cayman Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 cards in response to the GTX 580 in December, until online reports published earlier this month began suggesting otherwise. AMD will place two very large Cayman GF 110 cores inside the upcoming Antilles Radeon 6950, which is expected to be AMD's most powerful graphics processor yet.

Nvidia declined to comment on the matter, citing company policy regarding unannounced products. AMD did the same two weeks ago.

AMD's postponement comes after the company released its high-end Radeon 6800 GPUs last month. Last week, Nvidia responded with the release of its similarly-priced GeForce GTX 580 card aimed at graphics-intensive gaming.

The Radeon 6800 series, however, has caused some confusion as its model number suggests high-end performance rather than the power efficiency and competitive pricing that actually distinguish the 6800 series from other graphics cards.

While the 6800 cards offer solid performance-per-watt, Direct X11 support, and AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing, the company must now face the challenge of achieving high-performance from two large Cayman cores without overheating or overclocking. And it seems as though Nvidia would rather let them take the first stab at it.