Nvidia GTX 580 Rumors Include Possible Release Date And Leaked Specifications

Nvidia may be planning to launch its GTX 580 graphics card on Monday Nov.8, and the graphic card will offer a performance boost of 15 to 20 percent, according to information leaked this week by Chinese blogs.

Nvidia declined to comment on the GTX 580 release data or specifications.

Last Tuesday, on the heels of the release of AMD's HD Radeon 6800 series cards, Nvidia posted specifications confirming the existence of the GTX 580. According to the specifications, which were quickly removed from the company's site, the GTX 580 includes 512 CUDA stream processing units, 2GB of DDR5 memory on a 40-nm die, and 128 texturing units on the GF 110 core.

The addition of those 128 texturing units has improved the GTX 580's performance by 15 to 20 percent compared to its predecessor the GTX 480, according to a Chinese enthusiast forum which posted benchmarks for the GTX 580.

The GTX 580 is up to 35 percent faster than AMD's current equivalent offering, the Radeon HD 5870 card, according VR-Zone . However, despite Nvidia's more powerful tessellation engine, the GTX 580 will likely be slower than AMD's upcoming GPU aimed at the same high-end price range, the Radeon HD 5970, according VR-Zone.

Next: The GTX 580's Cooling System

Overheating is a concern for the GTX 580, as Nvidia has had trouble with over-heating graphics cards in the past, and 40-nm cards are particularly susceptible. VR-Zone sets the GTX 580's thermal design power (TDP) at 244W, whereas the GTX 480's TDP is 250W.

Last week, TC Magazine, leaked pictures of the GTX 580's cooling solution, which covers the entire card, and includes a single fan, an aluminum heat spreader and five thick copper heat pipes.

Pricing for the GTX 580 is not yet available. However, it is expected to be similar to the GTX 480, which is available in the $440-470 price range.