Mar 30, 2011 14:53 GMT  ·  By

It looks like the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 dual-GPU graphics card may be fraught with more perils than one might have expected, namely those of a rather explosive nature if the implications in a recent video are true.

As consumers know, NVIDIA recently made the official introduction of the GeForce GTX 590 dual-chip graphics adapter.

Needless to say, this piqued the interest of enthusiasts who have been waiting for over a year for the Santa Clara, California-based outfit to finally challenge AMD on the DirectX 11-ready dual-GPU market.

Sure enough, the boards came out and, at least in the US, it looks like they sold out, although European supply is still high, despite lowered prices.

Unfortunately, not long ago, SweClockers posted a video in which one of these very cards was shown more or less exploding in its lab.

To that, the company said that there should not be such danger when the card is left at regular voltages and run under updated drivers.

More precisely, the company said that the reason for the fiery card failure was that the machine was over voltaged, besides the driver being older and, thus, with less overcurrent protection.

Unfortunately, it was later discovered, or at least implied by a forum post, that card death occurred even at normal voltage.

All in all, the issue is more widespread that first believed, with the Santa Clara, California-based GPU developer now promising that it has completed a BIOS meant to protect future GTX 590 generations from the prospect of meeting such an untimely, albeit flashy, end.

Unfortunately, so far, it is unclear if all or just a part of GTX 590 customers are affected by this problem.

As for actual warranty refund and/or replace, the manufacturer under whose brand the model was shipped will have to deal with that.