14 DAY TRIAL // Sparkle seems to have finished work on its latest graphics card, one based on NVIDIA's currently most powerful reference design and aimed at top-tier gamers and enthusiasts that want both lower temperatures and less noise.
It seems that, with the approach of the CeBIT expo, more and more hardware makers are getting back to their regular rates of product releases, so to speak.
With most smartphone and tablet announcements out of the way, now that MWC 2011 (Mobile World Congress) is well over with, PC components and systems are getting attention.
Of course, with the CeBIT 2011 looming on the horizon, some IT players appear to be holding off on new releases.
Nevertheless, March 1-5 is still some way off, so Sparkle figured it wouldn't stall things, having prepared the GeForce GTX 580 Thermal Guru.
Essentially a custom-cooled high-end card, it has the GF110 GPU (graphics processing unit) operating at 772 MHz, plus 512 CUDA cores working at 1,544 MHz.
Meanwhile, the 1,536 MB of GDDR5 VRAM have a clock speed of 4,008 MHz and an interface of 384 bits.
Granted, these stock specs don't really set them apart from all the other GTX 580 boards on sale, so Sparkle played with the cooling.
To be more specific, the outfit used a cooling module with four direct touch copper heatpipes and an aluminum fin array, with a cover that enhances heat dissipation. That said, a pair of 80mm fans deal with the actual task of dispersing heat.
For those that want more specifics, the card should be able to communicate with various displays via the built-in mini HDMI and dual-DVI ports.
Unfortunately, Sparkle's press release did not have any information regarding pricing and availability. Still, it shouldn't be long before customers can start putting the DirectX 11, SLI, CUDA, PhysX and 3D Vision Surround support to good use.