14 DAY TRIAL // With NVIDIA's new dual-GPU graphics card now out, it is no surprise to see custom models flooding the market, and Micro-Star International definitely didn't sit idly by, having even tweaked the product's performance.
It took a while for the Santa Clara, California-based graphics card maker known as NVIDIA to finally deliver its first DirectX 11-ready dual-GPU card.
With AMD having unleashed the Radeon HD 6990 not long ago, users were eagerly anticipating a showdown between the two.
The GeForce GTX 590 has now been formally launched, and while it is said to be actually slower that AMD's solution, it has other advantages, like a more silent operation.
Regardless, MSI took matters into its own hands and, when it made the N590GTX-P3D3GD5, made it possible to drive the base clock of the two GF110 chips (607 MHz) all the way up to 840 MHz.
More specifically, the outfit enabled GPU Overvoltage by Afterburner, which allows for overclocking of up to 38%.
That said, the newcomer has 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM and a memory interface of 768 bits, plus three DVI connectors and a mini DisplayPort.
All in all, it should have absolutely no trouble handling even the most hardcore of existing games at the highest possible resolutions, even on three 3D displays at once, thanks to the NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology.
In fact, one might say that there is hardly any consumer application or circumstance that could really push it, save perhaps benchmarks and enthusiasts' overclocking tests.
The MSI board is described in detail on this official web page, though its price was not particularly mentioned anywhere. Either way, it shouldn't be far from the $699 of the stock board.
What remains is to see just how the competition between it and versions from rival companies, not to mention AMD's own beast, is dished out.