Having both Nvidia and AMD released their last generation GPUs late last year, it's only a matter of time before they ready an ultra expensive dual-GPU version of its latest graphics cards, hoping to take the undisputed performance crown from each other. Even if that means only a slight percentage of gamers will actually spend this kind of money ($500+) to get a hold of one of these boards, we eagerly await each year to see how this battle unfolds.

Rumors started back in November with a few leaked photos hinting at a possible GeForce GTX 590 release on February, but that is unlikely to happen at this point. Sources close to Taiwan-based Digitimes are saying that AMD and Nvidia are seeing a dropping demand for low-end discrete GPUs as IGPs and especially APUs (graphics bundled within the CPU package) take over this segment. As a result GPU manufacturers would be setting their sights on the performance market with particular attention this year given the shift in demand.


Word on the street now is Nvidia will unveil the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 by the end of next month. The GeForce GTX 590 is expected to pack two GF110 graphics processors for a total of 1024 CUDA cores, 3027MB of GDDR5 memory, dual 384-bit memory buses, 128 texture units, and 96 ROPs. These specifications would effectively double down on Nvidia's single-GF110 GeForce GTX 580.

Meanwhile, AMD is said to have its Radeon HD 6990 graphics card ready to go, but they are waiting on Nvidia to make the first move so they don't have the chance to make last-minute adjustments to tweak the GTX 590's performance. AMD's dual-GPU Radeon made a brief public appearance last month and is expected to integrate 3840 stream processors and have 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4.80GHz.