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Review: A very fast GTX 590

Nvidia recently launched its dual-GPU GTX 590 that should lock horns with AMD’s HD 6990. Despite initial high expectations, Nvidia decided to lower the clocks shortly before launch, making the GTX 590 a worthy competitor rather than a clear cut winner. However, Point of View / TGT had their own ideas and their GTX 590 Ultra Charged cards run at 692MHz for the GPU. Just a reminder – reference GPU clock is 607MHz.

TGT-590-A1-UC cards go for around € 680, which is pretty steep but bear in mind that it’s a factory overclocked card. Although GTX 590 will allow for overclocking via various tools, an overclocked GTX 590 (without any overvoltaging) that would run stable at 690MHz is not quite an easy find.

Nvidia did a pretty good job with reference cooling. The cooler isn’t very loud despite having to cool two GPUs. GTX 590 Ultra Charged proves that the cooler with a central fan and vapor chamber technology is enough for overclocking the GPU to 692MHz.

We know that GTX 590 uses two GF110 processors while GTX 580 cards are proof that GF110 is a pretty good overclocker. Reference GTX 580 runs at 772MHz whereas GTX 580 Beast runs at 873MHz. Still, GTX 590’s reference GPU clock is only 607Mhz. Overvoltaging the GPU is a must if you’re planning on extreme overclocking, but you probably heard that a few cards blew up after careless overvoltaging so caution is advised. Nvidia advises air-cooled GTX 590 owners to stick to default voltages. Most GTX 590 cards’ GPU has 0.912mV whereas our Ultra Charged runs at 0.962mV.

Point of View/TGT will strap its GTX 590 Beast with water blocks in two or three weeks time, so keen overclockers should perhaps wait a bit more.

Apart from GTX 590 Ultra Charged and the announced GTX 590 Beast, the company already offers POV/TGT GTX 590 Charged (668 MHz core clock, 1336 MHz shader clock, 3628 MHz memory clock) for about €630. GTX 590’s reference clocks are 607MHz for the GPU, 1214MHz for shaders and 3414MHz for the memory.

Below you see GPUZ shot of GTX 590 at reference and Ultra Charged clocks.