As Palit's sales sheets for the GTX570 begin to get distributed globally ahead of nVidia's launch on 7th December, AMD has now had a good chance to evaluate the specifications and it's decided to react. KitGuru hits the bars and snoops like a pro.

Once in each generation, one of nVidia's loyal partners steps up to the plate to ensure that the whole world plus dog knows all about the product at least a week ahead of the official launch. That's the way they like it in Santa Clara – staggered releases to avoid too much press pressure around launch day itself. SweClockers were happy to oblige and now we're doing our bit.

GTX570 runs the same number of cores as a GTX480, but it runs them 32MHz faster. It's 300MB lighter on memory and that GDDR5 has a 320-bit bus compared to the 384-bit monster data carrier found on the 580/480 cards.

Thanks to nVidia's partner network, here are the key details in a neat little table:-

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Given that the GTX580 occupies the £400 slot (including VAT at the present 17.5%), UK resellers are most likely to have the GTX570 in stores at £299 inc vat at some point after December 7th.

Exact price points and availability will depend on several factors, including (a) how much GTX480 stock nVidia still has in the channel, (b) whether TSMC is able to deliver enough parts and (c) how well the initial reviews go (especially against AMD's 6900 series).

Right now, everyone is carrying GTX480 – so there is a lot of stock to move. It's likely that a user offered a GTX 4xx and a GTX5xx part, will go toward to the GTX5xx part. To get around that problem, launch pricing on the GTX570 could be around £340 with a small price drop for the GTX480 to clear old stock. We will firm this up for you shortly.

KitGuru says: We can't quite get over the speed at which new cards are being launched right now. There are more to come from nVidia as well as AMD over the next few weeks. Making the right decision for Christmas will be interesting. Roll on the uber-benchmark tests in the KitGuru labs.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forum.

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