Nvidia announced their upcoming GTX690 at the weekend, which they are saying is the fastest video card to be released to the consumer market.

Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang announced this at the Nvidia Game Festival in Shanghai. The design looks rather impressive and we can imagine that companies such as ASUS will modify the design to incorporate proprietary cooling solutions and twin fans.

The card will be available in limited quantities from May 3rd and more production will reach retail channel by May 7th.

The kicker is the pricing, which is said to be $999. A single dollar under a grand. When this hits the UK we can only predict the pricing, but it could be around £800 inc vat. Scary thoughts.

AMD are due to release their competing card shortly afterwards, and there is no doubt that they will be working the clock speeds to ensure their card is faster.

The GTX690 is said to ship with 3,072 CUDA cores with a focus on reducing the power demand and heat.

Tech2.in posted some further information below:

Engineered to reach a new threshold in gaming performance, the GTX 690 also looks the part. Its array of innovative technologies is complemented by sleek materials that contribute to the exotic design of the card, including:

• An exterior frame made from trivalent chromium-plated aluminum, providing excellent strength and durability
• A fan housing made from a thixomolded magnesium alloy, which offers excellent heat dissipation and vibration dampening
• High-efficiency power delivery with less resistance, lower power and less heat generated using a 10-phase, heavy-duty power supply with a 10-layer, two-ounce copper printed circuit board
• Efficient cooling using dual vapor chambers, a nickel-plated finstack and center-mounted axial fan with optimized fin pitch and air entry angles
• Low-profile components and ducted baseplate channels for unobstructed airflow, minimizing turbulence and improving acoustic quality

When are we going to see some new games released which take advantage of all this graphic power? The PC gaming market really needs some new, exciting titles.

Kitguru says: Will this be fast enough to hold AMD's upcoming card at bay?

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