Huge GTX570 overstock delays GTX660 until August

While the product marketing teams want to push, push, push on the latest and greatest products, it is the job of the bean counting logistics teams to ensure that the channels plate is clean before serving up he next course of graphics goodness. Up close and personal with an nVidia partner in old Taipei, KitGuru uses its feminine charms to elicit explicit details on the GTX660 delay.

Launched at the end of 2010 around the £300 mark, the GTX570 was a favourite card for those with a little more cash to splash. It was a generation forward from the initial hot-Fermi cards like the 470 and 480, giving not only more frame per second – but substantially better energy efficiency.

So, with the GTX660 heavily rumoured to be ready for launch at Computex – why no cards and, more importantly, why the brand new GTX570 launches on sites like Aria?

Cast a quick eye across to Overclockers.co.uk and you will see that some of the GTX570 cards are now UNDER the psychologically important £200 mark.

So what did we learn after applying a liberal dose of ‘charm and disarm' in Taipei?

Simple. nVidia made a small miscalculation on the high end cards and finds itself with a stockpile of more than 120,000 GTX570 chips which MUST be cleared ahead of the GTX 660 launch.

While the performance between the two should be similar, there's a chance that a mature GTX570 with decent cooling solution, can overclock WAY past the GTX660, causing a problem for nVidia's PR team.

With the GTX570 having launched around the £300 mark, it's possible that the KFA2 dropping under £200 is only the start of a serious set of price moves.

These GTX570 price cuts will stimulate sales, but deplete the market or ‘hungry buyers' at the same time – not only for nVidia, but also for AMD.

KitGuru says: Graphics card manufacturers will need to keep a very sharp eye on pricing through the tough summer months – now that it's known that nVidia needs to flush out more than 120,000 high end GPUs before the GTX660 launches in August. We know that KitGuru followers should be ready for some serious graphics bargains, but just how close will the GTX570 get to £150?

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