Nvidia GTX580

Less than a week after the launch of the GTX 480, NVIDIA has announced that the next series of graphics cards based on the Fermi architecture is already in the works - the 500 Series. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 will be the first to launch and will feature 580 CUDA cores to go along with its "580" moniker and have a whopping 2560MB of 384-bit GDDR5 memory. The rest of the specifications are unknown at this time, but NVIDIA is promising the fastest single-GPU card on the market.

"Although we're very proud of the GTX 480," NVIDIA President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, "the 400 series is merely a tease for what Fermi can really accomplish. When we release the 500 series later this year, I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised."

After the rather lukewarm reception of the GTX 480, this is certainly welcome news to fans of NVIDIA. Even more welcoming is that the GTX 580 is expected to launch before the end of the year. In fact, Huang said that he's hopeful it'll be on the market by this summer. But what about a price? A separate NVIDIA source who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons let us in on a little secret - the GTX 580 will launch with the GTX 480's current price. The best part of that tidbit may be the obvious implication - a price drop on the 400 series! So if you're in the market for a new video card, it may be wise to wait until the summer...if you can hold off that long.

Happy AF Day