NVIDIA's Teaser Really Is of the GeForce GTX 690

We mentioned that NVIDIA had posted a teaser on its Facebook page and, now, we know what product is on the way. 

Then again, it is not as if we did not have our suspicions. Everyone did. After all, leaks and rumors haven't been hard to trip over in the past few months. 

The folks at SweClockers are the ones who got the closest thing to a confirmation: NVIDIA is getting ready to release the GeForce GTX 690 graphics card. 

That's right, the first Kepler-based dual-GPU graphics adapter will be here soon. 

And by soon we mean around two weeks. According to the newest report, the formal launch will take place by May 5, 2012. 

That doesn't necessarily mean the event will occur on that day and no other, though. 

The words of the report can be paraphrased as “in the week beginning on April 30.” 

As such, since Intel's third-generation Ivy Bridge central processing units won't be released much earlier, NVIDIA could be trying to ride the same advertising momentum. 

We are still hoping that, as most rumors suggest, the next-generation 22nm Intel chips will appear on April 23, but there are murmurs of April 29 being the real day. 

Regardless, since we are supposed to be talking about NVIDIA's board, we may as well list what we know of the card so far. 

The GeForce GTX 690 is powered by two GK104 graphics processing units (GPUs), leading to 3,027 CUDA cores. 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM back them up and, as one may guess, two 8-pin power plugs deliver the necessary energy. 

Now we just have to see if NVIDIA will have enough GK104 chips to go around. After all, TSMC's 28nm process isn't doing as well as it could. 

Then again, there won't be many dual-GK104 beasts, which means that the GTX 680 is the one where potential shortages will leave a larger mark.

Posted in: Hardware, Preview