3DVagabond
Lifer
- Aug 10, 2009
- 11,951
- 204
- 106
Testing? I doubt they had much chance for it. Clearly they did not expect 6990 to scale so well, so they thought that 2x downclocked 580s on 1 pcb will be good enough to beat 6990... Remember the 2 day delay due to drivers? I bet that's because they never designed the 590 to go above 500MHz and so, they had to do a 6 months worth of catching up in 2 weeks, to push it to semi competitive range of 6xxMHz... The problem with 590 is exactly the same problem as is with 580, it is too power hungry.
590 can be a great card if:
1. You clock it at 580 speeds
2. You give it 580 voltages
3. You install much much better power circuitry (This is what is failing now)
4. You install a cooler capable of 600+ watts of thermal capacity
5. You give it 700W of electrical power.
The card specs were already set before that. Last minute review drivers would be my guess. They've actually just released another new driver today (Mar 25th).