doubt it, nVidia seems to think they are better off forcing SLi for 3 screens/surround sound gaming.

CEO even said in an interview "that way they can almost force a gamer to buy not 1 card but two"

Fortunately, there are sometimes manufacturers that don't follow the rules, like Galaxy with their MultiDisplayTechnology (MDT) cards. Those do the single card "surround gaming" trick.

I actually seriously considered their models for 570/580 but in the reviews I read the main thing that kept me from doing it is you are stuck with a single 3 monitor "surround" "eyefinity" resolution, they trick the OS into seeing it as one monitor, but since the OS doesn't see the separate monitors you can't switch to separate "extended desktop" mode when not gaming or in situations where the game performance is not good with 5760x1080p.

So I think it is pretty ingenious that they have been able to do that with NVidia's design, but it is still a bit of a workaround tricking the OS and you lose some of the flexibility of normal Extended monitor mode if you run into games that the video card can't handle at the large 3 monitor resolution.

i think Mini HDMIx4 is better.

The AMD Eyefinity is actually "in the chipset" -- not just the connectors or the driver (so they say). It was designed in "in secret" originally -- to give them a competitive edge with "extreme gamers" and business people who use multi-monitor extensively. Actually did catch folks by surprise -- rarely done these days.

Nvidia 3-monitor is/was solely in the drivers. Basically, it was/is a quick fix -- not a genuine solution. Surprising if the new models don't have a chipset designed for 3-monitors. On the other hand, Nvidia pushes 3D stereo -- which is an afterthought by AMD.

AMD renounced GPU physics (after being the FIRST to experiment with it). They found it was always better to do the physics on the CPU and graphics on the GPU -- for best overall performance. GPU physics is a "marketing feature". Only PhysX does it that way (and they have to cripple the CPU drivers to make it seem better than it really is according to rumor). HAVOK physics doesn't bother -- its CPU only.

Though the first GTX6xx cards may still get here in April/May, they could easily be in short supply.

According to Nvidia's most recent Conference Call, there are issues with their 28nm process products (among other things) -- perhaps yield issues. These issues are rumored to be related to weaknesses in the Nvidia designs -- rather than weaknesses in the TSMC 28nm process (which had problems in the past that were fixed -- it is being used successfully by AMD 28nm HD7xxx products).

Linked is a long speculative article that, based on the conference call, guesses what types of issues might be affecting Nvidia product developments (of several types). Not a great read for a games enthusiast -- its more for investors. I link it simply because its usually good practice to link.

Nvidia Conference Call

Wow, that reads like an nvidia horror story. Not only the video card, but the mobile/tablet side as well.

Seems to me if the next gen launches on time it will have very limited supply and perhaps a notable failure rate as well with problems for those needing RMAs.



The Jedi Master

so the limited supplies everyone does get is gonna have outrageous mark ups,.

even if it does beat AMDs cards, you can win if you cant put supply on the market. and you can put supply on the market if out of 100 Chips only 30 make it through to the bin process, and out of those 30, only 15 of them are prolly binned high enough for use.

Sounds identical to the situation 2.5 years ago:
1. ATI comes out with the 5870 which is a great card and surprises
2. Nv struggles to get the 470/480 out, it's late, limited initial supplies, it runs hot and uses lots of power
3. Eventually Nv comes out with the 570/580 which are the good cards they meant to come out with in the first place

Seems like the potential for a similar pattern, #1 is true, and the conference call sounds like the situation before #2 happened.

Glad I can wait this out for a while now that I found a great/cheap temporary card...

scrap the 600 series and move on to the 700 series..