The Emerald Eye Flickers.

A few days ago, a certain Dutch e-tailer caused something of a stir by including amongst its offerings what will doubtless soon become old Giant Green Eyes’ weapon of choice in the eternal battle for GPU domination.  Only a few days later, several further listings, this time from American suppliers, had made footprints in Google’s cache,  sparking a streak of forum speculation amidst enthusiasts as they eagerly anticipate the response to AMD’s 28nm 7970, which emerged a little over a month ago.

A unofficial release date of the 22nd of March was divulged by a generally reliable source a week ago and it would appear that this is as close to Green gospel as we are likely to receive.

Of the technical details disclosed thus far, the card is a 3rd generation PCI-E product, has a TDP rating of 190w which it draws via two 6 pin PCI-E connectors.  It will be served with a choice 2 or 4GB of GDDR5, the speed of which is set at 1500mhz (or an effective 6000mhz) while the default core speed will be 1006-1058mhz (base and boost frequencies).  It remains unclear whether both the 2 and 4GB versions will be available on the day of launch.  It will feature 1536 CUDA cores and a 256bit memory bus with a bandwidth of 192GBs per second.

Price, based on the listings referred to above, could realistically fall anywhere between the current RRP of $499 and $600, depending on the vendor and e-tailer.  This would translate to around 380-450 euros and 315-380 pounds, though these prices do not account for taxes.  Be prepared!