Nvidia to release fixed GTX590 in June

According to VR-ZONE, Nvidia are planning on fixing the poor design of the GTX590 and will re-release it in June. They claim a ‘much needed hardware fix where the new inductors are added to the card'.

Kitguru reported on this many months ago, after many cards were failing due to design issues. This hardware fix apparently means that 3rd party cooling solutions such as the GTX590 waterblocks will no longer fit, due to a change in the baseplate. This revised edition will be denoted with a 502 marking on the PCB and should hit retail in June.

Hardware.fr reviewed the card at release and their GTX590 testing showed a reading of around 112c from the card under load. Since then some partners have been updating card bioses  however the main issue was down to a poor VRM design. The very high temperatures are due to the VRM’s being underspecified. Each of the GPU/IMC phases has 35A each, and only four phases per GPU, with one phase for the IMC.

With the DrMOS chips being operated at close to peak forward current rating with a high duty cycle, this is part of the reason of the stress related failures. At very high load levels the DrMOS chips can become very inefficient as they are optimised for efficiency at low loads. Some claim they shouldn’t be used for VRMs for high power electronics in the first place. This inefficiency is adding more wasted heat into the scenario. Nvidia have placed them right under the fan’s dead spot too which doesn’t help with cooling.

This new version indicates that while Nvidia denied it at the time, there are hardware design issues with the original release.

KitGuru says: No indications yet as to whether current customers will get a free replacement for the flawed older design.

Become a Patron!