Nvidia Steals Back Performance Crown with GeForce GTX 580

Nvidia today announced its newest Fermi graphics card, the GeForce GTX 580. Reveiws from all over the Web indicate that this is the fastest single-GPU card on the planet, and trumped only by AMD's dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970.

"For the most recent games that feature tessellation -- the key feature of DX11 -- the 512-core GeForce GTX 580 is up to 160 percent faster than the closest competitive product. Even in previous-generation DX9 and DX10 games, the GeForce GTX 580 is faster by up to 62 percent, including in the blockbuster PC title StarCraft II," Nvidia claims.

In addition to more pixel pushing power than its predecessor, the GTX 480, Nvidia's latest DX11 part comes with a new heatsink design that allows it to run both cooler and quieter than before. Wear the crown proudly, Nvidia, at least until AMD fires back with its Cayman part in a couple of weeks.