The GeForce GTX 590 3GB is going to be going up against much of the same competition as we had the Radeon HD 6990 4GB battle with.  Obviously with the same $699 price point on the GTX 590 and HD 6990, they are direct competitors from every angle and we have included the best single card solutions from both AMD and NVIDIA in here as well:

• GeForce GTX 590 3GB - $699

• Radeon HD 6990 4GB - $699

• Radeon HD 6970 2GB - $369
• GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB - $499

Next, we are going to be throwing a couple of dual card configurations at the GTX 590 to see how it can stack up against the likes of SLI configurations that may or may not be available at less cost than the single card, dual-GPU solutions.

• GeForce GTX 590 3GB - $699
• GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB SLI - $1000

• GeForce GTX 570 1GB SLI - $700
• Radeon HD 6950 2GB CrossFire - $550

The pair of GTX 580 cards is WELL outside the price range of the GTX 590 so we expect it to be the dominant performer in that second grouping of benchmark results, but the GTX 570 (and even the Radeon HD 6950s) create an interesting comparison in terms of getting the most efficient use out of your dollar.

The GeForce GTX 590 is revealed from hiding

Here is our test system setup for the benchmarks:

• Testing Configuration
• ASUS P6X58D Premium Motherboard
• Intel Core i7-965 @ 3.33 GHz Processor
• 3 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1333 MHz Memory
• Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB HDD
• Corsair Professional Series 1200w PSU
• Benchmarks used: 3DMark Vantage, Unigine Heaven v2.1, Metro
  2033, Lost Planet 2, Civilization V, F1 2010, Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead
  2, 3DMark11

Let's get to it!