Reviews are coming in for Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards

After leaking for a number of weeks, the NVIDIA new desktop GPUs have made it to the official list: the Geforce GTX 970 and GeForce GTX 980 cards are out and priced respectively at $329 and $549 (MSRP). Both are what’s commonly called “performance kickers”, which means that NVIDIA has worked on key metrics that would make them better products, namely higher performance per dollar, and higher performance per watt, two indispensable data points for anyone who wants something other than “absolute bragging rights (at any price)”. The GeForce GTX 980 is about twice as fast as the GTX 680.

Nvidia announced two new additions to its line of graphics processing units (GPUs), the Geforce GTX 970 and 980, during its Game 24 livestream event on Thursday. Game 24, which is hosted on the popular game streaming site Twitch.tv and began at 6 p.m. PT, is billed as a 24-hour celebration of PC gaming. The GPUs use Nvidia’s second-generation Maxwell microarchitecture, the successor to Nvidia’s Keplar, and focus on high-end performance for PC gaming and unprecedented energy efficiency. The results allow Nvidia-powered machines to render game environments with higher resolution, better lighting and more sustainable high frame rates. With Maxwell, Nvidia also places a special focus on energy efficiency, with the GTX 970 and 980 halving power consumption compared with the previous GPUs — the GeForce GTX 750 and the GeForce GTX 750 Ti — that were based on its first-generation Maxwell. The GTX 980 will sell for $549 and the GTX 970 will sell for $329. Both components will be available later tonight and will built into full systems from PC makers like CyberPower, Digital Storm and Falcon Northwest.