Nvidia Goes All Out at PAX East 2011

GTX590! But only in limited quantities.

PAX isn’t what most would consider a hardware show by even the longest stretch. But more and more hardware companies are making a showing at PAX to reach gamers at an intimate level. PAX is different from E3 in that the show is geared directly towards end-users and consumers, whereas E3 is an industry-insider only event.

The biggest area on the exhibition floor belonged to Nvidia, who also loaned some of its floor real-estate out to other vendors, such as Gigabyte, Maingear, etc. But the graphics giant itself made an impressive showing with demos of Tegra 2 gear, desktop gaming solutions, and games.

One tidbit we picked up on while at PAX was Nvidia’s launch of the GTX590. However, unlike previous releases, the GTX590 will be limited to just two vendors in the U.S.—mainly ASUS and EVGA. Other manufacturers will be making GTX590 products but those will only be available outside of the U.S.

We pressed for reasoning behind the selective vendor choice but was given no reason other than “it was planned this way.”