DailyTech has managed to snag some info about NVIDIA’s upcoming wave of GPUs and graphics cards, rumored to be launching during this year’s CeBit show. Heck, they even have pictures, so these puppies must be heading for a product launch with retail availability soon.
The high-end GeForce 7900 cards are the GeForce 7900 GT and 7900 GTX, both said to be based on the 90nm G71 GPU. Somewhat surprisingly, both 7900 models feature “only” 24 shader pipes, just like the current 7800 series. The more expensive GTX will reportedly have a whopping 655MHz core frequency and 52GB/s of memory bandwidth. That should give it even more pixel-processing and texturing power than the current GeForce 7800 GTX 512 but slightly less than that card’s 54.4GB/s of memory bandwidth. Based on those specs, I’d expect the 7900 GTX to give the Radeon X1900 XTX a run for its money, most likely beating out ATI’s new top-end GPU. NVIDIA is even said to be planning a single-slot version of the 7900 intended for use in quad-SLI rigs, possibly for assembly by DIYers.
The 7900 GT, meanwhile, looks like a direct replacement for the current sweetheart, the GeForce 7800 GT. The report claims the 7900 GT will have a 450MHz core clock and 40GB/s of memory bandwidth. Those specs should make the new GT faster than the current GeForce 7800 GTX. Let’s hope this one sells at something close to the current 7800 GT’s prices.
Even more exciting for many of us will be the GeForce 7600 GT, the long-awaited 7-series replacement for the GeForce 6600 GT. This card is based on a new 90nm GPU capable of processing 12 pixels per cycle at its 560MHz core clock speed. That should put the fill rate at just under 7GB/s, which should be a decent match for the card’s reported 20.2GB/s of memory bandwidth. By contrast, the 6600 GT has only 4GB/s of peak texel fill rate and 16GB/s of memory bandwidth. The 7600 GT looks to be a direct competitor for the Radeon X1600 XT with more texturing capability onboard and likely better antialiasing performance, if the 7600 is true to the conventions of NVIDIA’s 7-series architecture.
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