Daily Tech has the scoop and snapshots of two new NVIDIA parts, the 7600GT and 7900GT. Both cards target very different segments of the market and should be worthy successors to cards like the 6600GT and 7800GT respectively.
While ATI and NVIDIA duke it out for the performance crown with ultra-high end parts like the X1900 XTX and GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB, a majority of their market share comes from low end and midrange parts. NVIDIA"s 6600GT has occupied that slot for quite some time now, but a new card is on the horizon - the 7600GT.
The new card will be pin-compatible with the 6600GT, meaning any PCB alterations manufacturers have made over the 6600GT"s product run will be in place when the 7600GT debuts. It features a 560MHz core frequency, 128-bit memory interface, 12 pixel pipelines, and dual-link DVI. Many manufacturers have told sources they"ve had the finished cards ready for months, but NVIDIA has held back the launch.
Next we have the 7900GT, a 90nm update to the 7800GT which will be unveiled at CeBIT 2006 next month. The new card will be a single slot design, run at 450MHz on the core, have 24 pixel pipelines, and use Samsung 1.4ns GDDR3 memory with unspecified clock speeds. These specifications are quite similar to the existing 7800GTX.
One interesting new feature on both cards in the inclusion of a 4-pin audio jack, possibly SPDIF. If this is true, it could be an indication of HDMI support on upcoming cards, even though these reference designs have no HDMI connectivity.