Zagreb (Croatia) - Two screenshots posted to a popular Internet forum claim to show two upcoming NVIDIA graphics cards: The 9900GTX and 9900 GTS, based on the GT200 chip.
If you have been waiting for more details about Nvidia’s next-gen products, then this is likely the juiciest information yet. The poster of the thread on Xtreme Systems claims that the screenhots show the upcoming "D10U" products, one board codenamed P651 and the other P65x. If these pictures display an engineering drawing of the actual product, then we now know that both the GTX and GTS versions have support for triple-SLI. This featurerequires one 8-pin power connector to work, translating into a maximum power consumption of 225 watts for the 9900 GTS (75 watts + 150 watts). According to these drawings, the 9900 GTX could be looking at up 300 watts (75 watts + 75 watts + 150 watts). Of course, we don’t expect either card to actually consume quite so much, but we believe that the engineers have created enough headroom simply to ensure a stable operation of the card.
An 8-pin PCIe power connector can deliver 12.5 Amps at 12V, which ends up at 150 watts. A 6-pin PCIe connector can deliver 6.25 Amps at 12V, or 75 watts.
Looking at the drawing from another angle, we see that there are subtle differences between the two parts, but some things just do not add up. There are eight memory chips on front, and possible eight memory chips on the back, which would confirm the rumored 512-bit memory controller. Possible memory sizes are 512 MB, 1024 MB and 2048 MB. But the alleged 9900 GTS features eight memory chips as well, so the rumors of a 448-bit memory controller and 896 MB of memory would be incorrect. Or are they true and these pictures are a dud?
What looks rather strange is the presence of NVIO chip. After the "we do not support HDCP at 2560x1600" fiasco, would indicate that these pictures are fake.
NordicHardware ran two stories (here) disclosing alleged details of the cards. Reading over those details, we would agree that these pictures fit the bill, at least as far as power consumption and most specs go.
Your guess is as good as ours. It is an interesting topic for weekend discussions on forums around the Internet. And in our comments section, of course.
