A web-site has published photos of what it claims to be a graphics card based on Nvidia’s code-named G80 graphics processing unit (GPU). The new board looks long and uses a new cooler with liquid-cooling capability.

The graphics card seems to be about the size of the GeForce 7900 GX2, at least, it seems to be longer than the GeForce 7900 GTX, which means that it may not be possible to install it into smaller computer cases. If the pictures are displaying a prototype of the graphics card based on Nvidia’s next-generation G80 chip, then the latter should be pretty power hungry, if it requires liquid cooling. The graphics card reportedly uses 1GB of GDDR4 memory.

Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.

The fact that an Asian web-site displays pictures of the G80 means that several prototypes of the product are at hands of China- or Taiwan-based graphics card manufacturers, which may be an indicator that the GeForce 8800 GPU is essentially ready for mass production.

Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.

Specifications of the G80 chip are not clear. Some sources indicate that Nvidia’s first DirectX 10 chip will incorporate 48 pixel shader processors and an unknown number of vertex shader/geometry shader processors. Other, however, claims that the G80 has 32 pixel and 16 vertex and geometry shader processors. Yet another source has indicated that the G80 will have unified shader architecture and will consist of 700 million transistors.

 
Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.