NVIDIA Corp. is reportedly going to announce the GeForce 6800 GS product in the near future, it is expected. The part would positioned as a direct competitor to ATI’s RADEON X1600 XT, sources close to the company have said. The new product is projected to offer performance additional or higher compared to the breed of the GeForce 6800-series chips.

NVIDIA Preps the GeForce 6800 GS – Report

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS is expected to work at 425MHz for the chip and 1000MHz for the memory, some sources close to NVIDIA Corp. are reported to have said. The product is projected, according to the sources, to have 12 pixel pipelines, 256-bit memory bus support all the advantages of the GeForce 6 architecture, e.g. Shader Model 3.0. Moreover, the card will be equipped with 256MB of GDDR-3 graphics memory working at 1000MHz frequency. GeForce 6800 GS will also support SLI, so the PCB will also carry a MIO connector that allows connecting two graphics cards into an SLI configuration with the help of the SLI bridge.

X-bit labs has managed to dig out some additional info about the origin of the GeForce 6800 GS product, which is expected to be of interest to those users who would like to have an affordable graphics sub-system upgrade. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS graphics product is expected to be based on NV42 chip, which is a version of the GeForce 6800 Ultra chip with lowered performance.

Pricing of the model 6800 GS was not confirmed at press time, but it is likely that the part will compete against the products priced at about $200. The part is expected to compete against the RADEON X800 GTO and the RADEON X1600-series from ATI Technologies once the parts are available.

The GeForce 6800 Finds Home at GeForce 7800 Site

According to some claims, one of the most remarkable peculiarities of the GeForce 6800 GS graphics cards will be the print circuit board (PCB) design: they will be based on the GeForce 7800 GT layout. When NVIDIA just launched the GeForce 7800 GT, there were a few mentions about the graphics cards on NV4x generation graphics chips that might use the same PCB design as a reference. It seemed like a pretty reasonable move especially with the unified architecture and design in mind, so looks like GeForce 6800 GS is about to become the first try in this direction.

It seems like NVIDIA is refreshing the graphics cards line-ups by offering already existing products equipped with more up-to-date memory and raising the working frequencies. GeForce 6800 GS will be the next stage of the GeForce 6800 evolution: the frequencies will grow from 325MHz/700MHz to 425MHz/1000MHz, DDR-I will be replaced with GDDR-3.

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS graphics cards is likely to appear in the market in the upcoming November already. Their primary goal will be to compete with the parts like the RADEON X800 GT-series as well as the RADEON X1600 XT parts.

ATI’s RADEON X1600-series products from ATI are expected to appear in December at the earliest, so NVIDIA is unlikely to have to rush with the GeForce 6800 GS into the retail market. On the other hand, there might be some internal matter that would push the company to get there as soon as possible: namely, GeForce 6600 GT graphics cards should soon be replaced with a more advanced products.