EVGA, a leading maker and supplier of advanced graphics cards and mainboards, has unveiled a unique graphics board that features Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 graphics chip to process graphics and Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 (G92, 9800 GTX, 8800 GTS 512MB) chip to process physics effects using PhysX application programming interface.

EVGA’s GeForce GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX Graphics Solution features two completely different graphics processors instead of one:

• Nvidia G200b chip with 240 shader processors (SPs) operating at 1296MHz, 80 texture units (TUs), 30 render back ends (RBEs) working at 633MHz and 448-bit memory interface to connect to 896MB of GDDR3 memory (2268MHz).
• Nvidia G92b chip with 128 SPs at 1836MHz, 32 TUs, 16 RBEs operating at 732MHz and 192-bit memory bus to connect 384MB of GDDR3 memory (2200MHz).
• The board also features NV IO chip to enable display outputs as well as NV BR chip to enable communication between graphics processing units (GPUs).

The GeForce GTX 275/G200b is only used to process graphics data, whereas the G92b chip with cut-down memory interface is placed to process solely physics effects in games that take advantage of PhysX API technology.

The graphics card utilizes proprietary design and is unlikely to be available from other manufacturers. Despite the exotic design, EVGA’s GeForce GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX can operate in 2-way or 3-way SLI multi-GPU configurations with other GeForce GTX 275 graphics boards without problems.

The concept of putting two different graphics processors onto the same board seems to be rather interesting: processing of physics effects does not require serious computing power, still, using one GPU for both graphics and physics may not be an interesting option for performance enthusiasts. As a result, in the future EVGA may put an additional graphics processor onto high-end graphics cards in order to differentiate itself and provide PhysX acceleration.

EVGA’s GeForce GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX 1280MB carries manufacturer suggested retail price of $349. The MSRP of a GeForce GTX 275 896MB is around $299, whereas the GeForce GTS 250 usually costs around $149.

Considering the fact that it took quite a number of efforts to develop a special-edition graphics board that will sell for $349, the emergence of the product may mean that EVGA and Nvidia are not going to release the next-generation Fermi flagship gaming solution anytime soon. Of course, no company has confirmed that.

Tags: EVGA, Nvidia, Geforce, G200b, G92b, 55nm, PhysX, Fermi