MSI Computer may face widespread condemnation from at least a number of end-users who had acquired certain models of the company’s graphics cards presuming they were based on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT graphics processors only to find out that what they had bought was a lower-speed GeForce 6800 product.

A Germany-based web-site TechPowerUp claimed late last week that at least some of MSI’s retail PCI Express x16 graphics cards sold as NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT products had the GeForce 6800 graphics chips on them. The original NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT graphics chip has 16 pixel processors and 6 vertex processors, whereas the GeForce 6800 graphics processing unit employs 12 pixel and 5 vertex processors, thus, delivering lower performance.

It is unclear whether the graphics cards with MSI logotypes were genuine MSI products. It is also unknown how many graphics cards are affected.

The web-site also reports about NVIDIA GeForce 6800-series graphics cards from other manufacturers, namely Gigabyte Technology and PixelView, also configured in a way that they performed slower than advertised. TechPowerUp reports issues with Gigabyte products could be fixed with a special BIOS version.

“We received several MSI 6800GT which had only 12 Pipelines and 5 Vertex Units. This made us wonder a bit because MSI always delivers good quality. We sold none of the defective cards to customers,” German retailer MIPS-Computer is quoted as saying.

X-bit labs could not get comments from MSI in The Netherlands since Friday, NVIDIA Corp. in Europe also did not respond to the enquiries. MSI Computer representatives in the USA said the GeForce 6800 GT graphics cards were sold in the USA, but it is unclear what happened in Germany.

“We have shipped 6800 GT card in the U.S. so we really have no idea what happen in Germany,” MSI’s spokesperson told X-bit labs.