Nvidia Corp., one of the world’s leading suppliers of graphics components, said Tuesday its GeForce 7900 GS graphics card is intended only for system makers and is not expected to reach retail, at least for now.

“The GeForce 7900 GS is another one specific SKU for OEM customers,” said Luciano Alibrandi, a spokesman for Nvidia Corp.

On Monday it was revealed that Dell offered Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS graphics card with its XPS gaming desktops. The GeForce model 7900 GS has 20 pixel processors, 7 vertex processors and 256-bit memory bus. Dell sells GeForce 7900 GS graphics cards clocked at 470MHz/1320MHz for core/memory along with its XPS 600 gaming computers. When asked specifically whether the part will be available for end-users as a retail offering, Nvidia’s spokesperson declined to deny or confirm.

“I cannot anticipate the future, but everything is feasible in our business,” Mr. Alibrandi said.

The GeForce 7900 GS is powered by the latest graphics chip code-namedG71, thus, comes with dual-link DVI outputs and other advantages the G71 has over predecessors, particularly, very low power consumption. Featuring the 20 pixel processors and 470MHz graphics chip speed, Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS will deliver performance a little below that of the GeForce 7900 GT. But being a cut-down version of the latter, the product may have very low power consumption, which may allow manufacturers of appropriate graphics boards to equip it with very low-speed low-noise fans or even stick to passive cooling solution.

If the GeForce 7900 GS emerges in retail for the price of $249, it will offer serious competition to  ATI’s Radeon X1800 GTO, nevertheless, it will also rival advanced flavours of the GeForce 7600 GT with extra features that cost over $200.