Nvidia Corp. is expected to show off or even formally launch its new graphics card featuring two graphics processing units (GPUs) in about a month time at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Meanwhile, the first image of the novelty has just emerged on the Internet.

The new graphics accelerator powered by two Nvidia GeForce GTX 200-series graphics chips will consist of two print-circuit boards each carrying GeForce GTX processors as well as 896MB of GDDR3 memory connected to GPUs using 448-bit memory bus, according to the image published by VR-Zone web-site. It is interesting to note that according to Expreview web-site, the new dual-GPU board by Nvidia will have 480 stream processing units, thus, the product will not carry two GeForce GTX 260 core 216 chips made using 55nm process technology, as previously expected.

Nvidia is known for quite unexpected behaviour, therefore, it is completely logical that the new dual-GPU “GX2” board will feature higher performance than anticipated and will indeed have 480 stream processing units enabled in total and operating in multi-GPU SLI mode. As previously noted, while performance of two GeForce GTX 260-216 graphics boards may be higher compared to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, it may not be enough to become successful on the market.

It is projected that the novelty will be launched on the first day of CES, the 8^th of January, 2009. It is not completely clear whether Nvidia plans to start sales of the novelty on that day, or will just demonstrate the product and formally name it.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Nvidia, Geforce, GX2, SLI, 55nm, 65nm, G200b, GT206