Nvidia GeForce 6800 specs emerge

Out from the Ultra version's shadow

When Nvidia unveiled the mainstream-oriented GeForce 6800 and its more powerful sibling, the GeForce 6800 Ultra, earlier this month, it was keener to discuss the latter than the former.

While the Ultra's specs are well known - 400MHz core, 1.1GHz GDDR 3 memory clock frequency - the vanilla version's numbers have yet to be made public.

Until now. German site Hartware.net has come up with the details.

According to its report, the GeForce 6800 will run at 375MHz, with its DDR SDRAM clocked to 700MHz. The 6800 is also likely to ship with up to 128MB of memory, rather than the Ultra's 256MB. While the 6800 Ultra contains 16 pixel processing pipelines, the 6800 itself has only 12 of them enabled. Both chips are derived from Nvidia's 220 million-transistor NV40 core.

In Europe, Ultra-based cards are expected to retail for around €549, in the US $499. Boards based on the 6800 will cost around €349 and $299, respectively. Ultra-based cards are likely to go on sale through retail channels in the late May timeframe with 6800-based boards following shortly after. ®

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