...And its name shall be GeForce 7800 GTX, or so the latest information claims, as nVidia prepares to launch its G70 architecture. As the battle for next-generation graphics reaches its climactic end, both companies involved have already started trying to make sure their product is best placed in the market.
It now seems that nVidia's G70, expected to be announced in a couple of weeks, will be the first to market but its beginning to look as if that is the way ATI wanted things to go down; but more on that later. Initial problems with the ATI R520 design have delayed the launch of the card and the dark side of nVidia's PR, smelling blood, didn't miss the opportunity to pounce. The latest news claims that ATI is facing a never ending range of problems which will affect anything from the performance of the chip to the color of its fan. Proponents of the ATI disaster news, strangely enough, are not shy to use the NV30 paradigm in order to describe the situation the Canadians are in.
All nVidia hype aside ATI has been facing an uphill struggle as it attempted to create a reliable and stable R500 board for Microsoft's XBox 360 while, at the same time moving its design to 90 nm. As expected, the transition was anything but smooth but the end product, expected to be announced soon should be the highest performing card in the market if the 10K+ 3DMark05 points, rumored to have been scored by an Abit board, are anything to go by.
Coming back to ATIs plan, if the latest stories are correct, the company has not responded to the negative PR, circulated by certain rivals, since it wants its rival to commit to its design and specs before it reveals its own numbers. Some bad news suggests that R520 may not utilize all 32 pipelines and may be restricted to 24, especially if ATI believes they are enough to beat the G70. R580 however, should be the real deal.
To sum things up, nVidia will be the first to market with G70 designs while ATI will wait a while before revealing its next-gen boards but is expected to retain the performance crown even though the company did face a variety of problems with its design.
