Nvidia's NV43 graphics chip has made an appearance on the web, courtesy of a Chinese web site (http://www.d-cross.com/TB_C4.asp?SB_ID=28&TB=TB_4) which claims to have got the snap off of a local graphics card maker.

If undoctored, the shot is of an engineering sample. According to a recent roadmap leak (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/07/nvidia_roadmap/), NV43 will ship this autumn as a PCI Express native successor to the GeForce PCX 5750 and FX 5900, which suggests it's a lower-end 6800. The site reckons the part will offer eight or 12 pixel pipelines.

Meanwhile, another Chinese web site reckons (http://www.gzeasy.com/itnewsdetail.asp?nID=15615) ATI is preparing an alternative to Nvidia's 6800 GT part called, oddly enough, the Radeon X800 GT. The site says it will be a lower-clocked (425MHz) version of the X800 XT, running with 900MHz G-DDR 3 memory - 256MB of it. Derived from the XT, it will have 16 pixel pipelines, the report claims. ®

Related stories

Nvidia said to be working on GeForce 6800 LE (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/15/nvidia_6800_le/)
Nvidia roadmap said to tout AGP at high-end well into 2005 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/07/nvidia_roadmap/)
Nvidia migrates Quadro line to PCI Express (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/29/nvidia_pci_express_quadro/)
ATI Radeon X800 Pro morphs into X800 XT (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/08/ati_r420_mod/)
ATI unwraps latest GPU technology (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/01/ati_x600/)
Intel Grantsdale hitting demand for low-end GPUs? (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/12/i915g_vs_ati_nvidia/)
ATI breaks revenue record (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/25/ati_q4_results/)

Related reviews

Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/06/review_sapphire_radeon_x800/)
XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/16/review_xfx_geforce_6800/)