Nvidia has finally shipped the 512MB version of its GeForce 7800 GTX chip. The company claims it offers a 33 per cent speed increase over the 256MB version.

The GeForce 7800 GTX 512's increase comes from a faster core clock and a bigger memory clock speed: 850MHz (1.7GHz effective), the latter yielding the 54.4GBps of bandwidth provided by the chip's 256-bit memory bus.

Nvidia didn't provide a core clock speed - it's believed to be around 550MHz - but it did say the GPU can colour 13.2bn pixels per second and processes 1.1bn vertices each second. It can process up to 24 pixels per clock cycle. The GTX 512's core speed is 30.9 per cent up on the 256MB GTX's, its memory clock 41.7 per cent higher.

The GTX 512 supports all the customary GeForce 7 series technologies: DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0, Nvidia's SLI, high dynamic range lighting effects, PureVideo, CineFX 4.0, IntelliSample 4.0, UltraShadow II and so on. Like the 7800 GTX, the new chip supports resolutions of up to 2048 x 1536. Boards will typically offer a pair of DVI-I outputs, along with HD-enabled video-in and video-out.

Nvidia said GTX 512-based boards are shipping from the likes of Asus, Gainward, MSI, XFX and Point of View. The GPU will also shortly be found in PCs from the usual-suspect system builders. ®