GeForce 7900 GTX with 24 pipes or 32 pipes?

NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX will be displayed at CeBIT 2006 at the beginning of next month and the circuit that has been under development by the name G71 is expected to be the answer to ATI’s new flagship Radeon X1900 XTX. As usual loads of information and rumours have been circulating the web and the information that has reached us here at NordicHardware is very ambiguous, some claim that GeForce 7900 GTX will use a total of 32 pixel pipelines for optimal performance, while other sources states that 7900 GTX will only have 24 pipelines, just as 7800 GTX.

What makes 32 pipelines believable is that NVIDIA and its partners have shown great trust in G71 and that it has had quite a long time to develop the circuit as the work with the G70 was a bit stressed by ATI’s delays with R520. While at the same time NVIDIA wants to be sure to reclaim the number one spot from ATI, something which a 32 pipeline version of G71 would certainly be able to do.

What makes a 32 pipeline version not so likely is mainly because of the increased complexity it adds to the manufacturing process. That G71 will be NVIDIA’s first high performance circuit based on 90nm meaning that it has been working extra hard with marking the manufacturing process to work at its best. The 90nm process makes it possible for NVIDIA to go for higher frequencies instead of adding pipelines, something that will not results in that much better performance as adding pipelines, but is considerably easier to achieve.

As usual we will not know for sure until NVIDIA release the official information and we are eagerly waiting to see what NVIDIA chose to do. Has it chosen to put all production och cost problems aside to once again claim the the throne of performance, or has it managed to find another path?