Nvidia has unofficially confirmed some hardware specs of its upcoming NV40 chip and it is quite possible that the winner of the next round of the graphics war may have already been decided.
According to the company, its new chip will feature a full 16 pipelines, not the 8x2 set-up which had been expected. This change means that Nvidia's new GPU will have a staggering 205-210 million transistors and not the expected 175 million.
It seems that ATI's inexperience at this game may have gotten the best of them since they had been eager to claim that their R420 would beat Nvidia in, at least, 10 common games. These claims however, were made based on Nvidia using the predicted 175 million transistors, information which ATI had and was obviously flawed.
Recent gossip from the Intel Developer Forum did claim that Nvidia had an ace up their sleeve and it would appear that it has slipped it out. The timing of the announcement was careful so ATI could not respond with a change in hardware, even though the NV40 has slipped by a month.
This latest news adds another exciting chapter in the epic battle between the two companies and no one is foolish enough to write ATI off quite yet. The Canadian firm has so far proved that it can match its rival move for move.