G80 late because of a respin

NVIDIA'S G80 is still somewhat of a mystery, with a lot of speculation but little on the record.

We have a few more bits, and some smoke and mirrors to tell you about, and it lines up pretty nicely with a lot of earlier info.

First is timing. At Computex, and as we reported earlier, Nvidia had silicon up and running. If all went well, that would mean silicon up in early June, 10-12 weeks for production chips and another month for boards, the September/October launch dates floating seemed likely.

We hear there was another spin in August, not huge, but a spin anyway, and first Silicon is due back any day now. If all goes well, that means another 3-4 months before boards are done, and you are looking at late November. NV has a reviewers/tech day tentatively set for early November, so think in the month for parts.

Since Nvidia decided they hate us again, look for coverage earlier rather than later, handcuffs are easier to avoid than to ignore. Either way, they will be thinking of us, smooches fellas. This means launches in the middle of the Christmas shopping season, and short supplies after that, make sure the kids know what they won't be getting.

So, it is going to be late, that is not the ugly bit, board partners are telling us that it very well might have an external PSU to power the beast. We told you it was going to be hot, but not as hot as an R600. Either way, this does not bode well for either card. Think of a monster with a brick to keep it from running away.

The chip itself is another story, and from the initial info we have, it is going to be a weird beastie. So weird in fact that it deserves a bit of digging before we say for sure. California wakes up in 3 hours, time to warm up the phones. µ