Nvidia Ready to Release Two New IGPs

Various sources and Taiwanese websites have confirmed that Nvidia is almost ready to release two new IGP products made especially for INTEL. The names are 'MCP73' and 'MCP79' and the chipsets are said to offer a strong competition on the integrated GPU market. Nvidia targets especially INTEL's proprietary motherboards but also tries to equal the potential of AMD's new IGP.

The MCP73 will support 1066MHz FSB and will be able to host only single-channel 667MHz DDR memory configurations. The future MCP will come with a GeForce 7-class GPU on board, meaning that it will support H.264 hardware decoding and will also feature HD content output at 720p. The MCP73 will also come with HDMI ports. The single-chip solution will be able to host up to four 3Gbps SATA drives and perhaps a single parallel ATA port. 10 USB 2.0 and an RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet will also come as default.

The MCP73 is rumored to be fabbed using 80nm process with the 80nm lines also powering AMD's RS690. As for the MCP79, it is claimed to be in line for 55nm process. The MCP will use a GeForce 8-class GPU that will fully support DirectX 10. It too will host HDMI ports and HD resolutions but this time, it will be capable of outputting a 1080i signal. MCP79 will connect to the CPU over a 1333MHz FSB supporting INTEL's 1333 Quad-FSB CPUs.

The MCP73 will be shipping first in small quantities during the 1st quarter of 2007, followed by mass-production during the summer. The MCP79 won't sample until the end of 2007, with large quantities being available only in 2008.