14 DAY TRIAL // Even though, as always, NVIDIA is trying to be as secretive as possible about its upcoming products, the Santa Clara, California-based company was still unable to prevent leaks and rumors about its GF104 from emerging. In fact, with all the hopes of consumers placed in this unreleased chip, it would have been strange for reports, such as the leak about the first two GF104 cards, not to show up. Unfortunately, no actual pictures of the chip have been seen.
Not until now at least. Expreview somehow managed to get a hold of a photo allegedly first published on a Chinese hardware enthusiasts forum known for leaking confidential data and pictures. What can immediately be seen from the photo is the aluminum heatspreader and the unusual, rectangular shape of the GPU (the GF100, as a comparison, is square). Unfortunately, the inscriptions on the chip are blurred out for the most part, leaving only the GF104-30x denomination and the A1 revision markings.
As it stands, it is impossible to determine when and where the picture was taken, though some assumptions can still be made based on it. Previous leaks and rumors suggested the possibility of the upcoming chip having a 192-bit memory bus and 336 stream processors, or a 256-bit interface and 384 stream processors. In the picture, there appear to be six or seven memory chips around the graphics processor itself, which, X-Bit Labs explains, may suggest that the memory bus is, in fact, of 224 bits, whereas the amount of stream processors is 360.
Granted, for this to be true, every graphics processing cluster (GPC) would need to have 24 stream processors and not 32 like the GF100. NVIDIA, of course, did not comment on unannounced products in any way, but considering that the launch date is supposedly slated for July 12, it shouldn't be long until official information starts to emerge.