Its top-of-the-line GeForce 7800 GTX was already acclaimed as perhaps the fastest available graphics processor, but Nvidia Corp. isn't stopping there: The new GeForce 7800 GTX 512 combines 512MB of graphics memory with higher core and memory speeds and a 512-bit memory bus to yield what Nvidia says is 33 percent faster performance than the formidable GTX. Besides sharing the former flagship's SLI and DirectX Shader Model 3.0 support, 24 pixel pipelines, and eight vertex pipes, the 512 benefits from a substantial increase in clock speed -- the core has jumped from 430MHz to 550MHz, with memory speed climbing from 600MHz to 850MHz (1.7GHz double-data-rate).

While graphics-card vendors ranging from XFX and EVGA to MSI and Asus offer PCI Express cards based on the new processor, BFG Technologies has already cranked it to 580MHz core and 875MHz (1.75GHz) memory, pushing the BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 512 card to over a billion vertices per second. Falcon Northwest will offer the new BFG board in its gaming-optimized desktops.