Been a while since AMD stripped NVIDIA of the graphics performance crown with the doubled-up Radeon HD 4870 X2.
NVIDIA itself is no stranger to slapping two PCBs together - take the GeForce 9800 GX2, for example - and it was only a matter of time until it doubled up its beefy GeForce GTX 260.
It has often been reported that a 55nm shrink would make it possible, and the folks over at vr-zone have managed to snag a picture of the card in question.
The two-in-one card, dubbed the GeForce GTX 295, is reported to combine two 55nm GeForce GTX 260 GPUs via internal SLI. What's interesting, though, is that the die shrink brings other benefits to the table - the complete card's suggested TDP is around 290W, which although too hot for our liking, is less than expected.
Furthermore, the card is said to feature 480 stream processors. That isn't the result of two 216-cored GTX 260s, that's a pair of 240-core GTX 280s. It's possible that the 55nm shrink has allowed NVIDIA to squeeze in more stream processors, but it could be a hybrid design that makes use of GTX 260 and GTX 280 features.
It's reported to provide a total 1,792MB of GDDR3 memory - double the GeForce GTX 260 - but either way you look at it, this is the card that should hand the desktop performance crown back to NVIDIA. Unless AMD has any CES surprises in store, that is.
