NVidia have announced the details for their upcoming 8800-series cards, built on their new "G80" core. The 8800 is one of the first generation of DirectX 10 compatible graphics cards. The 8800 GTX and GS will be released in November 2006, and support the Shader Model 4.0. As the specs below reveal, the cards are apocalyptically powerful.

As a DirectX 10 capable card, the 8800 will give users access to graphics far better than DirectX 9, and improve performance of the DWM under Windows Vista. This is because DirectX 10 compatible cards use a new version of the Windows Device Driver Model (WDDM), which gives the operating system much more control of graphics card resources.

NVidia 8800 GTX
575Mhz "G80" core
768MB GDDR3 memory at 900Mhz
384-bit memory bus, delivering 86GB/s memory bandwidth
128 unified shaders, clocked at 1350Mhz
theoretical fill rate: 38.4 billion pixels per second
HDCP compliant
Length: "just under 11 inches"
450W PSU required
SLI capable

NVidia 8800 GTS
500Mhz "G80" core
640MB GDDR3 memory at 900Mhz
320-bit memory bus, delivering 64GB/s memory bandwidth
96 unified shaders, clocked at 1200Mhz
HDCP compliant
Length: 9 inches
400W PSU required
SLI capable