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If we look at the roadmaps for the next few months we see that Intel is due to launch its quad-cored Core 2 Extreme QX6700 in November. Intel has had a resounding success with Core 2 Duo and I have every expectation that QX6700 will be even better but technically it’s not much more than a pair of Core 2 Duos sitting side-by-side on the same processor socket. Other than that the horizons are empty until the monolith of Windows Vista looms into view in early 2007, which includes a stack of new stuff including DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4. This signals a massive change for your graphics card where the concept of Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders is torn up and thrown away. Instead we will have Unified Shaders that can handle any task that is thrown at them.

The rumoured numbers for both ATI R600 and nVidia G80 are simply enormous with core speeds of 1GHz and 512MB of GDDR4 that runs at an effective speed of 2GHz. At present Radeon X1900 XTX has 48 Pixel Shaders, eight Vertex Shaders and 384 million transistors while GeForce 7900 GTX has 24 Pixel Shaders, eight Vertex Shaders and 278 million transistors. We hear that the ATI R600 will use 64 Unified Shaders which doesn’t seem like a huge change yet the speculation is that R600 will have 600 million transistors and a power draw of 250W. Furthermore the nature of Unified Shaders means that a decent games developer should be able to make a greater part of the chip work for its living more of the time. Your Radeon X1900 XTX probably draws less than its nominal 150W during even the most intense gaming session as some of the Shaders are sitting idle while their brothers are working flat out. With Shader Model 4 architecture that peak figure will move closer to being the average power draw.

PCI Express is a new technology yet ATI and nVidia have already found it necessary to subvert the specification by adding a six-pin power connector to provide additional juice to the GPU and we’re now looking at two of the damned things to power the extra transistors.

The idea of Unified Shaders is incredibly smart and I can’t wait to see Elder Scrolls:Oblivion on a high resolution display with a G80 or R600 driving it along but surely if the rumours, gossip, innuendo and rampant speculation are even partially accurate then it is clear that something has gone terribly wrong and that the technology is moving in the wrong direction. To my mind noise and heat are very bad things in a PC so any graphics card that has a system requirement which includes a 1KW power supply ought to treat it as a badge of shame, rather than as a source of pride.

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