Forceware Release 80 already leaked

It was little over a week ago when NVIDIA officially released its first Forceware Release 75 driver to the public: Forceware version 77.72. Already, we are seeing the first signs of development for Forceware Release 80 with the first Release 80 leak posted on 3DChipset.

There are some new additions to the drivers, including support for dual core processors. This is a strange one and we questioned NVIDIA's driver guru's at Editor's day, which happened a couple of weeks before the launch of GeForce 7800 GTX. They claimed that this new driver will deliver additional performance benefits to dual-core owners.

Also, there are some expected improvements to SLI too, and we get the impression that some of the things that we suggested back in May might well be taken on board in some shape or form.

That is not all, though.

Probably the most interesting thing is the contents of the driver's nv4_disp.inf file. We see a number of patterns forming inside this file. The first being where the GeForce 7800 GTX fits in to the grand scheme of things.

NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0090.1 = "NVIDIA G70"
NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0091.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX"
NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0092.1 = "NVIDIA G70 "
NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0093.1 = "NVIDIA G70 "
NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0094.1 = "NVIDIA G70 "

If we look over the previous two generations, the DEV_xxx1.1 part has been the vanilla SKU. We somewhat doubt that this is a vanilla replacement at this moment in time, but we believe that there is room for at least two faster parts than GeForce 7800 GTX: namely NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0090.1 and NVIDIA_G70.DEV_0093.1.

We say this because historically the fastest SKU based on a certain chip has always taken the DEV_xxx0.1 deviceID string. On the other hand, the DEV_xxx3.1 deviceID string was not used with NV40 but was the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra back in the days of NV35. Maybe the DEV_xxx3.1 string for NV40 was GeForce 6850? Who knows, we guess that it wasn't released because NVIDIA didn't need to release it because of the performance leap they achieved with SLI.

Secondly, the inf file also mentions some upcoming hardware, including C51 and G72. We talked about C51 a little here during our Computex coverage. We get the impression that G72 is a replacement for NV44, or GeForce 6200, and will feature TurboCache technology in some shape or form. We are currently unsure of the layout of this chip, but we'll keep digging to see what we can find.

You can download the drivers from 3DChipset, and discuss your findings in our forums!