A few images on an engineering sample 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra have been floating around online today. Although the additional 256MB is an obvious benefit, there are some rather drastic layout changes to the board which should certainly raise an eyebrow. Taking a glimpse at the image below, you’ll see that the memory is not cooled in any way here and that the traditional passive heatsink assembly seen on 6800 Ultras will not fit. In addition, it appears the power logic has become much more concentrated and is kept cool by a series of beefy passive heatsinks. The revised logic seems nice and clean, but the thought of those memory modules cooking away without any cooling is a less than comforting thought. Perhaps NVIDIA has something up its sleeve down the road?

512MB NVIDIA Layout Changes? - Graphics Cards 2