The next-generation of NVIDIA GeForce, codenamed D10U will be launched later this week. According to DailyTech it seems that the GPU will make its debut as two graphics cards named GeForce GTX 280 (D10U-30) and GeForce GTX 260 (D10U-20).

The GTX 2800 enables all features of the D10U processor while the 260 version will significantely cut-down version of the same GPU. NVIDIA claims that these generation of graphic cards will perform 50 percent better than the ones from the D9 cards, released earlier this year.

It looks like the main difference between the new GeForce GTX versions is the number of shaders and memory bus width. NVIDIA disables 48 stream processors on the GTX 260. GTX 280 ships with a 512-bit memory bus capable of supporting 1GB GDDR3 memory; the GTX 260 alternative has a 448-bit bus with support for 896MB. The two versions will pack the same features as GeForce 9800GTX : PCIe 2.0, OpenGL 2.1, SLI, PureVideoHD and probably two SLI-risers for 3-way SLI support.