GeForce 9 series GPU To Launch In February

February 21 will see the launch of Nvidia’s new GeForce 9 series graphics chip. The GeForce 9600 GT (G94), will be launched for the mid-range market.

The new 9600 GT chip is manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and should run a 65nm process. The previous chip in the range, the 8600 GTS ran 32 processing units and 128-bit memory bus width, as compared to the new 9600 GT which is capable of 64 processing units and a 256-bit memory bus width. Sources within the industry expect the chip to produce over a 40% increase in performance over the 8600 GTS.

One of the big features of the new chip is that is allows Dual-Streaming Decode technology, which means you can have high definition picture in picture because the 9600 GT is capable of decoding two high definition processes concurrently.

The price of the 8600 GTS is expected to be dropped to around US$139 to 149, as the new 9600 GT will be coming into the market priced at roughly US$169 to 189.

At this stage, some graphics card manufacturers are holding back on production with the 9600 GT by up to three weeks because of a bug that has been discovered in the GeForce 9 that relates to power supply. According to industry sources, Nvidia has already resolved the issue, but card producers are none-the-less going to require more time to reconfigure their initial designs of the new cards.

The high-end version of the 9600 GT, the 9800 GX2, has been pushed back from its mid-February launch, but is expected to ship at the end of the month, or the beginning of March.

There is no response from Nvidia at this stage, whose stance is to not comment on unannounced products.

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