GeForce 9600 GT for Feb

NVIDIA will have at least one mid-range video card in the lineup when it releases the GeForce 9-series early next year, says a leak from Expreview. Hosting what is claimed to be a presentation graphic for the launch, the site explains that the graphics card maker will release the GeForce 9600 GT as its first mainstream entry and will be built on the same 65-nanometer manufacturing process as recent cards such as the GeForce 8800 GT; this will keep cooling and power requirements low while allowing a 500MHz core clock speed and an effective 2GHz memory speed.

Though unconfirmed, the card should add support for advanced visuals through DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 2 and should use 512MB of video memory on a 256-bit memory interface, again similar to the 8800 GT. The most significant aspect of the card may be its launch, according to the alleged source inside NVIDIA: if accurate, the GeForce 9600 GT will be the first of the series to be released, beating a higher-end 9800 or similar card by weeks or months. A launch is planned for February that will phase out multiple older 8-series cards.

Operating system support is not mentioned, though NVIDIA typically says it will offer multi-platform support for Linux, Mac OS X, as well as both 32- and 64-bit Windows variants.

By Electronista Staff