NVIDIA is developing a new speed grade of its GeForce 9-series to fight an upcoming challenger from AMD, video card designers said on Friday. The GeForce 9600 GSO would be a parallel to the still unreleased Radeon HD 3830 and will likely sit between the current 9600 GT and an unreleased but slower 9600 GS. It will share the same architecture but cost significantly less; the main processor will allegedly cost as little as $50 to $55 for companies making their own boards.

Finished cards using the 9600 GSO will be introduced in May, but haven't been priced. Full-speed GeForce 9600 GT cards cost roughly $169, putting a price for the GSO under that mark.

Separately, NVIDIA in July is also expected to launch the GeForce 9900 in the latter half of the year and will use a smaller, cooler-running 55 nanometer chipmaking process to ramp up clock speeds without significantly altering the core architecture. Present-day GeForce 9 series boards share the same basic design as late-generation 8800 cards.