Nvidia strikes back: Geforce 9500 GT, 9800 GT and 9800 GTX+ released

During the last few days, Nvidia released three new desktop video cards:

The 9500 GT is the first desktop video card based on the G96 core. Currently manufactured in 65nm (55nm production will start later this year), PCI-Express 2.0 and OpenGL 2.1 support. You also get support for PureVideoHD which enables hardware decoding of VC-1 in addition to WMV and MPEG-2 HD. Memory wise, it is equipeed with 256MB or 512MB of DDR2 or GDDR3.

Here are the reference specs:

• Stream processors: 32
• Core clock: 550 MHz
• Shader clock: 1400 MHz
• Memory clock: 800 MHz
• Memory bus width: 128 bits
• Memory bandwidth: 25.6 GB/s

No big surprises here, its reference performance should be between what the 8600 GTS and 8600 GT already offer. What’s interesting though is that Nvidia’s affiliates are free to set the type of ram and speed, which is a good thing, as you end up seing cards that are actually faster than the reference model.

As I’m writing this, there are two different variations of the 9500 GT available on NewEgg, both faster than the reference model.

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There’s the EVGA model, clocked at Core: 550MHz; Shaders: 1400MHz; Memory: 1000MHz.
Priced at $69.99, this offers a 25% increase in memory speed over the reference model.

Then there’s the GIGABYTE model, overclocked to Core: 700MHz; Shaders: ???; Memory: 1600MHz.
Priced at $89.99, this card offers a major boost in performance compared to the reference card, up to 36%, according to GIGABYTE.

Such cards should improve Nvidia’s offer in a segment where ATI’s RV7xx are still awaited.

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9800 GT: Based on a G92(b) core with 112 stream processors and speeds of 600/1500/900 MHz for the gpu core, shader core and memory, respectively. You may notice that these specs are strictly identical to those of the GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB. The new card mainly sets itself apart with the HybridPower support.

While the 9800 GTX+ is also equipped with a G92b and has HybridPower, this time there are 128 stream processors with speeds of of 738/1836/1100 MHz or a 9% increase compared to the 9800 GTX “1.0″. Not bad, especially when you consider that’s it’s pretty much the same price as the previous version of the GTX.

So in conclusion, I think that the 9500 GT is truly interesting, if you consider its price, but the two “new” products from Nvidia are a deception, as they are mere refresh, are more expensive and bring nothing new to the market. My opinion? Those products are Nvidia’s marketing at its best…

Original here