More Details on NVIDIA's HD 4850 Killer

As we mentioned to you earlier today, NVIDIA is planning to release a graphics card as part of their GeForce 9000 series. The most probable reason for this is that NVIDIA plans to steal away from AMD the potential success of their HD 4850 card. And in order to do so, the new GeForce 9800 GTX+ has to provide its users with roughly the same performance level and price tag as AMD’s RV770-based card.

We are now able to bring more details on the company’s soon to be released card, which is expected to hit the store shelves in mid-July. Unlike the other cards in the GeForce 9000 series, the 9800 GTX+ is going to have a GPU built on TSMC’s 55nm manufacturing process, just like AMD’s RV770. One other thing that has changed on the physical components of the card is its memory chips, which now come from Hynix, whereas the older 9800 GTX had its memory chips built by Samsung. And contrary to what we previously stated, these chips are rated for 2400 MHz.

Other performance specifications include a clock speed of 738MHz, which is cooled down by a better cooling solution than on the standard 9800GTX. The Shaders clocks have been raised from 1688MHz to 1836, while memory remains at 512MB of GDDR3.

The estimated price tag of the card is $229, which will allegedly place it directly between AMD’s high-end HD 4870 and its lower priced Radeon HD 4850. This means that those who went ahead and acquired a 9800 GTX or 9800 GX2 will be rather disappointed as the new card brings more power at a more decent price. Let’s just hope that NVIDIA is going to have a trade-in program for those who are currently using the company’s much older G80-based cards. That should increase the popularity of the new card.