Nvidia's GeForce 9600 GT first benchmarks kicked in just a month ago, and they revealed a pretty powerful yet affordable mid-range offering that should be taken into account. In fact, its new capabilities pushed users to claim that it offers the best performance at the right price.

The graphics expert is gearing up for today's launch and, when it becomes available, its cost will likely demolish AMD's exclusive presence on the mid-range market. The GeForce 9600GT will be priced between $169 and 189, and will come in a stock configuration including a graphics core clocked at 650MHz with a shader clock speed of 1625 MHz and 512MB of 1800 MHz memory.

The reference 9600 GT can offer a data bandwidth rate of 57.6 GB/sec, thanks to its 256-bit bus. The stock specifications will be altered accordingly to match the manufacturers' implementations. The G94 graphics core in the 9600GT will come with 64 unified stream processors, which is double the number of units in the last generation 8600GT.

The graphics card's specifications require a 6-pin power connector, as its power consumption estimations go as high as 95 watts for non-SLI configurations. The reference card comes with a single slot design, yet other manufacturers are expected to add some extra cooling solutions, because the G94 graphics core runs extremely hot.

Following Nvidia's announcement, AMD started axing prices for its high-end offerings. For instance, the Radeon HD 3870, initially priced at $249, now features a new price tag of only $189. The Radeon HD 3850 has also witnessed price drops, although not as spectacular as in the HD 3870: the original $199 went down by $30 to a more appealing $169. The Radeon HD 3850 is GeForce's 9600 GT direct competitor, and keeping it inexpensive may be a good strategy. Anyone up for some video cards?