Nvidia's GeForce9500 GT, Under the Scope

It is not quite so complicated to figure out what is missing in Nvidia's G92, G98 and G94 series. Of course, it is the upcoming 65-nanometer chip, the GeForce 9500GT, codenamed the G96. This GPU will first arrive under the form of a G96-300 chip and will play the core of the 128-bit GeForce 9500 GT, scheduled for release until the end of Q2 this year.

The new GeForce 9500GT graphics card will target the low-end market and will hierarchically be placed just beneath the GeForce 9600 G. According to the Taiwanese branch of Tom's Hardware, The video card will natively support DirectX 10.0 OpenGL 2.1, PCI-Express 2.0, Hybrid SLI, as well as version 3.0 of the VP unit. It will come either with GDDR2 or GDDR3 memory, depending to the producer's implementation.

Sources say that the reference cards come with 256MB of 128-bit DDR2 memory, as Nvidia can currently purchase it for less than its foundry-to-backend manufacturing cost. The reference cards will hold the memory clocked at 900MHz (1800MHz - as we are talking about GDDR2), but these specification are subject to change in the upcoming final models.

The card will sport a currently unknown number of stream processors. However, the GPU will be clocked at a top frequency of 650 MHz, the shaders are set to 1650 MHz, while the memory will "buzz" at a 1800 MHz frequency. The memory clock will depend on the amount and/or type of the memory used by the specific manufacturer.

The GeForce 9500 GT will natively support the DisplayPort technology, but it will be up to the AIB (add-in board) partner whether they will include the connector or not. The new GeForce 9500 GT is Nvidia's response to the upcoming Radeon HD 3650, but the latter will be long since ready when the 9500 hits the shelves.