14 DAY TRIAL // Nvidia has unveiled its highest-end GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards earlier in March, and rumors of a new breed of graphics cards already started to kick in. The new cards are codenamed GT200 and will be commercially known as the 9900GX2.
According to a some industry sources quoted by the tech site Expreview, the new graphics card will keep the company's line imposed in its dual-GPU flagship product, the GeForce 9800 GX2. The 9900GX2 is a dual-GPU behemoth that might arrive with an improved G9X graphics core.
There are only a few details about Nvidia's next generation of flagship graphics products, given the company's secrecy and lack of communication when it comes to disclosing its technology. It is alleged that the upcoming graphics card will sport an updated version of the G92 graphics core, that has been successfully implemented in the existing GeForce 8800 GT, 8800 GTS 512MB, 9800 GTX and 9800 GX2 graphics cards.
The new core will probably be manufactured at the 55-nanometer production node, just as ATI's chips, which would reflect in lower power requirements, higher clock speeds and cheaper manufacturing costs. However, if the company decides to deliver a refresh of the G92 core, it will come with only a significant performance boost, but it won't deliver additional features, such as DirectX 10.1 compatibility.
The scenario is less probable, as Nvidia is known for its rapid shifts from one architecture to another. For instance, Nvidia's GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 Series of graphics cores come with almost the same basic feature set and unified shader processor architecture. Given the fact that the company is a top producer of graphics chips, it is expected not to use the same technology for more than two generations of products.
Nvidia did not comment on the information as part of its policy to dismiss unannounced products.