14 DAY TRIAL // Nvidia is working on a revision to their mid-range GeForce 8 series that will see the shelves until Christmas. Rumor has it that the company would surely like to harvest some more revenue to justify the money pumped in researching and developing it.
There will not be any sign of the GeForce 9 series, so move on in case you were still expecting to find a piece under the Christmas tree. The Nvidia Management team said earlier this year that their number one priority is to stick to GeForce 7 and 8 launch dates that would be the main attractions this Christmas and would enter mass production starting next year.
For the moment, a Series 9 won't justify the company's effort, since the "older" Series 7 and 8 would do just fine and provide enough horsepower to keep Nvidia away from worries. It seems that the lack of competition from the AMD rival has cast the company into a state of melancholy.
The good news is that Nvidia will consider pulling out the big guns somewhere in February, after the Lunar New Year. The first chip to see daylight in the GeForce 9 family would be D9E, a high-end model that will be designed and produced on the 65nm technology. Internal sources from within Nvidia say that the chip would natively provide DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 support.
As far as the mid-range market is concerned, Nvidia is committed to rolling out the GeForce 9 D9P, but after the D9E has been send to mass manufacturing. Most likely, the new GPU will be built using the 55-nanometer technology and will be available late in June next year, according to the same sources.
Nvidia has not dignified the rumors with an answer, mostly due to their strict policy not to comment upon rumors.