Nvidia to launch GeForce 9000 series in February

Nvidia is ready for its next-generation GPU launch. According to sources at graphics card makers, the company plans to launch its GeForce 9 series GPU after the Lunar New Year in February.

The first chip to rollout of in GeForce 9 family will be the D9E, a high-end product that adopts 65nm manufacturing. The new product will also support DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1, revealed the sources.

In addition to the D9E, Nvidia will roll out a mid-range GeForce 9 family product named D9P in June 2008. The new GPU will adopt 55nm processing, the sources pointed out.
Original Story: Monica Chen, Taipei; Emily Chuang, DIGITIMES [Friday 30 November 2007]

NVIDIA IS PLANNING to make lots of hay this Christmas, rolling out revisions to its mid-range GeForce 8 series and raking in the cash on the technology it has spent the last few years developing.

But one thing is noticeably absent from the firm's Christmas lineup - any signs of GeForce 9.

Earlier on this year, Nvidia's senior management were telling press in behind-the-scenes briefings that the plan was to stick to the GeForce 7 and 8 launch schedule - a new high-end part for Christmas, and mainstream spin-outs in Q1 and 2 the following year.

This hasn't happened for GeForce 9. Why? Well, because it hasn't had to. The various re-spins of GeForce 8 are plenty powerful enough to keep Nvidia at cruising speed through the holiday season, without pulling out the big guns - after all, the competition this year has been barely worth looking at so the green team has had the market to itself.

Well, now Digitimes reckons that GeForce 9 is on track for a February 2008 release date. It seems feasible, but there is nobody at Nvidia who will confirm this either way, not least because the company is notoriously wishy-washy when it comes to rumours.

As for gamers - there's no doubting that they'd love to see a GeForce 9 this year, if only to get Crysis running at a decent speed. But when there's not much competition, there's no pressure to get parts out of the door - so perhaps ATI better get its act together for all your sakes, lest it's 2009 before we see the next major upgrade to the GeForce series