It’s finally today that Nvidia launches the GeForce 9500 GT or first desktop version of the G96. Currently engraved in 65nm (55nm engraving will indeed come later) versus 80nm for the G84 and G86, it has PCI-Express 2.0 and OpenGL 2.1 support. Of course, there is also support for PureVideo HD which enables the decoding of VC-1 in addition to WMV and MPEG-2 HD. In terms of memory, there should be 256 MB or even 512 MB of DDR2 or GDDR3.
Unsurprisingly, its specifications are somewhere between those of the GeForce 8600 GT’s and GTS’. We will just have to see in practice if the various optimizations of the G9x will enable it to set itself apart from the previous generation. With a price that should quickly level out at 65-70€ TTC in France, it should improve Nvidia’s catalogue in a segment where ATI’s RV7xx is still awaited.
