NVIDIA has at least three high-end chips in development right now. You have all heard about the GT206, also known as GT200b in the press. As we predicted back in May, this would be a part of the Fall/Winter refresh and it is due any day now. Specifications are of course sparse but expect a tweaked GT200 core running cooler and faster, it’s all good. After GT206, there is a GT212 core on roadmaps. There are rumors that this will be the first NVIDIA chip with GDDR5, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It should arrive in Q2 2009.
Considering how much time, money and energy AMD has put into GDDR4 and GDDR5, we just don’t see NVIDIA getting its hands on chips anytime soon. Instead we would expect another tweaked GT200 chip, but this is of course mostly speculation at this point. Specifications have been hard to come by.
Sources has informed us of another chips that is in the works. NVIDIA is also working on GT216 which is said to be the first chip to reach the market using TSMC’s 40nm process. It will go up against AMD’s RV870 chip and should hit the market at about the same time. That time is late Q2 2009, or early Q3. There are rumors that this chip will be DirectX 11 compatible, which would put it even with RV870 in terms of DX support.
Both AMD and NVIDIA is hoping to have taped out each chip before the end of the year, which then correlates with the launch six months later.
