We saw an interesting graphics card at Galaxy today. Their latest
9800 GT uses a mini-HDMI connector instead of a normal sized one.

Following the news we covered just last month of NVIDIA's plans to rename the 9800 GT to GTS 240, despite the fact the 9800 GT was little more than a renamed 8800 GT, it seems the GPU board partners have managed to convince NVIDIA not to follow through with this name change. There had been much controversy over NVIDIA's renaming scheme even here on our forums, but in a confidential email seen by DailyTech, NVIDIA has cancelled plans to rename the chip yet again. Instead there will now be three versions of the 9800 GT, one of which includes the feature updates due to be present in the GTS 240. There will be the green edition, which we had already heard news of some time ago, which has no need for external power connectors, there will be the standard version, and then an OC version, which although details are not yet confirmed, one would imagine the card would be clocked at the GTS 240 expected speeds of 675/1688/2200 MHz.

In the weeks to come, NVIDIA will release yet another graphics card based on the G92 graphics processor: the GeForce GTS 240, which bears resemblance with the 8800 GT and 9800 GT. The G92 GPU has near-identical specifications to the said graphics cards, except for that the 55 nm G92b GPU will be used, and with higher reference clock speeds of 675/1674/975 MHz (core/shader/memory). To seat the new GPU, NVIDIA has designed a new reference PCB, the P361 internally called D10P2. The schematic drawings of this has been sourced by VR-Zone.

The P361 PCB covers the basics of accommodating the G92b and eight GDDR3 memory chips connected to the GPU across a 256-bit wide bus. The distinct features of the PCB lie with its VRM area, with a 3+1 phase design. The PCB draws power from a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector. Over to the connectors department, the usual two arrangement of two DVI and one composite is present. There is a single SLI bridge connector for 2-way SLI. With the 55 nm GPU being arguably as cool or cooler than the 65 nm G92 with lower reference clock speeds, one can expect a single slot cooler design to be employed.

First reported to Fudzilla, US online retailers, Newegg.com and Directron.com, have listed a passively cooled 9800GT based graphics card from BFG. Although there has been no official announcement, it has now also appeared on the companies own website named as the 9800 GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 with ThermoIntelligence Passive Cooling Solution. With a part number of BFGE98512GTHE, the card sports a quad heatpipe cooler mounted on the back of the card, as is usually found with most passive cooling solutions, though BFG seems to have done away with any memory and voltage regulator cooling. The card has no factory overclock so runs at the reference clocks of 600 MHz on the core, 1500 MHz on the shaders and a memory clock of 1800 MHz. Despite the card being sold as passively cooled, it is interesting to note that BFG has stated in the card's system requirements, "System chassis intake airflow greater than or equal to 25 CFM being directed towards the graphics card." Current pricing puts the card in at around $160 (US) with what would appear to be immediate availability.

NVIDIA is going ahead with the launch schedule of the GeForce GTS 200 series, that consist of products based on the current-generation G92 GPU. It is known that the GTS 240 and GTS 250 are re-branded 9800 GT and 9800 GTX+ respectively. The 9800 GTX+ SKU will officially be renamed GTS 250 on March 3. One can expect NVIDIA partners to come up with cheaper SKUs that fit into the US $ 130 range, lower than the current $150 range 9800 GTX+ and ATI Radeon HD 4850 compete in.

The GTS 240 on the other hand, will be introduced soon with a newer price-range of around $100, lower than the $120 mark the 9800 GT revolves around. This should make it more competitive against the Radeon HD 4830, which is currently winning in the price/performance figure. Additionally, the company is preparing a GeForce 9800 GT Green Edition, which carries forward the design methodology of the 9600 GT Green Edition: lowering the GPU voltage and slightly reducing the clock speeds. It is expected to carry clock speeds of 550/1375/900 MHz (core/shader/memory) against the reference 9800 GT specifications of 600/1500/900 MHz. The new SKU might be priced at a premium over the GTS 240, at around $ 120.

Industry watcher DigiTimes has some good news today. Apparently, disturbed by the rising presence of ATI in the discrete graphics card market, NVIDIA is planning a counter attack with the easiest way possible - cut the prices of its products. If the information is right, NVIDIA is going to slash the prices across its entire high-end GeForce GTX 200 line-up, as well as the mainstream GeForce 9800 GT and GeForce 9600 GT series. Unfortunately, the other piece of information as of when and by how much the prices will go down is unknown.

With AMD making gains in the discrete graphics card market - rising to around 40% in third-quarter 2008 according to a recent report from Jon Peddie Research (JPR) - Nvidia is planning to cut its graphics card prices in an attempt to curb further loss of market share, according to sources at graphics card makers.
AMD anticipates taking 50% of the market after reducing prices for its ATI Radeon HD 4000 series products, but to counter Nvidia has also made moves to cut prices for its GeForce GTX 200, 9800 GT and 9600 GT series.

Leadtek Research Inc., the global leading brand for extreme visual graphics technology development, is pleased to announce the launch of new high-end graphics card, WinFast PX9800 GT 512MB. Based on the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT graphics processing units and unified architecture design, the new graphics card can provide customers the best-in-classic gaming performance.

ZOTAC International, a leading manufacturer of NVIDIA-based graphics cards, today unleashes a new generation of performance graphics cards with the new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GT series. The new series includes the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GT and 9800 GT AMP! Limited Edition - a power packed duo ready to take on the latest DirectX 10 with Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.1 3D games and applications.

Chinese website Zol.com.cn reports that in China, stocks of the GeForce 9800 GT card can be purchased from a local production company, a product which hasn't even been announced yet. The 9800 GT differs from 8800 GT in having a 55nm fabbed core that should allow higher parameters, though iroically being identical to its predecessor, the 8800 GT (600/1500/1800 MHz).

We could expect an official announcement soon, and this card could well be priced between US $120 and $140.

Even though it has not been announced officially yet by NVIDIA, ELSA has been showing a card at their Computex booth that is labeled as GeForce 9800 GT.The specs are nothing impressive, 112 shaders, 1 GB GDDR3, 256-bit memory, 630 MHz / 1800 MHz clocks. So basically the card is a rebranded GeForce 8800 GT. There are hints that the 9800 GT will use a shrinked down G92 core @ 55 nm. But then we should see a higher clock, maybe ELSA just wanted to show something interesting...