NVIDIA's move to rebrand the GeForce 9800 GTX+ to GeForce GTS 250 was meant to be followed with a similar rebranding for the GeForce 9800 GT, to GeForce GTS 240. The company even prepared a reference PCB design for the accelerator. Alas, the move wasn't popular NVIDIA's partners, who forced it shelve the plans.

Apparently NVIDIA wants to continue development of the GeForce GTS 240, at least for its OEM customers, if not AIC partners that cater to the retail consumer segment. The GeForce GTS 240 reference design accelerator is in accordance with the schematics that surfaced back in February, and maintains a single-slot design overall. Under the hood is the 55 nm G92b graphics processor with 112 shader processors, a 256-bit GDDR3 memory interface, 1 GB of memory, and reference clock speeds that match that of GeForce 9800 GT OC: 675/1620/1100 (core/shader/memory). The card supports 2-way SLI, and should be priced in the sub $130 space.

Does the card in the picture below look familiar to you? GeForce 8800 GTS-512? Well yes, but that's also what the GeForce GTS 250 is going to end up looking like. The 3+1 phase design on the 8800 GTS-512 allowed the 65 nm G92 GPU to be clocked at a reasonable 650 MHz, but come 55 nm G92b, and NVIDIA will look to use the same card design to accommodate the higher-clocked GPU which shares its clock-speeds and other machinery with the GeForce 9800 GTX+. The new card is going to use the upcoming CeBIT event as its launchpad. Think of it as 9800 GTX+ after liposuction.

The GeForce GTS 250 is expected to come with identical clock speeds to those of the 9800 GTX+. 738 MHz for the core, 1,836 MHz for the shaders, and 1,100 (2.20 GHz DDR) for the memory. Speaking of memory, NVIDIA's reference design is expected to come in 512 MB and 1 GB flavours, with partners being given the freedom to carve out their own designs. Some partners even seem to be contemplating 2 GB models. It comes with 128 stream processors. The 9 inch long PCB and cooler visually bear some resemblance with the GeForce 8800 GTS-512. Apparently NVIDIA feels the single 6-pin PCI-E power input is a spoon big enough to feed the card, something EVGA and Galaxy did months earlier, with its rated power consumption at 150W. The GTS 250 accelerator is NVIDIA's next card to plough the fertile sub-$200 market. NVIDIA will lift the NDA over this card on March 3, following which the cards will reach retail channels by March 10.

Come March 3, and NVIDIA will have officially renamed the GeForce 9800 GTX+ to GeForce GTS 250. NVIDIA partners will have announced new SKUs based on the GPU throughout March. XFX on its part, seems to have made its GTS 250 accelerator ready, and it looks familiar. Chinese website IT168 caught an early glimpse of the accelerator.

The XFX GeForce GTS 250 series card will use a custom cooling design that looks almost identical to the company's Radeon HD 4850 accelerator. It features a 55 nm G92b graphics processor. Its clock-speeds are expected to be 738/1836/1100 MHz (core/shader/memory) for the base model, though one might expect XFX to come up with factory-overclocked variants. It holds 512 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 256-bit memory bus. XFX may choose the upcoming CeBIT event to launch this accelerator, after of-course, NVIDIA handles the SKU launch on its end of things.

In the weeks to come, next month to be more precise, NVIDIA will officially rename its G92-based graphics cards series. Amongst the "new" SKUs that have surfaced so far, NVIDIA adds the GeForce GTS 250, or present-day GeForce 9800 GTX+. In a bid to garner support from its partners, NVIDIA issued a circular that includes the following statement:

GeForce GTS 250 carries over the same specs and features of 9800 GTX+, and hence the same GPU, memory, board, PCB, and thermal solution. AIC's should be confident in purchasing GPU's, PCB's, and other materials, since the only change is a new VBIOS to implement the new branding.

The GTS 250 model will be accompanied by yet another rebranding: GeForce GTS 240, present-day GeForce 9800 GT and GeForce 8800 GT. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ was released in July 2008, to compete with ATI's Radeon HD 4850. It was an evolution of the GeForce 9800 accelerator, to which it was built on a newer manufacturing process that facilitated higher clock speeds. NVIDIA is likely to choose CeBIT as the ideal launch-pad for its new series of graphics cards.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly introduced the SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB Graphics Card, with incredible large 1GB GDDR3 video memory, it takes gaming graphic beyond anything that's ever been possible before on a mainstream consumer computing platform.

Taiwan's SPARKLE Computer announced availability of its new Calibre P980X+ graphics card, a highly customized GeForce 9800 GTX+ VGA. The Calibre P980X+ uses a 55nm version of the G92 GPU from NVIDIA, with raised core and shader clocks to 761MHz (738MHz) and 1911MHz (1836MHz stock) respectively. There's a 512MB of GDDR3 memory onboard, working at 1161MHz. Calibre customizes the card with the company's Dual Fly Fan System that consists of a copper base, two massive heat-pipes and two cooling fans situated at an angle. The Calibre P980X+ is also bundled with an overclocking software called SPA Tune. It will let users to choose between three modes of operation: Overclocking mode (OC), standard mode (STD) and green mode (GRN). There's no need to describe each one, their names are pretty self-explanatory. Each mode changes the card's clock speeds and fan rotation speed. At last, there's the back of the card where a HDMI, VGA D-sub and a DVI connector are lockated. Currently, there is no information on the availability and pricing of the card.

During my most recent eggscursion, I came across the EVGA 512-P3-N879-AR. The card is a non-reference GeForce 9800 GTX+ model. EVGA took the advantage of the lower thermal footprints of the 55nm G92 core, and developed this shorter card that makes do with a single 6-pin PCI-E power input. The cooler slightly resembes that of the 8800 GTS 512, but comes with a shroud that resembles that of the GTX 200-series cards by design.

The card is 3-way SLI capable with any other 9800 GTX+ card. It sports 512 MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 2200 MHz, with the core clocked at 740 MHz, with an 1840 MHz shader domain. The card is available at Newegg.com for US $174.99 before a $25 optional rebate.Images courtesy: Newegg

One look at ELSA's GLADIAC 998 GTX Plus V2, and you're bound to say "It looks familiar". ELSA has taken advantage of the smaller thermal and electrical footprints of the 55nm GeForce 9800 GTX+, and has borrowed heavily from the design of the GeForce 8800 GTS-512 to come up with this design, both with PCB and cooler designs, albeit a slightly larger fan.

This card will use reference NVIDIA clock speeds for the GeForce 9800 GTX+, that's 738/1836/2200 MHz (core/shader/memory). The PCB length gets a cut from 267mm (reference 9800 GTX(+) PCB) to 229mm. The company claims the card to run about 7 °C cooler than the reference cooler. It sports 512 MB of memory, SLI and dual-DVI connectors with HDCP-compliancy. The card is expected to become available in Japan in the next few days.

ZOTAC International, a leading manufacture of NVIDIA-based motherboards and graphics cards, today expands its GeForce 9800 series line up with the new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB. The ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB pairs the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX+ graphics processor with 1GB of high-speed GDDR3 graphics memory for phenomenal visuals in the latest DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1-enabled 3D games and applications. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB is powered by NVIDIA's award winning unified architecture with 128 stream processors for power-packed experience in 3D games and CUDA-enabled applications. The new 1GB of GDDR3 memory ensures the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics processor is able to keep up with the latest texture-intensive and demanding DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 3D games.

There has been an influx of non-reference graphics cards based on the GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics processor, over the last few weeks. MSI made its addition, with the N9800GTX PLUS-T2D512-OC. Like every other manufacturer making news for releasing such products, MSI designed its own PCB. The cooler chosen has featured on several MSI cards, in the past, including some models based on the GeForce 8800 GT and 9600 GT. This time around, MSI changed the cooler's shroud with a more designer one. This is only a cosmetic change. The cooler remains to be the heatpipe through aluminum fin design.

Unlike the custom design 9800 GTX+ cards from some other manufacturers, MSI released its card factory overclocked. The card ships with clock speeds of 760/1880/2300 MHz (core/shader/memory) against the reference speeds of 738/1836/2200 MHz. The card comes with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. The package is to include a copy of Rainbow Six Vegas 2. It is to be priced at roughly US $248 in Europe. MSI will be shipping two designs under the same model number and SKU. The first being this, and the other is a 100% reference NVIDIA PCB + Cooler design.

Graphics card manufacturer Point of View is jumping the Arctic Cooling band wagon just like many other manufacturers did, by introducing the brand new POV GeForce 9800 GTX+ with 512MB of GDDR3 memory (R-VGA150900H+). The 55nm built GeForce 9800GTX+ is one of the great cards currently on the market, performing very well with the latest games and also offering an acceptable price tag. To get even more performance out of the graphics card Point of View has decided to team up with Arctic Cooling and start offering their cards with AC coolers that will help lower temperatures and even more. The Arctic cooled POV GeForce 9800 GTX+ comes clocked at 738MHz core, 1836MHz shader clock and 2200MHz memory clock. At the same time the card is up to 20% cooler and also makes less noise than the standard NVIDIA cooling system. The actual model used is Arctic Cooling Accelero TWIN TURBO with two ultra quiet 80mm fans, 4 heatpipes and 30 fins that together form a dual-slot cooling monster able to transfer up to 120W of heat. To make their card even better all-rounder, POV has decided to equip it with a dual-link DVI port, a HDMI port and a VGA port. For additional information, please click here.

Here's the third GeForce 9800 GTX+ non-reference model in the works. Zotac has prepared a graphics card based on the GeForce 9800 GTX+ GPU with its own PCB design. As for cooling, they've employed the expertise of Arctic Cooling, with an Accelero Twin Turbo cooler for the GPU. Zotac may have worked on aspects related to the card's power design and memory, keeping in mind, that the 9800 GTX+ is a 55nm GPU which might draw lower power than its 65nm counterpart, keeping clock speeds constant. It uses clock speeds of 740/1836/2200 MHz (core/shader/memory). Notable PCB features include:

• 0.8 ns GDDR3 memory chips made by Samsung
• A 4+2 phase power design
• Power input reduced to a single 6+2 pin PCI-E power connector

NVIDIA seems to have made an exception with the GeForce 9800 GTX / GTX+, for allowing its partners to design and sell non-reference design graphics cards based on the said GPU. Earlier we had seen pictures of a card designed by Palit, perhaps the first non-reference 9800 GTX+, taken during this year's NVISION event. It's ASUS now, with their non-reference GeForce 9800 GTX+ accelerator branded as EN9800GTX+ DK/HTDI/512M, in which "DK" abbreviates Dark Knight.

The card uses a custom PCB designed by ASUS, the power inputs are pushed to the posterior end of the card, a black metal railing is seen covering the side of the card (XFX style), the center of attraction is the large cooler designed by ASUS. It consists of aluminum fin arrays on either sides of a fan, to which heat is conveyed by four heat-pipes. The has a double-slot design, sports 512 MB of GDDR3 memory and is 3-way SLI capable. The card can be pushed as far as 735 MHz (core) and 2,200 MHz (memory). ASUS has set up its product page already.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly introduced the SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Cards with SPARKLE own designed great non-reference PCB, which brings better performance, stability and native HDMI support compared with NVIDIA reference design.

NVIDIA regulates its partners from coming up with non-reference cooler or PCB designs for certain high-end products. It seems like NVIDIA has either lifted the regulation over GeForce 9800 GTX(+) or has given Palit the exception of coming up with a non-reference design for the GeForce 9800 GTX+. Palit showcased a card sporting a red PCB with a component arrangement dissimilar to that of the NVIDIA PCB, at the ongoing NVISION event. Quick snaps of this card were taken at the Palit booth. Additionally, Palit also showed-off a GeForce GTX 280 card with a factory-fitted Tieton water block made by Danger Den.

ZOTAC International, an award-winning NVIDIA AIC, today unleashes the latest edition to its ZONE Edition line of quiet graphics cards - the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ ZONE Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ ZONE Edition delivers the power of NVIDIA GeForce 9 series graphics power, PhysX technology and PureVideo HD video processing technology into a virtually silent graphics card. The ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ ZONE Edition is quieted by a custom water-cooling system and able to deliver phenomenal visuals and frame rate in DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 titles while maintaining low thermal and noise levels.

POINT OF VIEW, well known for its range of NVIDIA based Graphics cards, is launching today the GeForce 9800GTX+, an upgraded version of one of the fastest single GPU graphics card on the market, the GeForce 9800 GTX.

The GeForce 9800GTX+ has major improvements compared to its predecessor. The GPU has been down-sized to 55nm, which offering a major improvement to its power consumption efficiency, operating temperature and core speed. Its 512 MB DDR3 memory is running on 2200 MHz whilst the GPU core has a speed of 738 MHz. The speed of the internal processors has been increased with almost 250 MHz to an impressive speed of 1836 MHz.

BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ OC 512MB PCI Express 2.0 graphics card.

Backed by free 24/7/365 world-class tech support and the best lifetime warranty in the industry, the BFG GeForce 9800 GTX+ OC graphics card is overclocked out of the box and pushes the limit in ultra realistic game play with NVIDIA PhysX technology, offering extreme HD gaming with 3-Way NVIDIA SLI. The BFG 9800 GTX+ OC provides optimal power management with HybridPower technology. Packing more performance than the standard BFG 9800 GTX, this graphics card offers a first-class entertainment experience.

ZOTAC International, a leading NVIDIA partner, today unleashes two new high-performance graphics card based on NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 graphics architecture - the ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ and GeForce 9800 GTX+ AMP! Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+ series graphics cards are the result of extensive tweaking and tuning to extract superior clock speeds and performance from NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 architecture.

Palit Microsystems, leading graphics card manufacturer, today announces Palit GeForce 9800 GTX+. Armed with NVIDIA PhysX and NVIDIA CUDA technology the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is ready to enable a total new class of physical gaming interaction.

The Palit GeForce 9800 GTX+ features a core speed of 738MHz, a 1836MHz shader clock and 2,200 MHz on its 512 MB of GDDR3 memory with a 256bit interface, supports for the latest NVIDIA PhysX technology enables real-time physics simulations in leading edge PC and console games. It also supports NVIDIA CUDA technology, which unlocks the power of the GPU's processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks-such as video transcoding to deliver up to 7x the performance over traditional CPUs.

Supports the HybridPower power management technology, Palit GeForce 9800GTX+ allows users to unleash graphics performance or opt for a quiet, low-power PC experience when using non graphically-intensive applications. The Palit GeForce 9800 GTX+ is not only for gaming, equipped with the second generation NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology engine, but also delivers unsurpassed Blu-ray and HD DVD picture quality, which make it one of the best graphics solutions.

Leadtek Research Inc., a global front runner in extreme visual graphics technology development, announces the launch of the latest products in its WinFast series. The new WinFast PX9800 GTX+, represents a dazzling 15% speed boost over the PX9800 GTX. The NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX-based graphics card can vamp up performance like never before and provide optimal power management with HybridPower technology. Compatible with 3-way SLI technology, the new card gives every user the thrill of extreme HD gaming and first-rate entertainment experience.

Featuring a powerful single GeForce 9800 GTX GPU with 128 streaming fast cores each running at a blistering all time record GPU clock speed of 738MHz, WinFast PX9800 GTX+ delivers the smoothest ever game-play quality and exceptional value on price/performance. With the latest Microsoft DirectX 10 with full Shader Model 4.0 support, it can also offer realistic film quality gaming effects, guaranteeing users best possible performance in 3D graphics user interface under the Windows Vista operating system.

Inno3D recently unveiled it's first card based on the new 55nm G92 based core from NVIDIA. The announcement of Inno3D GeForce 9800 GTX+ comes earlier than the scheduled mid-July launch date, but benchmarks of the plus cards are already starting to appear everywhere, so it's not a big deal. The card features the usual specs: 512MB of GDDR3 memory, 256-bit memory bus, and 738MHz/2200MHz core/memory clock speeds respectively. Charts on the Inno3D web page suggest that the 9800 GTX+ is up to 15% faster than the regular GeForce 9800 GTX.

AMD today took a major point for the red team by positioning its brand new ATI Radeon HD 4850 cards between NVIDIA's GeForce 9 series and GTX 200 series cards. The all new HD 4850 cards beat NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GTX while also maintaining the very reasonable MSRP of $199. Currently NVIDIA has no card that can compete in this category, but that's eventually going to change in mid-July, when the company will announce a new mid-range video card dubbed GeForce 9800 GTX+. The card will be idential to GeForce 9800 GTX from the outside, but from the "inside" it will use a smaller and more efficient 55 nanometer GPU with increased default clock/shader speeds: from 675MHz to 738MHz and from 1688MHz to 1836MHz respectively. Memory speeds for this card will be dropped slightly to 1GHz (1100MHz for GeForce 9800 GTX). Other than that the card is virtually the same as GeForce 9800 GTX, the three-way SLI support also remains untouched. NVIDIA expects to start offering GeForce 9800 GTX+ with a MSRP of $229. The company also plans to drop the price of the 65nm GeForce 9800 GTX to $199.

First card is Leadtek 9800GTX, second one is GeForce 9800 GTX+