GeForce 9600GT transits to 55nm unnoticed

With the G92b, nVidia has made the transit to the 55nm production process and will produce more 55nm models soon. Planned is the GT200b, a smaller version of the high-end chip that is used in the GTX 260/280 series. The GeForce 9500GT (G96) and 9600GT (94) will also shrink to the new process.

According to Expreview, nVidia will silently release the shrunken 9600GT model next to the existing 65nm version. nVidia thinks that by doing this, it'll be easier to sell the old supply of 65nm cards than when they would release the 55nm version under a different name. The clockspeeds of the shrunken 9600GT's therefore have the same speeds as the 65nm versions, resulting in a core speed of 650MHz, 1626Mhz for the shaders and 900MHz for the memory.

It is possible that the 55nm model offers a bigger overclock potential, but nVidia leaves this to the partners selling the cards. Apart from the difference in size, the G94-chip can be recognized by a new version number, G94-300-B1. The image below gives an impression of the size, the grey border around the chip is the difference between 65 an 55nm.

Image source: Expreview