Nvidia's first mid-range graphic card in the GeForce 9 series, the 9600 GT, is all set for its debut tomorrow, February 21, moving to a 65nm process and promising a performance boost of over 40% compared to the 8600 GTS, according to this DigiTimes report.
The 9600 GT's core will reportedly be clocked at 650MHz and connect to 512MB of GDDR 3 memory running at 900MHz. The new GPU also sees an increase in processing units and memory bus width to 64 units and 256-bits, over the 8600 series' 32 processing units and 128-bit memory bus.
With 9600 cards expected to hit the market at retail prices in the range of $169 - $189, they'll be up against AMD's current mid-range offering, the Radeon HD 3850, at between $169 and $229. However, early benchmark results show the 9600 GT delivering performance much on par with AMD's higher-end product, the 3870, which is priced around $189 - $250.