NVIDIA to launch GTX 260 stopgap to halt HD 4870?

NVIDIA doesn't want to be perceived as a sitting duck it seems.

Following on from our report yesterday, it appears that the company is working on a stopgap solution to try and put the brakes on AMD's HD 4870.



This article from Expreview suggests, that NVIDIA will start the ball rolling by offering an upgraded version of its GTX 260 iteration, come mid-September.

This GTX 260 isn't expected to feature the 55nm refresh of NVIDIA's GT200 GPU though, but will instead beef up the amount of Shader Processors that the solution will tout.

The addition of an extra Texture Processing Cluster (TPC), to bring the total up to 9, will allow the number of Shader Processors to be boosted up to 216, narrowing the gap between the GTX 260 and its GTX 280 sibling which, of course, features 240 Shader Processors.

NVIDIA isn't expected to make any changes to the stock clock speeds found on reference GTX 260 solutions today, however.

This claimed move on NVIDIA's part appears to be the start of the company's fight back, yet it appears that a 55nm saviour is really what the Santa Clara, CA based company needs.