The company will in the meantime, it is claimed, launch several derivatives of its GT200 technology to remain competitive.

Whilst a 55nm refresh, known as the GT206, is still expected to launch sometime before the turn of the year, it is believed that the Santa Clara, CA based company's first 40nm offering, known as the GT212, will become available during Q1 2009.

It is suggested that the GT212 will also benefit from other hardware changes, yet, is not expected to feature DirectX 11 support. It is claimed that NVIDIA will also aim to launch this SKU prior to AMD's RV870 offering, following it up with a refresh, the GT216, in Q2 2009. This part will, almost certainly, utilise GDDR5 memory.

That leaves NVIDIA's next generation GT300 offering till Q4 2009, apparently. Whatever transpires, if the above account does play out, it will be interesting to see how NVIDIA's fortunes fare against AMD's follow-up to the hugely successful R7xx family.