With its mainstream and low-en line-up Nvidia has chosen to use the 80nm half-node process instead of the young and still troublesome 65nm node. This choice has seen the G86 and G84 chips ready and willing to be 'glued' on cards for several months while AMD struggled to get its 65nm counterparts finished and into the hands of add-in board partners. Now that AMD is finally getting the 65nm chips out the door, Nvidia cannot sit and watch as the new smaller and cooler chips get the limelight. That is why the Green Team will be delivering 65nm GPUs, but not before the end of Q3 (September) when it will update its mainstream and low-end offer with the new parts.

Currently, the Santa Clara-based company has finished taping out the 65nm chips which, in addition to the benefits of the new node, will also feature the 3rd generation video processor and support for the PCIe 2.0 standard. The first card to bear the new 65nm chip will be the low-end 8400GS while mainstream cards with 65nm G8M chips will arrive at a later date, in Q4 2007.