After a successful launch of their high-end products, NVIDIA is planning to return to the sub-$150 US market with new entry level cards. From a report published by Videocardz, it seems like NVIDIA might be preparing not one but two GM206 GPU based cards under the GeForce GTX 950 and GeForce GTX 950 Ti branding for users who don't want to spend more than $199 US on graphics cards.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Ti and GeForce GTX 950 Under Works

It has been a long time since NVIDIA last touched the sub $150 US market. The previous two cards that were launched by NVIDIA, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GeForce GTX 750 were also the first cards to feature Maxwell GPU architecture. These graphics cards were launched a year back and laid down the foundation of the current graphics cards that feature the GM200, GM204 and GM206 GPU cores. Both cards feature a power efficient graphics architecture which made new feats in the efficiency department and has been the core feature of the entire Maxwell lineup.

NVIDIA has worked long on enhancing the Maxwell GPU architecture in its second revision, the first revision we saw on GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 (GM107) didn't feature most of the technologies introduced on GM20* graphic cards but this is going to change with the upcoming GeForce GTX 950 Ti and GeForce GTX 950 which utilize the GM206 GPU that incorporates new technologies such as enhanced core performance, memory compression to name a few.

According to the source, it seems like NVIDIA has finished development of their new GM206-250 GPU core. Now we know that NVIDIA already has one GM206 core (GM206-300-A1) featured on the GeForce GTX 960 while the GM206-250 sounds like a cut-down core. On GM107, we saw two SKUs, the GM107-400 and GM107-300 for the GeForce GTX 750 TI and GeForce GTX 750, respectively. I believe that there might be two cut-down variants of the GM206 GPU or both new cards will feature the same core but the 950 (Non-Ti) will come with lower clock speeds. With one SMM disabled, we get 896 cores and two disabled SMMs give 768 cores. There's a possibility that NVIDIA only disables only two SMMs, leaving the rest of the 6 intact for full functionality of the chip. The memory interface and cache would remain intact with the card boasting a 128-bit bus and a 2GB GDDR5 VRAM. We can expect the TDP to be under 100W while the GM107 featured a TDP of just 64W which was quite impressive.

The prices can be similar to the previous MSRPs of $119 US for the GeForce GTX 950 and $149 US for the GTX 950 Ti. We know that the competitors of these cards would the Tobago based Radeon R7 360 which retails at $109 US while the Radeon R7 370 will be competing against the GeForce GTX 950 Ti since both cards will have a $149 US price unless NVIDIA tries to steal the thunder away from AMD by reducing pricing further like they are doing with their high-end Maxwell cards. The GM206 GPU will be competitive in terms of performance per watt against these cards if the performance figures are right. Expect more details in the upcoming month.

NVIDIA GeForce 900 Series: