Nvidia's 90nm G72 graphics chip, believed to be a die-shrink of the company's GeForce 7800 GPU, will ship early next year.

So claim Taiwanese graphics card maker sources cited by DigiTimes today.

The GeForce 7800 line is currently fabbed at 110nm. The shift down to 90nm should increase Nvidia's yields, giving it scope to price its high-end products more aggressively. Indeed, the report's sources suggest the new part will allow card makers to equip graphics boards with two GPUs, utilising Nvidia's SLi system, usually used simply to connect to separate cards.

The Nvidia news comes on the day its arch-rival ATI is due - at last - to launch its Radeon X1x00 series of next-generation Shader Model 3.0-supporting graphics chips based on the R520, RV530 and RV515 parts. ®