In a bid to compete with its arch-rival ATI Technologies in the high-end segment, Nvidia Corp. said it would introduce a new high-performance graphics processing unit (GPU) family as early as in March, 2006. While technical details of the part are unclear the claim itself means that the company is confident in its roadmap.

Taiwanese web-site DigiTimes reported citing Paul Sun, general manager of Nvidia Taiwan that the leading designer of GPUs is “scheduled to introduce a new GPU series to target the high-end segment in early March”. The representative for the company declined to go into details regarding the product and its specifications, but earlier it was expected that Nvidia would try to unleash a new GPU to compete against ATI’s Radeon X1900-series products.

It is unclear when Mr. Sun did his comment, but it was published on the day when ATI Technologies introduced its Radeon X1900-series graphics processors, which, according to analysts and test results, outperforms Nvidia’s flagship GeForce 7800 family of products in loads of benchmarks.

The fresh code-named G71 graphics processor and what is claimed to be the GeForce 7900-series product lineup are expected to be officially announced during CeBIT show that is held in Hannover, Germany from March 9^th to March 15^th, according to information published earlier. The high-end GeForce 7900 GTX is projected to feature 32 pixel processors, operate in the range of 700MHz – 750MHz and come equipped with 1600MHz – 1800MHz GDDR3 memory. 

Some observers doubted that Nvidia would truly release its new GeForce 7900-series products during the CeBIT show, as the event would steal a lot of attention away from Nvidia’s new top-of-the-range offerings. Furthermore, journalists may not be able to cover the newcomer properly, as leading web-sites in Europe, a huge market for high-end graphics cards, send editors to cover the world’s largest technology exhibition.