In a bid to better compete against ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card, Nvidia Corp. plans to add another product into the GeForce GTX 200-series lineup. Few details are now clear, however, another card in the family will almost surely make Nvidia’s products more competitive in the lineup.

Currently Nvidia and its add-in-board partners sell two versions of the GeForce GTX 200: the premium-class GTX 280 with 240 shader processors (SPs), 80 texture units (TUs), 32 render back ends (RBEs) and 1GB of GDDR3 memory connected using 512-bit interface as well as high-end GTX 260 with 192 SPs, 64 TUs, 28 RBEs and 896MB of GDDR3 memory connected using 448-bit interface. The GeForce GTX 280 has GPU clocked at 602MHz, SPs operating at 1296MHz and memory working at 2214MHz, whereas the GeForce GTX 260 is clocked at 576MHz, 1242MHz and 1998MHz, respectively.

Already in September the company plans to add another board into the lineup, which will have the same clock-speeds with the GTX 260 model, but with 216 SPs, 72 TUs, 30 RBEs and 896MB of GDDR3 memory connected using 448-bit interface. Expreview web-site claims that the new board will be an upgraded version of the GTX 260, however, since silent increase of performance of an already existing graphics card will cause a lot of confusion on the market, it is highly likely that Nvidia will introduce the GeForce GTX 270 instead.

The price of the novelty remain unclear, however, if it costs $299, it will be a serious competitor to ATI Radeon HD 4870 from graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices. There are chances that the presumable GeForce GTX 270 will cost $399, $100 more than the GTX 260, but still $100 less compared to the GTX 280.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.