Slowly but surely, Nvidia continues to replace its old low-end graphics cards with new models in the GeForce 9 series. Today company quietly launched the GeForce 9400 GT for the value segment of the 3D graphics market. Based on NVIDIA's G96 GPU, the chip ships with 16 stream processors clocked at 1.4GHz, while the graphics core runs at 550MHz. NVIDIA's reference specifications also call for a minimum of 512MB of DDR2 memory clocked at 400MHz, with its 128-bit memory interface providing up to 12.8GB/sec of peak bandwidth, while texture fill rate stands at a paltry 4.4 billion texels/second (about a tenth of the GeForce 9800 GTX's fill rate). The firm claims its card "more than doubles the performance of its predecessor, the 8400GS, thanks in part to 65 nm process technology and a 128-bit memory bus.

Board partners are free to go beyond these specs however, already we've seen a handful of partners clocking their boards at higher memory speeds than 400MHz, while most seem to be sticking with the stock speeds for the graphics core and shaders.The GPU has a 50W TDP with a max GPU temp of 105 degrees Celsius and ships with a single-slot cooler and 6.6" long PCB. GeForce 9400 GT cards will ship with two dual-link DVI display outputs with additional support for HDMI and digital audio via adapter. Cards are shipping now and should be hitting retail in the coming weeks. With its higher clocks and 16-shader architecture, the card officially replaces the 8500 GT in NVIDIA's lineup. Prices will start at $59.

Update: VR-Zone rounded several brands of the GeForce 9400 GT cards.