Nvidia's first 55nm GPU will be the GeForce 9800 GTX+, the chip maker has confirmed.

Arch-rival AMD launched its first 55nm GPU back in November 2007.

Due to debut on 14 July, the GTX+ will run at 738MHz, up from the existing, 65nm 9800 GTX's 675MHz. Like the current part, the new GPU will connect to 512MB of GDDR 3 memory clocked to 1100MHz.

It's fair to say then that it seems Nvidia's using the smaller fabrication process to up the core clock speed without altering the overall thermal characteristics of the card.

The board will support two- and three-way SLI configurations. Like the next-gen GeForce GTX 200 series, also launched this week, the 9800 GTX+ supports PhysX, the on-GPU physics processing tech Nvidia obtained when it acquired Ageia.

Nvidia also said the card can be used to accelerate video transcoding operations thanks to Cuda, the company's system for running other non-graphics apps on its graphics chips.