Nvidia's new 40nm GeForce 210 (GT218) GPU-based graphics cards will be available in the retail channel in October, as yield of the 40nm process at foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has improved, according to industry sources.

The GeForce 210 graphics cards will feature either DDR2 or DDR3 memory, and support DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1.

In addition to GeForce 210, Nvidia is also expected to launch GPUs codenamed GT230 and GT300 in the fourth quarter of 2009, the sources said.

Nvidia has recently adjusted its GPU naming scheme and removed marks such as GTX, GT and G, and will instead just simply use GeForce plus the number.

Shipments of AMD's long-awaited RV870 GPU are expected to kick off in September at the earliest, the sources added.