A little rumour started circulating recently that NVIDIA was looking to introduce a more efficient variant of the 9600GT graphics card, referred to as the 9600GT Green Edition. This rumour has now been backed up with leaked specifications of the card which show how it differs to existing 9600GTs.

The most notable change is the drop in frequencies with the core and shader clocks moving down from 650/1625MHz to 600/1500MHz. The memory clock remains at 900MHz. To further support its 'green' label, the card's voltage has been reduced from 1.1v to 1.0v, in turn dropping the power consumption from 96W down to 59W.

We're not yet quite sure what NVIDIA's main motivation is for releasing such a card, but efficiency does seem to be a big thing towards designing a successful piece of hardware in this day and age.

Pricing and availability is yet to be disclosed, but it's expected the Green Edition will go on sale with similar pricing to existing 9600GTs.