The Inq got their hands on some information regarding the delay of the GeForce 9600 that NVIDIA send out to their partners:

NVIDIA found a small percentage of GeForce 9600 GT boards exhibiting a voltage transient on the NVDD power supply during certain applications. They have reason to believe that this may cause a system hang under certain conditions. In order to provide the most robust and reliable solution possible to NVIDIA's customers they have decided to hold shipments in order to make some minor modifications to reduce the transients.

NVIDIA's engineering team has identified the necessary modifications and they are in the process of verification. I will communicate the exact modifications to you as soon as they have been verified and we will communicate the new shipping schedule in the next few days.

Since we are now running into the Chinese New Year holiday NVIDIA have decided to move the launch date out a week in order to ensure that our partners have enough time to get product on shelves at the time of launch.

***New GeForce 9600 GT launch date is Feb. 21st***

Please make sure that all partners are aware of the new launch date and let me know if you have any questions.

Why the GeForce 9600 is delayed - More news at DV Hardware