Legit Reviews

Codenamed GT200, the GTX 280 GPU developed in 65nm process and has 1.4 billion transistors clocked at 602MHz. The processor clock, something that we use to call Shaders, works at 1296MHz and Nvidia's new chip has impressive 240 cores.

The GTX 280 card uses GDDR3 memory with 512-bit memory interface clocked to 1107MHz (2214MHz). The card has 141.7GB/s bandwidth and it comes with a total of 1GB memory.

The GT200 chip has 32 ROPs, 80 texture filtering units, 48.2 Gigatexels/sec texture filtering rate. The card supports HDCP, and HDVI via DVI to HDMI adapter and comes with two dual link DVI-I and a single HDTV out.

Ramdac is set to 400MHz, and the card itself is dual-slot with PCIe 2.0 interface and has one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connector. So, now you know

Nvidia’s second GT200-based card is the GeForce GTX 260. The Geforce GTX 260 is, as well, based on 65nm GT200 core that has 1.4 billion transistors, but this time clocked to 576MHz. Some of these transistors will sit disabled, as GTX 260 has one of eight clusters disabled.

The Shaders are clocked to 1242MHz and the card has a total of 192 Shaders (what used to be called Shader units are now called processor cores).

The card has an odd number of 896MB GDDR3 memory clocked at 999MHz (1998MHz effectively) and this is enough for 111.9GB/s bandwidth. The slower of the chips has 28 ROPs, 64 Texture filtering units and 36.9GigaTexels/second of texture filtering rate.

If you look at these specs closely, you will see that GTX 260 is the same as GTX 280, but with one cluster disabled. If GTX 280 has eight clusters, GTX 260 ends up at seven.

The card has HDCP, HDMI via DVI, but this time two 6-pin power connectors; and launches next Tuesday.

Geforce GTX 280 will need a lot of power. Its maximal board power is set to ultra high 236W, which is about the same number that we reported months ago.

One 8-pin power connector can provide up to 150W of power, as a 6-pin is stuck at 75W and so is the PCIe 2.0 slot. If you use one 8-pin and one 6-pin together with PCIe 2.0 you can end up with up to 300W.

The GTX 260 is happy with two times 6-pin (2x75W) and PCIe 2.0 that also provides additional 75W. GTX 260 can get up to 225W and the card actually needs much less than that.

The chip has a thermal threshold at 105 degrees Celsius, and once the GPU reaches this temperature the clock speed will automatically drop down.

GTX 260 is a bit better, as its maximal board power is 182 Watts and with 2x6-pin and the power from PCIe 2.0 interface tends to be enough. The GPU threshold is again 105 degrees Celsius, but as we said before it is the same chip, just with one cluster disabled.

skierkid450 wrote:does this mean that they are still on board and could be BIOS flashed to have all 8 and make it a 280?

geokilla wrote:So the card's going to be launched next Tuesday? I think I'll hold off on my 8800GT/9600GT purchase now...Can't wait to see the performance numbers on these cards.

Zertz wrote:At this price, I expect the performance leap to be something like G71 -> G80

martini161 wrote:when you say cores, they mean stream processors right?

The Shaders are clocked to 1242MHz and the card has a total of 192 Shaders(the 260) (what used to be called Shader units are now called processor cores).

skierkid450 wrote:

martini161 wrote:when you say cores, they mean stream processors right?

yes(maybe), it says in the first post:

The Shaders are clocked to 1242MHz and the card has a total of 192 Shaders(the 260) (what used to be called Shader units are now called processor cores).

shader units=stream processors=processor cores???