Monday, March 2nd 2009

GeForce GTX 200M, GTS 100M Series Unveiled

Reigning supreme again in the desktop segment, NVIDIA is looking forward to taking the wraps off its GeForce GTX 200M mGPU series. The new GPU series looks to up the performance offer by 50%, as claimed by the company. In the league are GeForce GTX 280M, GTX 260M and GTS 160M. Before you infer from the product names that at least two of them are based on the G200 graphics processor, let us break it to you, they're not. The entire series is based on the 55 nm G92b series. The 55 nm manufacturing technology seems to have facilitated some jumps in reference clock speeds.

In the "previous generation" GeForce 9800M series, one would note that although the high-end 9800M GTX was based on the G92 core, only 112 stream processors were made available to the GPU. With the GTX 200M series, at least one product gets to use the G92b core with all its 128 stream processors enabled. In comparison to desktop graphics cards based on G92b, the core and shader clock speeds are relatively low, but the memory clock speed gets an increment. The GTX 280M uses 128 stream processors, while the GTX 260M uses near-identical specs to those of the 9800M GTX with 112 stream processors, while the GTS 160M, comes with 64 stream processors. Interestingly, the table below shows it to be based on G92b and not G94, according to the transistor count and die-area.

NVIDIA seems to be touting these to be the fastest mGPU solutions in the making, although its comparisons don't seem to have room for ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 4800 series which is sprouting as we speak. The new GPUs are slated for March 25.
Source: GPU Café
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14 Comments on GeForce GTX 200M, GTS 100M Series Unveiled

#1
hat
Enthusiast
cool, I'll go buy one and burn a hole through my laptop's chassis
Posted on Reply
#2
Silverel
Save some loot. Go to the dollar store and get a lighter, and a can of butane.
Posted on Reply
#3
OnBoard
So mobile GTX 280 is underclocked 9800gtx+ and mobile GTX 260 is underclocked 55nm 8/9800gt.

Someone thinks he'll upgrade 9800M GTX laptop to much faster GTX 260M gets almost identical card and performance :shadedshu
Posted on Reply
#4
3870x2
OnBoardSo mobile GTX 280 is underclocked 9800gtx+ and mobile GTX 260 is underclocked 55nm 8/9800gt.

Someone thinks he'll upgrade 9800M GTX laptop to much faster GTX 260M gets almost identical card and performance :shadedshu
Sounds about right. NV's rebranding will cause harmful confusion among some consumers.
Posted on Reply
#5
Selene
humm that GTX280m looks alot like an under clocked 9800GTX.
Posted on Reply
#6
1Kurgan1
The Knife in your Back
Why does this story start with "Reigning supreme again" when the new cards they are release are rebagded cards from before with a bump up in clocks. And then I'm wondering how that offers a 50% increase in performance. Maybe a 50% increase in performance if you compare the GTX 280m to a 4670...
Posted on Reply
#7
mdm-adph
I'm just waiting for an Nvidia fan to come in here and tell me how these aren't rebrands at all, but are totally different.

Come on, try your best.
Posted on Reply
#8
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
While it is nice to see the full 128SPs finally enabled in a mobile graphics processor, renaming them GTX280 and GTX260 is really stupid. But then again, nVidia's mobile naming has always been completely stupid, with making the mobile cards much weaker than desktop parts with the same name.

@mdm-adph: At least the GTX 280M is not a rebrand. This configuration is new to the mobile market. The rest seem to offer nothing more than a die shrink, wich I guess means they aren't entirely rebrands either. Not totally new, but different.
Posted on Reply
#9
lemonadesoda
-1 to nVidia for silly naming and DELIBERATELY trying to confuse the customer. :slap:
Posted on Reply
#10
ShogoXT
Ok this was funny and mildly entertaining at first, but im starting to get pretty annoyed by how they do mobile chips especially. They take the lower end crap and crank it up number wise. One of which is how a 9600M GT is a friggen 8600GT desktop. Its only when its a 9800M GS is when its actually a 9600GT. I MEAN COME ON NVIDIA AT LEAST MATCH UP THE DANG SHADERS!!!!! If your going to make it a M version, just downclock it, DONT EFF US BY MIXING UP THE MODELS AND SHADERS!!!!!

I was seriously suprised by the GTX 280M and GTX 260M not being even remotely like the desktop variant. Seriously, I didnt think they would go that far.
Posted on Reply
#11
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
I agree, nVidia's naming scheme for their mobile GPUs is really stupid. But at least before, the cards with the same name would at least share the same core, even if some of the pipelines were disabled. Calling the G92b based cards GTX280 and GTX260 is just stupid.
Posted on Reply
#12
KainXS
nvidia has done this for nearly every single geforce 8 mobile gpu and this suprises you guys

lol
Posted on Reply
#13
zithe
KainXSnvidia has done this for nearly every single geforce 8 mobile gpu and this suprises you guys

lol
8000m GPUs weren't underclocked 7k GPUs. That's a similar situation to what you just read.
Posted on Reply
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