3 - The Point of View GeForce GTX 260
Point of View GeForce GTX 260
As explained, NVIDIA has released two GTX 200 series products. Let's differentiate them on their specifications:
- GeForce GTX 280: 602MHz GPU, 240 shaders, 1296MHz shader processors, 1107MHz memory, 1GB memory, 512-bit memory bus, 141.7GB/s memory bandwidth, 48.2 billion/s texture fill rate
- GeForce GTX 260: 576MHz, 192 shaders, 1242MHz shader processors, 999MHz memory, 896MB memory, 448-bit memory bus, 111.9GB/s memory bandwidth, 36.9 billion/sec texture fill rate.
So the cheaper GeForce GTX 260 will be priced at an interesting $399 / 349 EUR and yes, was initially positioned to fight with ATI's upcoming Radeon HD 4870. However with AMDs price/performance strategy .. that's just not going to happen. That 4870 will be priced at 229,- EUR yet very likely also a slow performing product.
The GeForce GTX 280 will be about 25 per cent faster than the 260, yet cost more with a steep $649 sales price.
The new GTX GPUs embed new technology but for the end-user nothing really changed other than raw performance and power management. The features are 98% similar to the last gen-products, which also means the lack of DirectX 10.1, though not that important I do wish it would have been implemented. Especially in this price-range.
| GeForce 8800 Ultra |
GeForce 9800 GTX |
GeForce 9800 GX2 | GeForce GTX 260 |
GeForce GTX 280 | |
| Stream (Shader) Processors | 128 | 128 | 128x2 | 192 | 240 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 612 | 675 | 600 | 576 | 602 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 1512 | 1675 | 1512 | 1242 | 1296 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) x2 | 1080 | 1100 | 1000 | 999 | 1053 |
| Memory amount | 768 MB | 512 MB | 512 MBx2 | 896 MB | 1024 MB |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 448-bit | 512-bit |
| HDCP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Two Dual link DVI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The clock frequencies for the GTX 260 are 576MHz GPU, 999MHz memory and 896MHz GDDR3. On a 448-bit memory interface. Why this weird number you ask? It has everything to do with the way the architecture is arranged. Each memory controller in the GPU accumulates the memory bus width.
So the GTX 280 has eight 64-bit memory controllers, 8x 64-bit = 512 Bit. Then if the GTX 260 has a 448-bit interface, you can divide by 64-bit, and now we can easily see that the 260 is missing one memory controller opposed to daddy GTX 280, thus 7 active memory controllers. The power for the GTX 260 is fed by two six-pin connectors. Power consumption for this 10.5-inch board is 182W.
The bundle that point of View offers with the (reference based) product is pretty decent as they include Assassins Creed the full game for free. It's another 50 EUR you just saved if you where planning to purchase the game right ?
Included in the packaging are the card, manual, driver CD, Assassins Creed, sub-d adapter, HDMI adapter, 6-pin to Molex power converter (1) and an SPDIF pass-through cable should you want to utilize digital lossless audio through HDMI.
