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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M

The NVidia GeForce GTX 260M is the high-end graphic card of the 200M series and based on the G92b core. Therefore, the chip is a 9800M GTX with slightly higher clock rates of 550/1375/950 against 500/1250/800. It is produced in 55nm. Therefore, it is not similar to the Desktop GTX 260 but somewhat similar to the 9800 GT.

As all cards with DirectX 10 capabilities, the GeForce GTX 260M renders the 3D images using "Unified Shaders". There don't exist any more dedicated Pixel- and vertex shaders but 112 so called stream processors make the graphic work (which has been done by Pixel and vertex shaders in former days). Furthermore, the shader units are higher clocked than the chip (1375 MHz).

The performance of the GTX 260M is somewhat higher than with the 9800M GTX due to the higher clock speed. For current DirectX 10 games like Crysis, World in Conflict, Bioshock or Age of Conan, the performance of this graphic card is sufficient with medium and high details. Older games run fluently with high resolutions and full details. The memory equipment is up to 1024 MB GDDR3 (up to 950MHz in MXM 3.0 boards and up to 800 MHz in MXM 2.0 boards).

An advantage of the GeForce GTX 260M is the integrated PureVideo HD video processor. It is able to help with the decoding of H.264-, VC-1-, MPEG2- and WMV9 video material in HD quality and therefore eases the CPU usage.

HybridPower is a technique to choose between the integrated and dedicated graphics core, if performance or battery runtime is needed. This works only in Windows Vista. Up to now the user has to use a tool to switch between the GPUs. Later Nvidia wants to switch automatically in the drivers. GeForceBoost is not supported with this card, as there would be no performance gain to combine the integrated GPU with the video card.

The current consumption of up to 75 Watts (of the whole board) allows the use of the card only in laptops with a strong cooling system. Therefore, the GTX 260M can be found only in heavy and big notebooks.

Compared with Desktop graphic cards, the performance is about at the level of the GeForce 9800 GT (600/1500/900).

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce GTX 200M Series

GeForce GTX 285M SLI 256@576MHz

GeForce GTX 280M SLI 256@585MHz

GeForce GTX 260M SLI 224@550MHz

GeForce GTX 285M 128@576MHz

GeForce GTX 280M 128@585MHz

GeForce GTX 260M 112@550MHz

CodenameN10E-GT
Pipelines112 - unified
Core Speed *550 MHz
Shader Speed *1375 MHz
Memory Speed *950 MHz
Memory Bus Width256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR3
Max. Amount of Memory1024 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 10, Shader 4.0
Current Consumption75 Watt
Transistors754 Million
technology55 nm
FeaturesHybridPower, PureVideo HD, CUDA, PhysX ready
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement02.03.2009
InformationMXM 3
Link to Manufacturer Pagehttp://www.nvidia.com/object/product_gef...
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark 2001 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 32699     avg: 34053 (77%)     max: 34905 Points
3DMark 03 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 27301     avg: 29794 (51%)     max: 30685 Points
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 12669     avg: 14773 (62%)     max: 16611 Points
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 9458     avg: 10177 (53%)     max: 11209 Points
PCMark Vantage - Gaming Score 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 4032     avg: 4911 (39%)     max: 6382 Points
Windows Vista Experience Index - GPU
0% 100%
min: 5.9     avg: 6 (87%)     max: 5.9 Points
Windows Vista Experience Index - GPU Games
0% 100%
min: 5.8     avg: 6 (85%)     max: 5.8 Points
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 3702     avg: 3966 (50%)     max: 4425 Points
3DMark Vantage - P Result no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 4080     avg: 4953 (35%)     max: 5686 Points
3DMark Vantage - P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 3840     avg: 4316 (32%)     max: 5058 Points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Graphics
0% 100%
min: 6.8     avg: 7 (92%)     max: 6.8 points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Gaming graphics
0% 100%
min: 6.8     avg: 7 (93%)     max: 6.8 points
Cinebench R11.5 - OpenGL 64Bit
0% 100%
min: 28     avg: 28 (75%)     max: 28 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2010)
low:
79.1  fps      Compare
med.:
54.8  fps      Compare
high:
41.6  fps      Compare
ultra:
23.2  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
CoD Modern Warfare 2
CoD Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
low:
137.4  fps      Compare
med.:
59.1  fps      Compare
high:
55.4  fps      Compare
ultra:
40  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Risen
Risen (2009)
low:
51.3 80.3 ~ 66 fps      Compare
med.:
41.3 50.5 ~ 46 fps      Compare
high:
31.7 36.5 ~ 34 fps      Compare
ultra:
26.9  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Need for Speed Shift
Need for Speed Shift (2009)
med.:
66.5  fps      Compare
high:
61  fps      Compare
ultra:
39.1  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Colin McRae: DIRT 2
Colin McRae: DIRT 2 (2009)
low:
92  fps      Compare
med.: