New GeForce 200M GPUs in 40nm

Nvidia has just presented new GeForce 200M graphics adapters which are produced in 40nm. The new cards are aimed for the entry level (G 210M), middle class (GT 230 and 240M) and beginning high-end class (GTS 250M and 260M).

The new graphic cards are based on the new GT215, GT216, and GT218 cores which are based on the current High-End Desktop Architekture (GTX 200) and offer an improved micro architecture. Therefore, there are some improvements over the last generation in performance and battery runtime (Nvidia claims about 50% less Idle power consumption).

Because of the smaller 40nm process, Nvidia was able to ramp up the shader count and clock rates and still maintain the same power envelope as the previous generation. Therefore, the performance of each class-member is higher than the previous model.

Nvidia published only some performance charts for the new entry level GPU - the Geforce G 210M, which is about 2x as fast as the old G 110M (according to Nvidia). This is achieved by the much higher clock rates of the G 210M.

The middle class offers a higher shader count (48 instead of 32) with the same power consumption (GT 130M versus 230M / 240M). Therefore, Nvidia wants to catch up in performance to the AMD Mobility Radeon HD 4650.

On the border to the high-end solutions, the new GTS 250M and 260M are positioned. Both offer only a 128 Bit memory bus, but 96 shader units and GDDR5 support (altough Nvidia bashed AMD when presenting the 280M that GDDR5 wont bring much with such low performance chips). Anyway, the most interesting thing is the different power consumption of both new chips. The GTS 250M has a TDP of only 28 Watt (compared to the 38 Watt of the 260M).

More detailled information can be found in our graphics comparison guide, the benchmark list and the gaming list.