NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 Unleashed

Name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 Unleashed - Page 3
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Monday, June 16, 2008, 09:00 AM EDT

The actual GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 cards don't look much different than current GeForce 9800 GTX and GX2 cards, due to the shells surrounding the cards.

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The GeForce GTX 280 reference card picutred here has a GPU clock of 602MHz, with a Stream Processor clock of a1,296MHz. The full 240 SP cores in the GT200 GPU are enabled, and the card sports a 1GB frame buffer consisting of 16 pieces of DDR3 memory clocked at 1.1GHz (2.2GHz DDR), connected via a 512-bit memory interface. This configuration offers a peak texturing fillrate of a 48.2GTexels/s and over 141GB/s of memory bandwidth.

There are two dual-link DVI outputs on the card, along with an HD/TV output. HDMI with audio is supported through the use of an adapter, and audio signals can be passed through the card by way of an SPDIF input, similar to the one found on the 9800 GTX and GX2. HDCP is supported as well.

The GeForce GTX 280 required both a 6-pin and an 8-pin PCI Express power connector and max board power hovers around 236 watts.

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As we've mentioned, the new GeForce GTX 260 is essentially the same as the GTX 280, sans a couple of thread processor clusters and memory partitions. The GT200 GPU used on the GTX 260 has 192 stream processors enabled. The GPU is clocked at 576MHz on the reference card, with a 1,242MHz stream processor clock. 866MB of on-board DDR3 frame buffer memory is clocked at 999MHz (1.99GHz DDR), connected to the GPU over a 448-bit interface. The GeForce GTX 260 offers a peak texturing fillrate of 36.9GTexels/s with 111.9GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The output options are the same on the GTX 260, but power requirements are more modest. The GeForce GTX 260 requires two 6-pin PCI Express power connectors and has a max power of 182 watts.

Something you don't see in these pictures (but you will see on the next page) is that both the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 sport of pair of SLI edge connectors and both support two-card and three-way SLI configurations.

Tags: Nvidia, GeForce, GTX, 260, GTX 260, GeForce GTX, GeForce GTX 280, force, GT, EA, id, and

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com