GeForce GTX 260

GeForce GTX 260 is the younger model of the GT200. Immediately after the announcement of the latest NVIDIA GT200 graphics processor and the corresponding models based on it, only the GeForce GTX 280 video card went on sale. The junior GeForce GTX 260 model went on sale a little later, as planned. Perhaps NVIDIA was afraid of competition for the flagship from a low-end card, or maybe there weren’t enough ready-made copies. The GT200 chip is said to have a reject rate of over 50%, making production even more expensive.

It is no secret that defective chips are installed in GeForce GTX 260 video cards, in which some of the functional units are disabled, which makes production more profitable overall. Thus, it is important for NVIDIA to produce more GeForce GTX 260 video cards in order to minimize losses from defective production. It is clear that NVIDIA followed the beaten path and the GeForce GTX 260 was obtained from the GeForce GTX 280 by disabling some of the functional units. 

Characteristics of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

Name	GeForce GTX 260
Core	GT200 (D10U-20)
Process technology (µm)	0.065
Transistors (millions)	1400
Core frequency	576
Memory operating frequency (DDR)	999
Bus and memory type	GDDR3 448-bit
Bandwidth (Gb/s)	111,89
Unified shader units	192
Unified shader unit frequency	1242
TMU on conveyor	64
ROP	28
Shader Model	4.0
Fill Rate (Mtex/s)	36864
DirectX	10
Interface	PCIe 2.0

 The GeForce GTX 260 consumes less power than the GeForce GTX 280, so both of its power connectors are 6-pin. In practice, this means wider compatibility with power supplies, both in terms of power and connectors. After all, 8-pin power connectors, like those of the GeForce GTX 280, have not yet become widespread. And finally, we note that the GeForce GTX 260 supports 3-way SLI technology, just like its older sister. There is nothing surprising in this, because both video cards are based on absolutely identical printed circuit boards, with the only difference being that the younger model, the GTX 260, lacks several memory chips.

Even without overclocking, the GeForce GTX 260 video card demonstrates very high results and is second only to the more expensive GeForce GTX 280. If you overclock it, the difference becomes even smaller, making this video card a good choice for gamers, but with the release of the new GeForce GTX 260 core 216, this is a purchase has become impractical, since at the same price the latter has greater productivity.

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