Geforce
GTX 260 / GTX Core 216
Features
Product Features- 240 Processing Cores
- 2nd Generation NVIDIA unified architecture
- Full Microsoft DirectX 10 support
- NVIDIA SLI technology
- NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology
- NVIDIA PhysX-Ready
- PCI Express 2.0 support
- Two dual-link DVI-I and one HDTV output
- Dual-link HDCP-Capable
- OpenGL 2.1 support
- 2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture: Second generation architecture delivers up to 50% more gaming performance over the first generation through 192 enhanced processing cores that provide incredible shading horsepower.
- NVIDIA PhysX™-Ready: GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA PhysX technology, enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce.
- 3-way NVIDIA SLI® Technology: Industry leading 3-way NVIDIA SLI technology offers amazing performance scaling by implementing 3-way AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) for the world’s fastest gaming solution under Windows Vista with solid, state-of-the-art drivers.
- NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology: CUDA technology unlocks the power of the GPU’s processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks – such as video encoding – delivering up to 7x performance over traditional CPUs.
- NVIDIA PureVideo® HD Technology The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for movies and video.
- NVIDIA HybridPower™ Technology Lets you switch from the GeForce GTX 260 graphics card to the motherboard GeForce GPU when running non graphically-intensive applications for a quiet, low power PC experience.
Technical Details
Bus Type: PCI-E 2.0
Performance: Standard
GPU Clock MHz: 576 MHz
Shader Clock (MHz): 1242
MHz
Stream Processors: 192
(216 in the Core 216
version)
Texture Fill Rate
(billion/sec): 36.9
(41.5 Billion/sec in the
Core 16 Version)
Pixels per clock (peak):
96
Memory Interface Bus
(Bit): 448
Memory Type: DDR3
Memory Size (MB): 896 MB
Memory Clock (MHz): 1998
MHz
Profile: Double
Maximum Resolution:
2560x1600
The tech specs are pretty impressive and show that that although the GTX 260 is the little brother of the GT200 series of graphics it will still shine in any PC its placed in. The GTX 260 like we have previously mentioned is essentially the same card as the GTX 280 but with slower clock speeds and less functioning cores. The reason I say less functioning cores is that the usual way for graphics card companies to save on costs and prevent waste is to start out making all the cards to the top spec, in this case the Geforce GTX 280. if some of the cores, shaders or memory fails or is unstable they can easily be disabled without any further problems to the graphics other than the reduced speed and processing power. The graphics cards can then still be sold as a lower spec card and still be fully functioning. The chances are that most of the GTX 260's will have made it market via this method.
Benefits of the Core 216
Since the release of the Geforce GTX 260 another card has entered the market, the Geforce GTX 260 Core 216. A rather long winded name for a graphics card but in this instance a very informative one. With Nvidia not being the best at naming their products so that Joe public knows exactly what they are getting, this is a time when you can draw a conclusion from the name. The Core 216 does exactly what t says on the tin. Its the same GTX 260 but with 216 stream processor cores. The benefits of more processing power are obvious but it also brings about a couple of other benefits as well.
Extra processing core means extra texture units can be used to speed up texture processing. All in all the out come is an increase in texel output which when all is said and done is still the number one figure that you will look for when seeing a graphics card. Games require pixels rendered to the screen and the faster that happens the smoother the game will look.