NVIDIA GTX 260 newer / older model - Differentiation

So NVIDIA decided that they are not going to change name of the new 216sp GTX 260, we’d better find a way to tell the new 260 from the old.


1. Shader
The new GTX 260 have 9 TPC, thats 24 shaders more than the old GTX 260, So the easiest way to see the difference is from ForceWare control panel’s system information．One of the improvement of ForceWare 177 is more info will be display in the system information page. So let’s see:

*en.expreview.com/img/2008/09/10/216sp-1.png​

System info displays shader numbers​

2. Core
If you can dismount the cooler, you will able to see the GPU core. look at the mark on it, you can see the new GTX 260 is G200-103-A2, not the rumored A3 core.

*en.expreview.com/img/2008/09/10/gtx260+_core_VS.png​

left: old, right: new ​

3. Performance
The Performance of the new GTX 260 is about 5%~10% faster than the old GTX 260. in 3Dmark Vantage Extreme Preset we can see 10% improvement, if you run a Devil May Cry 4 PC benchmark, the improvement can be boost up to 11%~12%.
Don’t worry, if you are going to purchase a 216SP GTX 260 after September 16, graphic vendors will change box designs and naming,like GTX260 Xtreme Edition, TOP or something. the new boxart and name can also help you to define which is 216SP GTX 260 and which is 192SP GTX 260.

Click to expand...