GeForce GTS 260M vs 8600 GTS

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking1251not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.01no data
Power efficiency0.47no data
ArchitectureTesla (2006−2010)Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code nameG84GT215
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date17 April 2007 (17 years ago)15 June 2009 (15 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$199 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores3296
Core clock speed675 MHz550 MHz
Number of transistors289 million727 million
Manufacturing process technology80 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)60 Watt38 Watt
Texture fill rate10.8017.60
Floating-point processing power0.0928 TFLOPS0.264 TFLOPS
Gigaflopsno data396
ROPs88
TMUs1632

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Laptop sizeno datalarge
Bus supportno dataPCI-E 2.0
InterfacePCIe 1.0 x16PCIe 2.0 x16
Length198 mmno data
Width1-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pinno data
SLI options++
MXM Typeno dataMXM 3.0 Type-B

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR3GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount256 MB1 GB
Standard memory config per GPU256 MBno data
Memory bus width128 Bit128 Bit
Memory clock speed1000 MHzUp to 2000 MHz
Memory bandwidth32 GB/s57.6 GB/s
Shared memory--

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors2x DVI, 1x S-VideoHDMIVGADual Link DVIDisplayPortSingle Link DVILVDS
Maximum VGA resolutionno data2048x1536

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Power managementno data8.0

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX11.1 (10_0)11.1 (10_1)
Shader Model4.04.1
OpenGL2.12.1
OpenCL1.11.1
VulkanN/AN/A
CUDA1.1+

Pros & cons summary


Recency 17 April 2007 15 June 2009
Maximum RAM amount 256 MB 1 GB
Chip lithography 80 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 60 Watt 38 Watt

GTS 260M has an age advantage of 2 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 100% more advanced lithography process, and 57.9% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between GeForce 8600 GTS and GeForce GTS 260M. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that GeForce 8600 GTS is a desktop card while GeForce GTS 260M is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
GeForce 8600 GTS
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 260M
GeForce GTS 260M

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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Questions & comments

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