GeForce GTX 260 vs 280

Place in performance ranking	697	710
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Value for money	0.24	0.36
Architecture	Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)	Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013)
GPU code name	GT200	GT200
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	16 June 2008 (15 years old)	16 June 2008 (15 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$649	$449
Current price	$159 (0.2x MSRP)	$49 (0.1x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

GTX 260 has 50% better value for money than GTX 280.

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	240	192
CUDA cores	240	192
Core clock speed	602 MHz	576 MHz
Number of transistors	1,400 million	1,400 million
Manufacturing process technology	65 nm	65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	236 Watt	182 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	105 °C	105 °C
Texture fill rate	48.2 billion/sec	36.9 billion/sec
Floating-point performance	622.1 gflops	476.9 gflops

Size and 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).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	10.5" (267 mm) (26.7 cm)	10.5" (267 mm) (26.7 cm)
Height	4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)	4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	6-pin & 8-pin	2x 6-pin
SLI options	+	+

Memory

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 type	GDDR3	GDDR3
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	896 MB
Memory bus width	512 Bit	448 Bit
Memory clock speed	1107 MHz	999 MHz
Memory bandwidth	141.7 GB/s	111.9 GB/s

Video outputs and ports

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 Connectors	HDTVDual Link DVI	Dual Link DVIHDTV
Multi monitor support	+	+
HDMI	no data	+
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI	S/PDIF	S/PDIF

API support

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

DirectX	11.1 (10_0)	11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model	4.0	4.0
OpenGL	2.1	2.1
OpenCL	1.1	1.1
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	+	+

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 280 3.35
+6%

GTX 260 3.16

280 outperforms 260 by 6% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

GTX 280 1299
+6.1%

GTX 260 1224

280 outperforms 260 by 6% in Passmark.