GeForce GTS 260M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | 857 | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Power efficiency | 1.40 | no data |
| Architecture | TeraScale (2005−2013) | Tesla 2.0 (2007−2013) |
| GPU code name | M88 | GT215 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Release date | 1 September 2008 (16 years ago) | 15 June 2009 (15 years ago) |
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 cores | 320 | 96 |
| Core clock speed | 660 MHz | 550 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 666 million | 727 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 55 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 110 Watt | 38 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 10.56 | 17.60 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.4224 TFLOPS | 0.264 TFLOPS |
| Gigaflops | no data | 396 |
| ROPs | 16 | 8 |
| TMUs | 16 | 32 |
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 size | large | large |
| Bus support | no data | PCI-E 2.0 |
| Interface | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| SLI options | - | + |
| MXM Type | no data | MXM 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 type | GDDR3 | GDDR5 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | 128 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 850 MHz | Up to 2000 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 54.4 GB/s | 57.6 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 Connectors | No outputs | HDMIVGADual Link DVIDisplayPortSingle Link DVILVDS |
| Maximum VGA resolution | no data | 2048x1536 |
Supported technologies
Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.
| Power management | no data | 8.0 |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 10.1 (10_1) | 11.1 (10_1) |
| Shader Model | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| OpenGL | 3.3 | 2.1 |
| OpenCL | N/A | 1.1 |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
| CUDA | - | + |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 1 September 2008 | 15 June 2009 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Chip lithography | 55 nm | 40 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 110 Watt | 38 Watt |
GTS 260M has an age advantage of 9 months, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 37.5% more advanced lithography process, and 189.5% lower power consumption.
We couldn't decide between Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and GeForce GTS 260M. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.
