| Saturday, May 16 2009 |
Having tried its hand in several PCB designs for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series, Zotac created itself enough room to come up with new SKUs at will. The company is using a recently-designed 10-layer PCB it used for a high-end GeForce GTX 285 accelerator featuring Arctic Cooling Accelero Extreme cooler, to design a new GeForce GTX 260 model (GTX260-896D3) with essentially the same design, except for a change: While the GTX 285 card featured 0.77 ns GDDR3 memory chips made by Hynix, this one uses 1.0 ns chips by Samsung.
The card retains the 6+3 phase power circuitry, the Accelero Extreme cooler, and standard features for the GeForce GTX 260: 216 shader processors, 896 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 448-bit interface, support for 3-way SLI, CUDA and PhysX. It will use reference NVIDIA clock speeds of 574/999 MHz (core/memory). Backed by a 3-year warranty, this card will hit stores in China at a price of 1299 RMB (US $190).
Source: Expreview
The card retains the 6+3 phase power circuitry, the Accelero Extreme cooler, and standard features for the GeForce GTX 260: 216 shader processors, 896 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 448-bit interface, support for 3-way SLI, CUDA and PhysX. It will use reference NVIDIA clock speeds of 574/999 MHz (core/memory). Backed by a 3-year warranty, this card will hit stores in China at a price of 1299 RMB (US $190).
Source: Expreview
User comments
That's a VERY nice looking board! Very clean! Zotac just got a +1 in my book!
it is very nice, and well layed out. however besides looks does this have any benefit at all over other GTX 260's besides it's bombin lookin heatsink/fan?
That means previously Zotac GTX260 use low-end pcb design?
again a 3 fan hovering card...
by: a_ump
it is very nice, and well layed out. however besides looks does this have any benefit at all over other GTX 260's besides it's bombin lookin heatsink/fan?
Most likely it will OC much better!!!
The PCB will probably be more expensive, due to the fact that it's a 10 layer one. Still it could be cheaper in the long run for them because now they can use 1 PCB for the entire GT200 series. (see the two unused memory slots on the ring bus in the second pic. )
Nice;)
but what's that chip near the backplate?
but what's that chip near the backplate?
by: h3llb3nd4
Nice;)
but what's that chip near the backplate?
In case you never ever noticed such a chip on GTX 200 series cards, it's the NVIO2 display processor. The GPU outsources its display IO functions to it, since it's already too big to cram in that part.
:P I've never really studied them...
I can't figure out why they focus their efforts on GTX260 and not higher models.
Remind me again why do I need this? I play everything maxed out at 1920x1200 with my Radeon HD4850 512Mb.
monster clocks anyone?
by: HellasVagabondThey already did.
I can't figure out why they focus their efforts on GTX260 and not higher models.
with that many phases, VRM cooling is pretty much an afterthought.
by: substance90Because some of us don't play games with them (SETI@Home cruncher here since 1999). I also use Folding@Home (GPU edition) which needs ALL the muscle it can get. And, I know of friends who aren't satisfied with the performance of their graphics cards on a 30" 2560x1600 display with 4xAA/16AF and game settings cranked to the max. ;)
Remind me again why do I need this? I play everything maxed out at 1920x1200 with my Radeon HD4850 512Mb.
by: HellasVagabondHigh end graphics cards only account for around 5-10% of total sales if I remember correctly. A bigger chunk goes to the lower end of the spectrum.
I can't figure out why they focus their efforts on GTX260 and not higher models.
I love cards with more than one fan. Makes them look more beastly IMO. :rockout:
very nice cooler and it is good price too
Nicest GTX 260 I've seen so far. With the "overspec" on the power regulators, hopefully this card will not whine like some do.
by: substance90Maybe older titles, but not things like GTA4, FEAR2, FC2, Crysis, etc., etc.
Remind me again why do I need this? I play everything maxed out at 1920x1200 with my Radeon HD4850 512Mb.
by: tkpenalty
with that many phases, VRM cooling is pretty much an afterthought.
by: lemonadesodaOne cannot deduct anything based on the amount of phases alone.
With the "overspec" on the power regulators, hopefully this card will not whine like some do.
Infact, using several parallel phases allows the use of lower quality higher RDS(on) (=less efficient) and lower rated mosfets...
Besides, I doubt Zotac is doing anything else but increasing margins.