GeForce 200 series
| Release date | 2008–09 |
|---|---|
| Codename | GT200 |
| Architecture | Tesla |
| Models | GeForce Series
|
| Fabrication process and transistors | 505M 55nm (G94b)
|
| Cards | |
| Entry-level | 205 210 GT 220 GT 230 |
| Mid-range | GT 240 GTS 250 |
| High-end | GTX 260 GTX 275 |
| Enthusiast | GTX 280 GTX 285 GTX 295 |
| API support | |
| Direct3D | Direct3D 10.0 |
| OpenCL | OpenCL 1.1 |
| OpenGL | OpenGL 3.3 |
| History | |
| Predecessor | GeForce 9 series |
| Variant | GeForce 300 series |
| Successor | GeForce 400 series |
The GeForce 200 Series is the 10th generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units, still based on the Tesla (microarchitecture) (GT-codenamed chips), named after the inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla.
The GeForce 200 Series introduces Nvidia's second generation of Tesla (microarchitecture), Nvidia's unified shader architecture; the first major update to it since introduced with the GeForce 8 Series.
The GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 are based on the same processor core. During the manufacturing process, GTX chips are binned and separated through defect testing of the core's logic functionality. Those that fail to meet the GTX 280 hardware specification are re-tested and binned as GTX 260 (which is specified with fewer stream processors, less ROPs and a narrower memory bus).
In late 2008, Nvidia re-released the GTX 260 with 216 stream processors, up from 192. Effectively, there were two GTX 260 cards in production with non-trivial performance differences.
The GeForce 200 series GPUs (GT200a/b GPU), excluding GeForce GTS 250, GTS 240 GPUs (these are older G92b GPUs), have double precision support for use in GPGPU applications. GT200 GPUs also have improved performance in geometry shading.
As of April 2016[update], the GT200 is the fourth largest commercial GPU ever constructed, consisting of 1.4 billion transistors covering a 576 mm2 die surface area built on a 65 nm process. It is the fourth largest CMOS-logic chip that has been fabricated at the TSMC foundry. The GeForce 400 Series have since superseded the GT200 chips in transistor count, but the original GT200 dies still exceed the GF100 die size. It is larger than even the Kepler-based GK210 GPU used in the Tesla K80, which has 7.1 billion transistors on a 561 mm2 die manufactured in 28 nm. The Pascal GP100 is currently the largest commercial GPU ever fabricated at 610 mm2 with 15.3 billion transistors.
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