Nvidia Intros New GPUs for Over 100 Secret OEMs

New chips give twice the performance but idle at only half the power -- a good mix for a mobile chip.

Nvidia this week announced five new additions to its mobile GPU family that boast up to twice the speed with only half the idle power draw as the previous generation of chips.

The new chips are all a part of the 200M series (G210M, GT 230M, GT 240M, GTS 250M, GTS 260M) and are based on the still-current G200 architecture and built on the 40-nm process.

According to Nvidia, the GTS 260M and 250M GPUs are for enthusiast notebooks; GT 240M and 230M GPUs are for performance notebooks; and GeForce G210M is for mainstream notebooks.

The new additions to the 200M series also mark two firsts for Nvidia: full DirectX 10.1 compliance and use of DDR5 memory.

The GTX 280M and GTX 260M, even though based on 55-nm G92 designs, will continue to occupy Nvidia’s top-end offerings.

Nvidia claims that the GTS 260M with its 1 GB of DDR5 memory running at 3,600 MHz on a 128-bit interface is nearly as fast as the GTX260M, which makes it a compelling alternative given the power savings and the added battery life that comes along with it.

Nvidia said that it has over 100 notebook design wins “in the bag” but can’t disclose any of them due to NDA commitments. We'll just have to wait and see who will be first out the gate with one of the new chips.