GeForce G310 Fermi - Nvidia news! 2010

Point of View is already a known partner of nVIDIA when it comes to graphic cards, and some time ago, the company has showed interest in the netbook market as well, presenting their Mobii netbook family, using the Atom + 945GSE solutions. But in the past few days, Point of View has presented a new solution, the Mobii Ion 230, and as the name says, it’s built using the Ion platform, nVIDIA’s alternative solution for the Intel Atom.

The new product, as much as it follows the same features as a normal netbook, also promises to be rather interesting thanks to the chipset potential. The hardware features include an Atom N230 processor, together with 1GB RAM and a 160GB Hard Disk. Completing the hardware specifications there’s the chipset with integrated GeForce 9400M graphics.

Benchmark Tests

3DMark 05

- 1680×1050 (without Filters) - 21015
- 1920×1200 (without filters) - 20312
- 1680×1050 (with filters)    - 19618
- 1920×1200 (with filters)    - 17900

3DMark 06

- 1680×1050 (without Filters) - 16280
- 1920×1200 (without filters) - 15092
- 1680×1050 (with filters)    - 12888
- 1920×1200 (with filters)    - 11732

3DMark 06 - Pixel and Vertex Shader

- Pixel Shader 1680 - 772
- Pixel Shader 1920 - 629
- Vertex Shader Simplex - 263
- Vertex Shader Complex - 135

Two 6pin PCI-Express connectors are present to make sure that the card receives enough energy to work properly. On the top left part of the card there are the SLI connectors for a SLI connection with other cards of the same model. Since there are two SLI connectors on this card, it’s possible to use up to 3 cards in a 3-Way SLI.

The video outputs are the usual ones: S-Video and two DVI-I with support to HDMI through an adapter. Upon removing the plastic cover, we can notice the cooling system is divided in three different parts: a heatsink that covers the 4+1 power supply phases, a heatsink covering the memory chips and a copper heatsink with 2 heatpipes that are responsible for cooling the GPU.

Now it’s time for an overview of this card’s layout. The front part is completely protected by a transparent black plastic cover with two big holes for the two cooling fans, and it also shows the heatsink underneath them. The back part doesn’t feature any main components as with the new 55nm GPU, all the memory chips were placed on the front part of the PCB.

The power supply section is also completely covered, and the only thing that can be partially seen is the black aluminium heatsink placed on top of the phases.

In this review, we will be analyzing the GTX 260 GS GLH (GLH stands for Goes LIke Hell), based on the latest GTX260 manufactured at 55nm. This GHL version offers even higher frequencies than the normal GS models.

The reference model from nVIDIA has these frequencies: 576/1242/1998MHz for core, shader and memory respectively. Gainward’s GS version has 625/1348/2200Mhz while the GHL version we will be analyzing on the review has 650/1400/2400Mhz respectively.

When it comes to the graphic cards, the world is separated into two branches: the nVIDIA and the ATI solutions. Many manufacturers offer a lot of options for both brands, and in order to sell their cards, they need to come up with cards that are exclusive or have special specifications, in order to attract the customers. This often means modifying the PCB, or the cooling system, or altering the frequencies.

Gainward is one of the most active graphic card manufacturers, and recently it has been gaining a lot of space in the market as well. Gainward’s personalized solutions are distinguished by the Golden Sample label, that indicates a reviewed and modified solution with higher frequencies and better performances.

According to the latest rumors, the first nVIDIA graphic chips made with a 40nm process will be available from next Autumn on. The Taiwan Commercial Times was the one to report such news, and added also that the first cards to feature the chip will be the ones with GT220 and G210 which would be scheduled to launch by the end of September.

The new chips should have been launched earlier, and the reason for the delay would have been a bad component quality for the 40nm chips. The GT220 and G210 chips could be launched just for the OEM market at first, in order to replace the current GeForce GT130 and G100.

nVIDIA denied the rumors of a possible conflict with Apple last Friday. According to insiders, the partnership between nVIDIA and Apple is still going and apparently the head of nVIDIA’s graphic division Jen-Hsun Huang is calm about the current situation. In fact, Apple would still be ordering nVIDIA chips as usual.

Rumors had previously claimed that the two companies had started to break their partnership after some malfunctioning found on some GeForce 8600M chips, that probably also happened on the 9600M GT chips. Rumors also claim that the problems between nVIDIA and Apple have their origins on the conflict between nVIDIA and Intel over the manufacturing of chipset featuring integrated memory controllers.

The future Nvidia Ion 2 platform for notebooks will feature more powerful graphics: the number of shaders on the new mGPU could in fact be more than doubled. The 40nm fabrication process has also been confirmed.

nVIDIA Ion, the netbook, nettop and all-in-one system platform recently released by nVIDIA was adopted by many manufacturers, that have the possibility of pairing low-consumption Intel Atom processsors with a good graphic chip, the nVIDIA GeForce 9400M, capable of offering superior performances when compared to the previous Intel solutions, and giving support for 1080p and Blu-Ray videos.

nVIDIA could be ready to launch the future Ion platform already during the fourth trimester of 2009. It doesn’t have an official name; for now, it’s known by Ion 2, and according to the first information known, Ion 2 will definitely have the 40nm process (instead of the 55nm of the current Ion), reducing consumption and the chip size.

Other rumors about the platform say that the integrated graphic chip should have more than the double number of shaders than its predecessor, greatly enhancing the performance. It’s still not known whether it will be an enhancement on the current chip or a completely new solution, however.

nVIDIA has started the migration towards the GPUs built with the 40nm process. After the GeForce 200M mobile series, now it’s time for the first desktop models, called GeForce G210 and GT220, entry-level solutions that are expected to be launched around October, with prices ranging from $30 to $60. Also, the GT210 and GT220 will support the DirectX 10.1 APIs.

The G210 takes the place of the GeForce 9400 and the GT220 will replace the 9500GT. On the G210 there are 24 stream processors while on the GT220, there are 48. The first will be available with two PCBs: P690 in order to feature DDR3 video memroies, and P691 for the DDR2 memories. In both cases, the bus bandwidth is 64-bit.

The second card will use three different PCBs: P682 for DDR2 memories, P681 for DDR3 memories and P680 for GDDR3, all of them with 128-bit of bandwidth. The frequencies will be 600/1425Mhz for the G210 and 625/1375Mhz for the GT220, for core and stream processors, and the memory frequencies will vary according to the kind of chip used.