nVidia Updates GeForce 200M Graphics Chips

Author	Hugo Jobling
Published	16th Jun 2009

nVidia Updates GeForce 200M Graphics Chips

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nVidia has (finally) brought its GT200 architecture to its mobile graphics range, updating the GeForce 200M with five new GPUs. The update also brings GDDR5 and DirectX 10.1 support for the first time on an nVidia GPU and while it's slightly odd to add new tech to laptop-orientated graphics chips first, I'm hardly complaining!

nVidia's previous laptop graphics chips were based on its G92 GPU, itself derived from G80 - which launched way back in 2006 - as the GeForce 8800 GTX - so I doubt anyone would argue the update isn't a welcome one. A manufacturing process shrink from 65nm to 40nm should bring some improvements, if only in power efficiency - up to 50 percent less power consumption than the previous generation of 200M GPUs.

The range, then, looks as follows:

Manufacturers can choose to configure these GPUs with lower memory sized - say, a 512MB GTS 260 - and in SLI arrangements. We're told to expect over 100 new laptops using these GPUs by the end of the year, so we should get our hands on one soon to see how the new graphics chips shape up.