NVIDIA this morning turned its attention to its mainstream notebook graphics chips by filling out its GeForce 200M range. The GTS 250M and GTS 260M are targeted at desktop replacement class but relatively affordable notebooks with 28W of peak power. They each have 96 visual processor cores and 1GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus. The two only differentiate in clock speed, as the 250M has a 500MHz graphics clock and 1.6GHz memory while the 260M gets a faster 550MHz graphics speed and 1.8GHz for its RAM.

The GT 230M and GT 240M are targeted at mid-range or performance thin-and-light systems not unlike the MacBook Pro and consume significantly less peak power at 23W. They do so by halving the number of effects cores to 48 -- still up 50 percent versus the 9600M/130M's 32 -- and by using 1GB of lower-clocked, 800MHz GDDR3 memory. The two are separated almost exclusivel in core clocks as the 230M runs at 500MHz where the 240M runs at 550MHz.

The G210M completes the line and is considered the new entry level for dedicated mobile video with 16 visual cores, 512MB of GDDR3 memory and a 64-bit bus all contributing to the GPU using just 14W of energy at maximum. To partly compensate for the reduced parallelism, the G210M runs at a higher 625MHz central clock and keeps the 800MHz memory speed of its more expensive siblings.

NVIDIA hasn't yet said which companies are launching with the new 200M-series chipsets in place, though these are unlikely to include current-run Apple notebooks due to very recent updates to those systems.