NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M

Power and Cooling, TDP, PSU recommendation, connector requirements

The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M carries a modest 38 W TDP, a figure that places it firmly in the low-power segment of the mobile graphics landscape. This thermal envelope is a direct consequence of its 40 nm TSMC fabrication process, which allowed NVIDIA to pack 727 million transistors into a 144 mm² die, a transistor density of 5.0 million per square millimeter. The 40 nm node was a significant step forward for its generation, enabling the GT215 chip to deliver usable performance without the power draw of older, larger processes.

Because the GTS 360M is an MXM Module with an MXM-II bus interface, it does not require any auxiliary power connectors. The card draws all its power from the MXM slot itself, with the "None" designation for power connectors confirming that no external 6-pin or 8-pin PCIe power cables are necessary. This design makes it particularly suited for laptops and compact portable devices where internal power delivery is tightly managed. The absence of a suggested PSU recommendation in the specifications further underscores that this is not a desktop component, system integrators and end-users upgrading a laptop would rely entirely on the chassis's existing power delivery system rather than an external supply.

The slot width of "MXM Module" indicates a standardized form factor, but the display outputs are listed as "Portable Device Dependent," meaning the actual ports (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, or VGA) vary by laptop manufacturer. This modular approach was common in the GeForce 300M generation, allowing OEMs to swap GPUs without redesigning the motherboard, albeit within the thermal constraints of the 38 W envelope. The end-of-life production status suggests that this part has long since left active manufacturing, but its power profile remains instructive for understanding how mobile GPUs balanced performance and heat in the early 2010s.

How It Compares

The data for nearestRivals is empty, which means the GTS 360M lacks a directly comparable set of benchmark scores in this database. This absence is itself telling, it suggests that the GTS 360M occupied a niche position where contemporaneous alternatives were either too different in architecture or too sparse in test results to warrant inclusion. The percentileVsAllGpus value of 50 indicates that this GPU sits at the exact median of all GPUs ever benchmarked in this database, meaning half of all tested graphics cards perform better and half perform worse. That is a remarkably centered position, but without rival scores, the interpretation must rely on the raw performance metrics and architectural context.

The predecessor and successor designations, GeForce 200M and GeForce 400M, respectively, frame the GTS 360M as a bridge product. It launched on January 6, 2010, roughly a year after the 200M series and just before the Fermi-based 400M series. The fact that it uses the older Tesla 2.0 architecture rather than the newer Fermi design suggests it was a refresh of the previous generation rather than a true next-generation part. The 96 shading units and 32 texture mapping units are identical to what one would expect from a mid-range mobile GPU of that era, and the 8 ROPs are a clear bottleneck for fill-rate-intensive workloads.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The GTS 360M has no dedicated ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, as these specialized hardware units would not appear in NVIDIA's mobile lineup until much later. The architecture is Tesla 2.0, which predates the RTX series by nearly a decade, so any ray tracing workload would have to be handled by the general-purpose shaders, a prospect that is computationally prohibitive given the 254.0 GFLOPS of FP32 performance. The absence of Vulkan support in the API list further confirms that this GPU is locked to older graphics APIs: DirectX 11.1 (with a feature level of 10_1) and OpenGL 3.3.

The DirectX 11.1 support is interesting because the feature level of 10_1 means the hardware does not fully support DirectX 11 features like tessellation or compute shaders at the hardware level; instead, it emulates or downgrades them. This is a common trait of early DirectX 11-compatible parts that were based on DirectX 10-era architectures. In practice, this means the GTS 360M can run games that require DirectX 11, but with reduced visual fidelity and performance compared to native DirectX 11 GPUs. OpenGL 3.3 support is similarly dated, limiting compatibility with modern OpenGL-based applications and emulators.

The feature set is therefore minimal by today's standards. There is no hardware-accelerated ray tracing, no DLSS, no mesh shaders, and no variable rate shading. For a benchmark database, the takeaway is that the GTS 360M is a legacy part whose feature support is a historical artifact rather than a practical recommendation for contemporary workloads.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory clock speed of the GTS 360M?

A: The memory operates at 900 MHz, which translates to 3.6 Gbps effective due to GDDR5's double data rate and quad data rate signaling.

Q: Does this GPU support Vulkan?

A: No, the API list shows Vulkan as null. The supported APIs are DirectX 11.1 (with feature level 10_1) and OpenGL 3.3.

Q: What is the transistor count and die size?

A: The GT215 chip contains 727 million transistors on a 144 mm² die, manufactured on a 40 nm process by TSMC.

Q: What is the pixel and texture fill rate?

A: The pixel rate is 4.400 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 17.60 GTexel/s, derived from 8 ROPs and 32 TMUs respectively.

Q: Is the GTS 360M still in production?

A: No, the production status is listed as "End-of-life," with a release date of January 6, 2010.

Q: What is the FP32 performance in GFLOPS?

A: The single-precision floating-point performance is 254.0 GFLOPS, calculated from 96 shading units at the given clock speeds.

Who Should Consider It

Given the 50th percentile ranking across all GPUs, the GTS 360M is a squarely mid-pack performer. For a laptop from 2010, this would have been a reasonable choice for 720p gaming at medium settings, but the data does not support any modern use case. The 254.0 GFLOPS of FP32 performance means that even light 3D workloads like CAD viewing or older indie games would struggle at 1080p. The 57.60 GB/s of memory bandwidth further constrains high-resolution textures, as the 128-bit bus with GDDR5 cannot feed the GPU fast enough for detailed scenes.

For users with legacy software, specifically DirectX 10-era games or OpenGL 3.3 applications, the GTS 360M could still serve as a functional, low-power solution. The 38 W TDP makes it a candidate for battery-conscious portable devices, though the performance trade-off is steep. The 1024 MB VRAM is sufficient for 720p gaming with reduced texture quality, but at 1080p, the memory capacity and bandwidth would cause significant stuttering and texture pop-in. The absence of any tensor or RT cores means no modern AI-accelerated features are available, eliminating any reason to choose this GPU for machine learning or real-time ray tracing tasks.

Memory Subsystem

The GTS 360M is equipped with 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 57.60 GB/s. This configuration was typical for mid-range mobile GPUs of its generation, but the numbers reveal a clear bottleneck. The 128-bit bus width is half that of desktop high-end parts of the same era, and while GDDR5's high clock speed (900 MHz, 3.6 Gbps effective) partially compensates, the total bandwidth is modest. For comparison, the pixel rate of 4.400 GPixel/s means that at 1920x1080, the GPU can theoretically fill only about 2 frames per second with a full-screen pixel pass, though in practice games rarely require such operations.

The 57.60 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for 720p gaming with moderate textures, but it becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions or with anisotropic filtering enabled. The 8 ROPs are the primary constraint for fill-rate-bound scenarios, such as heavy alpha blending or high-resolution render targets. The memory subsystem, therefore, is best understood as a balanced but modest design: sufficient for the GPU's 254.0 GFLOPS of compute, but not headroom for future-proofing. With only 1024 MB of VRAM, modern games that require 4 GB or more will simply refuse to run or fall back to minimal settings, making this a strictly legacy component.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the GTS 360M is sparse, the avgBenchmarkScore is 0 and the nearestRivals list is empty, which means a direct quantitative comparison to contemporaries is not possible from this FACT PACK alone. The percentileVsAllGpus of 50, however, places it at the median of the entire database, which is a useful anchor. Half of all GPUs ever benchmarked are faster, and half are slower. For a mobile part from 2010, this is a respectable position, but it also indicates that the GTS 360M was never a high-end performer even at launch.

Without rival scores or deltaPct values, the interpretation must lean on the raw specifications. The 254.0 GFLOPS of FP32 performance is the key compute metric, and it is roughly one-tenth of what a modern entry-level desktop GPU delivers. The texture rate of 17.60 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 4.400 GPixel/s are similarly low, reflecting the 32 TMUs and 8 ROPs. The 96 shading units at the given clock speeds produce these numbers, and the 38 W TDP means the performance-per-watt is actually quite good for the era, a point in favor of the GTS 360M in thermally constrained laptops.

The lack of benchmark scores is a significant gap, but the architectural analysis provides a coherent picture: this is a mid-range mobile GPU that offers balanced, if modest, performance for its time. The DirectX 11.1 support with a 10_1 feature level means it can run many games of its era, but the hardware lacks the tessellation and compute capabilities of true DirectX 11 parts. The 50th percentile ranking confirms that it was an average performer, neither a budget disappointment nor a performance standout. For a database user, the GTS 360M serves as a historical reference point for the GeForce 300M generation, illustrating the transition from the Tesla architecture to the Fermi-based 400M series that followed.