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NVidia NV17M Mobile GPU Preview
Mathew Solnik writes: "A year ago nVidia set the laptop world on fire with the release of the GeForce2 Go mobile graphics chipset. Today they push the envelope with the release of the NV17M mobile graphics chipset. Offering unmatched performance in 3D gaming applications, the NV17M promises to put nVidia at the forefront of high end graphics solutions for mobile systems. This GPU is much faster then the Geforce2 Go and is more or less the Geforce3 for laptops. Check out AMDZone for the preview." Pretty incredible how powerful laptops are, even given their lag behind desktop performance. This is far more powerful than any video card I've ever owned.
<insert obligatory overheating joke here> Anyway, please pick the submissions a little more carefully. I don't want to read press releases on Slashdot.
Not so much for gaming but in my last job I talked to many people who wanted "awesome gfx" on their laptops to do presentations using high end (http://www.ptc.com) cad/cam packages. It was just easier in many cases for them to do the presentation on a laptop. That is one of the business reasons for this.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Yes, this is a silly comparison:
NV17M Marcus' home PC
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350MHz 200MHz
64MB 32MB
2048*1536 640*320
1 square inch 2 square feet
Erm. Quake? Whats that....
The review/preview makes a big deal about how most laptop DVD players drain the batteries before the movie is entirely over, or very shortly after. Using a dedicated graphics chip to render the animation should improve the battery life by quite a bit.
more drivers that don't _FUCKING NOT COMPILE_!
Does that mean that they do compile?
My spoon is too big.
Some things:
1) When the chip is working with 2d, it does not consume max power. Like all processors consumption is based on how hard it is working. Now granted, something like this won't be as low power as say a Rage Mobility, it still has sufficiently low drain to work in a laptop.
2) The target kind of laptops for this are, by their nature, large high drain devices. They probably have large LCDs (15"), fast processors (900mhz+) lots of ram and so on. Computers like that also tend to pack lots of battery power. We have some new Dell C810s at work with the GeForce 2 Go and when you stick both battries in they can really last a long time, even when doing 3d work.
3) Some people would rather have a single system than a desktop and a laptop. In that case, having powerful grapics can be important. For some, work requires it, and for others, it games. And please, don't give me any shit about game on PCs or that you ought to own a console or the like. Having fun is important and some of us really like PC games.
I get a little sick of people whining about the power consumption of digital devices in general. Yes, companies should strive to make devices that minimize power drain, and believe it or not by and large they do, however there are legimate reasons to want to own high drain devices with lots of silicon. If a tiny MIPS computer works for you, fine, use it, but please dont' assume that the rest of us don't have legitmate uses for beefier systems. That use may well just be to amuse ourselves, but that is a perfectly good use.