Killer Mobile Graphics — NVIDIA's GeForce 8800M

MojoKid writes "Today NVIDIA unveiled the much-anticipated GeForce 8800M series of mobile graphics processors. The GeForce 8800M is powered by the new G92M GPU which is built on a 65nm manufacturing process and shares a lineage with the desktop-bound G92 GPU on which NVIDIA built their GeForce 8800 GT. The 8800M series will come in two flavors, a GTX and a GTS, with different configurations of stream processors, 64 for the GTS model and 96 for the high-end GTX."

Comments

Alienware already has two 8800M GTX models

[Zymergy]

It appears Alienware will be using the GeForce 8800M GTX in their "m15x" and "m17x" models:
http://www.alienware.com/intro_pages/m17x_m15x.aspx
NVIDIA GeForce 8800M Link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8M.html

Re:Alienware already has two 8800M GTX models

[snl2587]

That is, of course, if you really want to pay for Alienware.

Re:Effects on Battery Life?

[gerf]

Well, it's supposedly more mizerly (?) than the 512MB 8600m GT, which I have. With a 1.6 c2d, 2GB ram, XP Pro, and a 85WHr battery, I can get over 5 hours of battery life, which I think is dang good considering that I can play games quite well. That of course is not while gaming, only web browsing and using IM.

Of course, this will vary from laptop to laptop, YMMV.

Re:Effects on Battery Life?

[futuresheep]

If you're buying a laptop because it has this graphics chip, battery life is secondary to frames per second. The people that are buying these laptops buy them because they're suited for playing games anywhere while plugged in, not traveling and off site work.

Re:Effects on Battery Life?

[Zymergy]

PowerMizer Mobile Technology page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_powermizer.html

Maybe the NVIDIA Technical Brief will yield some answers: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_26269.html (Warning, spawns a PDF)

PowerMizer7.0 Power Management Techniques:
Use of leading edge chip process
CPU load balancing
Intelligent GPU utilization management
Revolutionary performance-per-watt design
PCI Express power management
Aggressive clock scaling
Dedicated power management circuits
Display brightness management
Adaptive performance algorithms

CPU Offload Example (from NVIDIA's Technical Brief)
Figures 3 and 4 (see PDF) show CPU utilization when running a Blu-ray H.264 HD movie using the CPU and GPU, respectively. You can see that under the GPU video playback, 30% less CPU cycles are being used. This dramatic reduction in CPU usage means less power is being consumed by the processor, therefore system power consumption is reduced. resulting in longer battery life.
Note: Testing was conducted on an Intel Centrino based platform with 2 GHz Core2 Duo processor, and a GeForce 8600M GS, running Intervideo WinDVD8 playing a Casino Royale H.264 Blu-ray disc.

Passively cooled desktop cards?

[Kris_J]

I need to upgrade an old PC that's built to be quiet, thus doesn't have a fan on the video card. Anyone know if these chips could be used to make a passively cooled desktop video card, and if they're likely to be?

Re:Passively cooled desktop cards?

[vipz]

I believe the 8800GT on the desktop side of things uses the same G92 chip. Sparkle has already announced a passively cooled version of that: Press Release Pictures of a passively cooled Gainward card have also been floating around the net.

Re:Effects on Battery Life?

[m94mni]

Actually, one important part of newer PowerMizer designs (>3.0 maybe) is that parts of the GPU are *turned off* when not in use. Other parts run on decreased voltage.

That effectively decreases the number of proce3ssors and of course saves a *lot* of Watts.

Re:Unlikely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you got it the wrong way around.

Apple was going 100% ATI, but then ATI leaked about how they'd got the contract to the press and Jobs was furious. He really HATES secrets getting let out (I've no idea why, it seems to be industry standard practice. But if you ever happen to enter a NDA with applie then you better honour it!)

Anyway, Apple pulled the contract and shifted every mac they could to nvidia. However, for some reason they didn't shift imac despite shifting everything else. I have a vague suspicion it is to force apple developers to always code in a GPU independent way (basically to keep nividia honest) but as an imac owner, it is very annoying.

Wait...

[Vampyre_Dark]

Wait ten days... 8800GTSE
Wait ten days... 8800GTSE2 with pack in game
Wait ten days... 8800GTSE OVERCLOCKED EXTREME EDITION
Wait ten days... 8850LE
Wait ten days... 8850GTS
Wait six months... driver update makes 8850GTS 25% slower.
Wait ten days... 9800GT
Wait three months... driver update makes 8850GTS 25% slower.
Wait ten days... 9850GTS
Wait three months... driver update makes 9800GT 25% slower.

This is the song that never ends!
Yes it goes on and on my friends...

Re:Effects on Battery Life?

[PopeRatzo]

Actually, one important part of newer PowerMizer designs (>3.0 maybe) is that parts of the GPU are *turned off* when not in use. Other parts run on decreased voltage.

Sounds good. Why don't they put one of these into a desktop for me? My machine is used for digital music and video editing and post-production. It would be nice to have a powerful video card that doesn't need too much noisy refrigeration. As it is, I've got a constant fight with heat and noise. I've built a quiet enclosure, but it gets warm in there. I've tried liquid cooling, but it's also a little noisy. Right now, I've got liquid cooling inside the enclosure, and cables as long as practical. I'm planning a closet for my gear, but I've got to wait until my kid finishes school and moves out first. I'd rather live with the noise and keep her around.

Actually, as time goes on I do less and less live recording, and when I do, I just use one of these extra-cool portable digital recorders and go somewhere quiet. When you work in a home studio, you make adjustments.

But I still perk up whenever I hear about "decreased voltage". I'm all for saving watts.