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NVIDIA Announces New Line of Fermi-Based Mobile Chips
MojoKid writes "NVIDIA has announced an entire line-up of Fermi-based GeForce GT and GTX 400M mobile GPUs, seven in total, and revealed a number of notebook design wins from major OEMs. Like their desktop-targeted counterparts, the mobile GeForce GT and GTX 400M series GPUs make use of technology from NVIDIA's desktop architecture, which debuted in the GF100 GPU at the heart of the company's flagship GeForce GTX 480. GeForce GT and GTX 400M series GPUs are DirectX 11 compatible and support all of NVIDIA's 'Graphics Plus' features, including PhysX, 3D Vision, CUDA, Verde drivers, 3DTV Play and Optimus dynamic switching technology. The GeForce GTX 470M and GTX 460M are the most powerful of the group and target enthusiasts and gamers, while the GeForce GT 445M, GT 435M, GT 425M, GT 420M and GT 415M target performance-conscious, but more mainstream consumers."
But how do they perform?
They are GF104 based according to some other sources on the web. It's really the only thing that makes sense, short of a whole new chip (unlikely).
I read the internet for the articles.
This is kind of like saying "The average car cannot handle 400 horsepower."
Well of course not, because the average car wasn't designed to handle it. Nobody would put a transmission that can handle 400 horses into a car that only produces 100. Laptops are built to spec. There are dual, even quad core laptops out there that handle 100% load just fine. Many of the new i5 and i7 based laptops come with graphics cards powerful enough to run Crysis on high settings, and within reasonable temp ranges too. That's not to say there aren't poorly designed laptops out there that overheat, but 99% is a huge exaggeration.
There *is* a point to high end graphics in a laptop though; 3D modeling and gaming just to name a couple. Personally, I'm deeply interested in the performance of laptops, as I believe they are a huge part of what drives manufacturers to make more efficient designs.
I use G4 Mac to read your comment and reply, on Safari. It is like 4 hours of battery on laptop remaining. How? Apple, while still old good Apple, put a real, designed to accelerate 2D/3D GPU to the laptop. GeForce FX Go5200. That is some old GPU but I am sure it uses considerably less power than a integrated intel junk.
Newer nvidia stuff, with seperated/optimized mobile drivers does considerably better. That is part of magic on 13watt idling Mac minis who have significant issues even compared to a large laptop.
With Windows 7, a modern x.org based Linux&BSD and OS X, having a good GPU optimized for job is way more than "500 fps gaming".
Or maybe blow the dust bunnies out.
Seriously, it should be no problem for a performance laptop to handle intense work. I have an MSI GX640 which has an i5 and a 5850M and it cools itself fine. I can play high end games and life is good. The fan spins up, of course, but the laptop has no failures.
If yours can't handle its hardware there's one of three things going on:
1) You upgraded it after the fact to hardware beyond it can handle. Don't do that, read up on the thermal limits and stay in them.
2) It is full of junk and can't cool properly. Clean it out. In any environment, but particularly in dusty ones, you need to clean your cooling system to keep it working well.
3) Your laptop is a crap design, get a better one.
I don't have a great deal of laptop experience, a desktop is my main system, but all the laptops I've had could cool themselves without a problem.
Don't be surprised when Intel buys nVidia.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Anyone who has even considered buying a graphics card recently knows that Fermi is the latest-generation GPU architecture from NVIDIA. It uses smaller transistors and crams many more cores on to one chip compared to previous generations.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I mean so they can make a "modern" board for a desktop machine that doesn't require 2 6-pin connectors and draw 200 watts.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
'Cause the PCMCIA interface spec can't support the data transfer rates required. We'd need a newly engineered solution. Frankly I don't expect the notebook form factor, let alone netbooks, tablets and smartphones to continue in their current form factors. Research in materials science is yielding ever more interesting materials to work with to come up with more desirable form factors. I can somewhat see where it will end up but expect a rapid turnover in approaches for the next decade.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go