Nvidia notebook graphics

tech: Nvidia notebook graphics

November 19 2007 | WilHarris

Today Nvidia is releasing its brand new mobile graphics card, called the GeForce 8800M GTX. This brings high-end desktop performance right onto the latest notebooks - great if you’re a gamer on the go, or a fan of LAN parties.

The 8800 is an improvement on the previous best, the 8600 - there’s faster memory included, for one, and a larger number of processing units. This combines to make it a heck of a lot faster in some of the latest games.

In the video we did a Crysis speed benchmark test. This was run using the full version of the game, at a resolution of 1280×800 with all details set to High. The results were an average of 32 FPS (frames per second) for the 8800 and 10 FPS for the 8600 - showing it to be three times as fast as the previous card in this particular scenario. Now that won’t always be the case, but it is indicative of the power to be had.

The notebooks we used were variations of the Xtreme 770 sold by Rock - which you can find right here on their website. Rock makes fine gaming notebooks, so be sure to check them out.

Hope you enjoy today’s show - we will be bringing you more launch events as and when we get our hands on the latest kit!

-Wil

comments

November 19th, 2007 - 9:34pm

Wow!

woodstock

November 20th, 2007 - 1:34am

yeah its a nice mobile gpu but how is the battery life in compared to the 8600

Branko Badrljica

November 20th, 2007 - 8:14am

Rock’s prices are high IMO.

I’ll rather wait for MSI GX700 with that option…

Jub

November 20th, 2007 - 1:15pm

Dont see the point of gaming laptops really.I could probably build a more powerfull desktop AND buy a cheap laptop for the same money this costs.
I think its just the “hey look what i have” factor that makes ppl buy em.Either that or they are trying to get rid of some of that lottery money they won.

k henderson

November 20th, 2007 - 4:38pm

There is always a severe tradeoff when you put a powerful videocard in a laptop and try to run the laptop on battery. You’ll be lucky to have 1.5 hours of gametime. There’s really no point in trying to run a game like this on a laptop unless you can plug the laptop in the wall. At that point, why bother running these instensive games on a portable laptop?

RotJ

November 20th, 2007 - 5:28pm

Nvidia mobile GPUs automatically underclock themselves when operating on battery power, so I don’t think the GPU will affect normal battery life too much.

If you’re talking about setting the power mode to max performance and playing a game like Crysis on batteries, I would guess it’ll last about 30 minutes tops on either notebook.

bbq

November 20th, 2007 - 5:44pm

lol. u benchmarked it with buggy drivers. but thats cool cuz I really wanted to see how those stupid driver programers messed up water reflections.

Mandon

November 20th, 2007 - 7:21pm

umm….actually the previous “fastest” mobile graphics card was the GeForce Go7950GTx , not the 8600m….infact even the 8700M is faster than the 8600m (thoughby not that much), still an impressive card though

Robert Thorneycroft

November 22nd, 2007 - 12:47pm

To Jub and K Henderson who ask why you would want one of these laptops you oviously don’t travel about that much. I live out of hotels for half of my life whilst I am away working, being able to play all the latest games on my laptop keeps me sane.

And to Mandon who says the 8700m isn’t faster by that much what planet are you from??? This card is providing a 3x frame rate improvement in this benchmark over what was previously just about the fastest portable graphics card in the world (GTX 7950 is slightly faster in most benches), I would class that as a fairly substantial improvement in performance!

Tom

November 22nd, 2007 - 2:13pm

There are plenty of reasons for owning such a laptop, which have nothing to do with bragging. If you think otherwise, you are simply not part of the market that these laptops are aimed at.

It is true that if you are on a budget or prefer to always play a game at the highest quality settings, then gaming laptops are not for you.

wazX » Blog Archive » [Lançamento] NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Mobile

November 22nd, 2007 - 4:44pm

[…] favoritas até este momento), que agora tem uma irmã maior e de respeito. Na prática? Veja que vídeo legal mostrando o fantástico game Crysis rodando em um notebook equipado com a 8600M e a […]

November 22nd, 2007 - 6:35pm

I have an Xtreme SL Pro (The Ultimate Gaming Laptop) - according to Rock) - it has dual core - 2 GB RAM - 20″ screen and 2×7950GTX (512MB) in SLi mode. I have had nothing but trouble with this machine for nearly a year - it overheats like you wouldn’t believe (we heat our living room with it) and won’t play the latest games at the native resolution of the screen (1680×1050) due to the overheating - it goes into low power mode so the graphics cards don’t melt with the result of really crap game performance…

Deano

November 23rd, 2007 - 3:52am

Looks good but i upgraded my rig for £610.00 which is now high end, It wold be nice to have a nice laptop like that as it would save room and that , My misses would prob kick me out if i spent that much on a laptop , Mind is that such a bad thing :P. But like someone else said above why not just a laptop and a desktop for about the same price if not cheaper than the above model .

» Crysis, c’est fou !

November 25th, 2007 - 5:02pm

[…] le chipset pour ordinateur mobile nVidia GeForce 8880M GTX est en pr

» More Crysis madness

November 25th, 2007 - 5:03pm

[…] hog): The nVidia GeForce 8880M GTX mobile chipset is being readied just for that purpose. A demonstrative video comparing 8600 and 8800 graphics […]

Gra

March 31st, 2008 - 7:44am

I have an extreme 770 with the 7950 GTX and will be upgrading to the 8800M, it is totally worth it. Expensive yes, but i can play this wherever I like…I just told my missus that i paid half the price I actually paid for it!