Fermi Goes Mobile: AVADirect's Clevo W880CU with GTX 480M
by Dustin Sklavos on July 7, 2010 11:45 PM EST
Closing Thoughts
The back to school season is starting to gear up, and we should see more DX11 GPUs out of NVIDIA using something besides a trimmed GF100 in the fall. We also hope to see better designs using the GTX 480M, because frankly the W870CU/W880CU chassis is not what we expect from a high-end gaming notebook. Perhaps we'll even see some ambitious company stuff a couple GTX 480M chips into a notebook, though we'll need more than a 240W power brick to make that happen. Naturally, there should be plenty of competition from the AMD camp as well, and if nothing else at least 480M has made things interesting.
At the end of the day, NVIDIA got their crown back. The GeForce GTX 480M is now officially the fastest mobile GPU available, and like the AMD camp it supports DX11. Beyond being faster than the HD 5870, you also get CUDA and PhysX support. Was it worth it? It depends on your perspective.
If NVIDIA could get the GTX 480M clocks up about 30% without increasing power, this would be a monster. But what we really need is a SKU from a vendor that doesn't milk people for every dollar. If we're aggressive on other components we can get the W880CU down to around $2300 with 4GB RAM and a Core i5-520M, and that should still be fast enough to feed the GTX 480M. Do the same for the W870CU with HD 5870 and you can get the price down to $1600... or just grab the ASUS G73Jh for $1500 and get a backpack, larger battery, 8GB RAM, and dual 500GB hard drives. Small wonder the ASUS G73Jh continues to be our pick for a DTR gaming laptop. Hopefully ASUS or someone else can do a similar treatment for the 480M, because right now the W880CU just isn't worth buying.
Now, if someone can get us close to 5870/480M performance and features and throw in Optimus Technology (or an AMD equivalent) with a reasonable chassis and battery life, we'd be far more interested. Think Alienware M11x with a slightly larger chassis and a faster CPU/GPU, ASUS U30Jc with a faster DX11 GPU, or the MSI GX640 with a better keyboard and auto-switching graphics. Is anyone crazy enough to try an Arrandale CPU with GTX 480M and Optimus for under $2000? We can only hope! (Or we can wait for Intel to get quad-core Sandy Bridge CPUs with IGPs next year.) Many laptops are coming close, but so far we haven't encountered anything that we can universally recommend. Perhaps the inevitable fall refresh will have what we're looking for.
We'd also like to thank AVADirect for providing us with our Clevo W880CU Gaming Notebook review sample.
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7Enigma - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
That's really cool. Thanks for the post. My cousin does Adobe work and I belive has the GTS 250 with either 512 or 1gig memory. I'll have to try this out the next time I'm over his place.therealnickdanger - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
The best part is that Adobe is aware of this tweak and has no plans to "turn it off". While using this method is not officially supported, it appears to be unofficially encouraged.:)
B3an - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Surely NV will be supporting CS5 with atleast the 4xx series? Why only have the 285GTX support it for non-workstation cards?therealnickdanger - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
NVIDIA doesn't have much say in the matter. It's Adobe's software, Adobe's engine.The 4xx series works exceptionally well with the tweak, so it's a non-issue anyway.
Gunbuster - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Can we get a benchmark with a CrossfireX HD 5870 Laptop?frozentundra123456 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I like the idea of a 1000-1500 dollar gaming notebook for moderate gaming, but I dont think this notebook is anywhere near worth the price. For 3000 dollars, one could buy a mid level notebook for moderate gaming and buy/build a 1500 dollar desktop that would have excellent performance.angelkiller - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I'm still not satisfied with their naming scheme. I do think this is a step in the right direction though. This time at least the name refers to the correct architecture. But the GTX 480M isn't a mobile version of a GTX 480. It's more like a GTX 465M. And this isn't just a Nvidia problem. The Mobility 5870 isn't a mobile version of a 5870.I think the idea of naming laptop cards after desktop cards is flawed to begin with. Instead, laptop cards should have their own series name. Then the name would never be misleading. Then the ATI Mobility <Series Name> could be based off the desktop Juniper chip and nobody would care. The name wouldn't refer to something that the card isn't. Hopefully that made sense.
I also wanted to say that I've really been digging the articles AT has been putting out lately. Very thorough and informative analysis. Keep it up!
anactoraaron - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I completely agree. The 480M isn't "properly named". It should be named 465M.Also, I could care less who (nVidia or ATI) has the 'fastest' card as long as it's practical... MSI has a new laptop (reviewed here on AT) that still gets 2~3 hrs of battery life with a mobility 5870. In my mind, the superior product is the one that can actually be used not plugged in all of the time. And I don't need to re-hash all of the impractical reasons to get the desktop fermi... I still can't get the "epic fail" taste out of my mouth from this series of graphics cards from nVidia.
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
The thing is, at least the 480M is the same freaking silicon as the desktop 480. It may be crippled, but it's the same chip. The same can't be said about...well...pretty much anything else in Nvidia's mobile lineup. ATI was doing well in the 4 series, but their 5 series is nearly as bad. 5700s = desktop 5600s, 5800s = desktop 5700s.therealnickdanger - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
That doesn't make sense. The desktop 470 and 465 are also "crippled" versions of the 480, but at least they are appropriately named. That's the point."NVIDIA's GTX 480M uses the same cut-down core found in desktop GeForce GTX 465 cards."
480M:
352 CUDA Cores
256-bit
GDDR5
GTX465 Desktop:
352 CUDA Cores
256-bit
GDDR5
GTX480 Desktop:
480 CUDA Cores
384-bit
GDDR5
So logically, if the 480M is the SAME as the desktop 465... then it should be called the 465M, not the 480M. Technically speaking, NVIDIA does NOT make a mobile GTX 480. It's misleading and just plain nonsense.
ATI is no better.