Fermi Goes Mobile: AVADirect's Clevo W880CU with GTX 480M
by Dustin Sklavos on July 7, 2010 11:45 PM ESTAVADirect was kind enough to provide us with our testing unit, a specially equipped Clevo W880CU, and a refresher of the notebook's configuration is below:
| AVADirect Clevo W880CU Specifications | |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-820QM |
| (4x1.73GHz, 45nm, 8MB L3, Turbo to 3GHz, 45W) | |
| Chipset | Intel PM55 |
| Memory | 2x2GB DDR3-1333 (Max 2x4GB) |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M 2GB GDDR5 |
| (352 CUDA Cores, 425MHz/800MHz/2.4GHz Core/Shader/RAM clocks) | |
| Display | 17.3" LED Glossy 16:9 1080p (1920x1080) |
| Hard Drive(s) | Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 7200 RPM Hybrid Drive |
| (additional empty bay with RAID 0/1 capability) | |
| Optical Drive | Blu-ray Writer |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet |
| Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (a/b/g/n) | |
| Clevo Bluetooth | |
| V.92 56K Modem | |
| Audio | Realtek ALC888/1200 HD Audio |
| 4.1 speakers with line-in, mic, optical, and headphone jacks | |
| Capable of 5.1 | |
| Battery | 3-Cell, 12V, 48Wh battery |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Pricing | $2936.80 as configured from AVADirect |
We ran the W880CU through our usual lineup of Futuremark synthetic benchmarks, bouncing between four different versions of 3DMark and two different PCMarks. The matchup you'll want to watch is how the W880CU compares against the W860CUs; these three units are all equipped with an Intel Core i7-820QM processor and 4GB of DDR3, making them fairly ideal comparisons. The only difference that may effect scores is the use of the Corsair Nova SSDs in the W860s.
The first thing to notice is that the GeForce GTX 480M takes the W880CU to the top of the class in almost every 3DMark benchmark; in fact, the newer the 3DMark gets, the wider the 480M's lead. The only exceptions are units equipped with dual-GPU solutions. PCMark is much less favorable, but the reduced scores are very likely attributable to the SSDs used in the higher scoring test systems.
So how does the GeForce GTX 480M fare in actual gaming scenarios?
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Dustin Sklavos - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
Every time someone charges me with an Nvidia bias, an angel gets its wings.When I write I have to try and remove my own personal biases from the material, so the fact that my printed bias swings in the exact opposite direction as my personal one (all of my machines with dedicated GPUs are running Radeons), I feel like I've achieved something.
GamerDave20 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Yes, I own one. It plays Fallout 3 at four to five FPS at 1280 x 800 and has developed 28 vertical lines on the screen. But, my XPS Gen 2 is still my front line pc for a few reasons:1) it's paid off,
2) it runs XP satisfactorily for general computing,
3) although it was "flashy" back in it's day, it is not nearly as terrible looking as most "gaming" laptops these days,
4) and, it HAS ports on the back!
With that said, this base chassis has to be one of the best looking laptops on the market.
It is just difficult to justify if you are also considering a desktop PC.
How about a give-away with one of these as the prize!
Ha ha, and thanks for the article Anandtech and Dustin.
Dave (GamerDave20)
iwod - Sunday, July 11, 2010 - link
The Rumors suggest GF104 would actually have the same Core as the current 465 without the wasted transistor. I am wondering if those wasted transistors will leak power as well?If so, then with the better yield and leakage improvement from GF104, we could expect an even more powerful GTX480M, or a lower power version of GTX480M with smaller die, less heat, less power, same performance.
Until then, i am waiting for a better power management, tweaked version of Fermi with 28nm LP die shrink on laptop/ Notebook.
VIDYA - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
bull shit man they are selling dinosaurs at the age of aliens......kind of funny, that a few stupids will still buy them for the ad and all....... for a laptop that performs lower than a desktop and cant play when its unplugged :)VIDYA - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
GF104 is the new born baby BTW....this one is lean mean overclocker too!maarek999 - Thursday, July 15, 2010 - link
You can definitely use different Nvidia cards accelerated on Premiere cs5. There is a very simple hack for it:http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=209116
Works on the GTX470 and GTX480 so should also work with the mobile versions. Makes A WORLD of difference and a huge boost to users of Premiere. Especially when dealing with RED material or Canons DSLR-line.