Final Words

The performance of the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra is unprecedented in the mobile space. Of course, while the mobility of a DTR system is always debatable, there's no doubt that scaling down powerful systems to this size has its advantages and appeal (especially when there is no sacrifice in graphics performance).

Without having a comparable comparison platform, we can't directly compare the Go 6800 Ultra and the desktop 6800 parts. It does seem clear that Go 6800 Ultra is at least as powerful as its desktop counterpart. Being limited by a less powerful CPU and still coming out on top in more than a couple tests is very impressive.

We would still like to setup a direct comparison between the Go and desktop 6800 parts in order to examine the part on a clock for clock level. We would like to better determine the impact of the power saving features in mobile part. The 50MHz speed bump from the desktop to the Go 6800 Ultra seems only possible due to power saving features. On the desktop NVIDIA tried the 6800 Ultra Extreme, but most vendors were only able to get their parts to about 425 (and this in a virtually thermally unlimited environment). Of course, performance is one of the tradeoffs in the balance, and a clock for clock comparison in the same platform would give us some good data on the GeForce Go line's efficiency compared to the desktop.

It's also useful to note that the new XPS Gen 2 did not get as hot to the touch. It seems Dell has done a better job of getting heat to move outside the system in spite of all the power packed into the chassis. We only had one night with the system, so we were unable to perform an in depth analysis of the system.

Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance
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  • Regs - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    If im not mistaken, the only difference between the GT and Ultra are their clock speeds #7. These benchmarks are baffling. I'm having a hard time believing them. How on earth did they pull it out?

    Is this a prelude to what's to in the next generation of desk top cards? I'm think, if they can make a mobile card this fast, they should surely make a faster desk top counterpart with less heat, space, and power restraints.
  • Mingon - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    Odd how a 12pipe / 5 vs @ 450mhz can out pace a desktop 16pipe 6vs @425. What optimisations have been done? I can understand it beating a 6800gt due to greater vertex/pixel shading power (450 x 5 vs 350 x 6) but it shouldnt beat an ultra.

    Is the nv41m on 0.13 or 0.11um ? the die seems quite large any idea on transistor count?
  • pxc - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1769520,00.as... batterymark 2 hours 13 minutes with the P-M 2.13GHz, WiFi, 1GB and 80GB hard drive.

    The base price of the computer is $2249 with:
    P-M 760 (2GHz)
    512MB DDR2 dual channel
    17" WUXGA (1920x1200)
    256MB go 6800 Ultra
    combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM
    60GB HD
    9 Cell battery (80WHr)
    WinXP
    etc

    http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx...

    It's about the cheapest go 6800 laptop, but it includes the fastest version.

    total.ownage
  • bamacre - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    You can configure one now. $2745 for a well equiped system. Intenal Audigy, 6800 Go Ultra, 2.0Ghz P4 "760," cdrw/dvd drive, 1GB ddr2. Not bad for what it can do.
  • Icehawk - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    Amazing, just a few years ago the idea of gaming on a laptop was laughable. Now you can get a DTR that can pretty much keep up with the latest desktops - wow!

    Not just battery life... but cost. This has got to be a $3k+ machine :(
  • seanp789 - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    For a laptop to come even come to close to desktop performance is simply amazing. so be on par with? Wow, just wow.

    they manage to do all this with a laptop battery and cooling?

    I would really like to see that go card translate into a desktop part. It would make running SLI a little easier.
  • DerekWilson - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    We would too :-/

    We just didn't have time to perform any battery life or power tests as we had to spend all the time we had with the system benchmarking games.
  • dvinnen - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link

    I would love to see the battery life for this thing.

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