AVADirect M570RU: SLI, Drivers, and 8800M GTX Performance
by Jarred Walton on March 14, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
1920x1200 FPS Gaming Performance
Given that this is the native resolution of the display and that we're testing very high-end gaming notebooks, we will start by focusing on performance at 1920x1200. As discussed in our XPS M1730 review, NVIDIA provided us with an updated driver (v174.20) that improved SLI performance quite significantly in a few titles. We will make a note in the charts below when we used the updated driver; otherwise we tested with the officially shipping driver. We test in the same manner on all notebooks, but we don't have results at 1920x1200 on many of the previously tested systems.
Okay, that was a ton of charts, but for the most part we see performance fall right where we would expect. The 8800M GTX is the most powerful single mobile GPU currently available, so outside of SLI configurations it places near the top of most charts. There are a few exceptions, however.
We would not be surprised by slight variations in performance between the WidowPC and the AVADirect computers, particularly in light of the fact that AVADirect has a faster and newer CPU. In many of the games, the differences are small enough that we can chalk them up to the faster processor or the use of a 64-bit OS. Crysis (medium detail), Far Cry, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Quake 4, and Oblivion also relatively significant performance differences, with the WidowPC system coming out had in the majority of the games.
If we still had that system, we would be able to go through and rerun all of the benchmarks as a sanity check. As it stands, all we can say for sure is there some odd results. It could simply be a case of the motherboard BIOS not being properly tuned for Penryn; it could also be that the 64-bit platform and drivers have managed to catch up and surpass the 32-bit environment. Or perhaps there some other explanation that we're missing. We have no reason to expect the two systems to be this different, so we are left guessing.
For what it's worth, as we'll see in a moment, performance on the Dell XPS M1730 with SLI disabled is nearly identical to the AVADirect M570RU. Both systems come equipped with a Penryn X9000 and a 32-bit operating system; the Dell system has two hard drives running in RAID 0, it has a different motherboard, and it's running 2 GB of memory. The most likely explanation for the performance anomalies above thus remains with the 64-bit OS and Penryn… or perhaps we just messed up when we ran some of the benchmarks on the WidowPC system. (Ed: Hey, it happens on occasion; we'd love to retest if we still had the notebook in our possession.)
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docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So let me see if I understand this correctly, Nvidia will not be offering mobile drivers to the public but will make them available to the vendor who can validate them and then offer them to their customers on their web site? ie through Dell?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
See above. There will still be official driver updates from the vendors after validation, presumably - or at least, they'll come as often as they have in the past. :)docjon - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Jared,How about a link to the beta drivers? I checked the nvidia web site and can't find the 174.20 drivers you used.
JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
The 174.20 drivers were directly from NVIDIA but they are still undergoing testing and validation. The plan was to hopefully have those available (well, an updated version that addresses a few things probably) within the next month. Note that the LaptopVideo2Go 174.xx drivers are not the same, as those are based off the desktop parts and lack mobile optimizations as far as I can see.ap90033 - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
When they finally are on Nvidia's website, will they only work for 8800M GTX's or will they also work for 8800M GTS's? I have a P6831FX Gateway and would love some newer drivers. :)JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
My understanding is that the next "Mobile Driver Update" from NVIDIA will cover all GeForce M chips on Vista 32-bit/64-bit for participating vendors. So that means the Gateway FX, Toshiba X205, Dell XPS, and various Clevo notebooks should all work with the beta driver. Probably some others as well. I *hope* that they get GeForce Go support on Vista as well with the next driver, and likewise I would appreciate seeing new XP drivers for both Go and M series cards.docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So these drivers will not be offered by nvidia to the general public but will be made available to dell to offer after they validate them?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
No, the "Mobile Gaming Drivers" or whatever you want to call it are going to be available from NVIDIA. The last release came just before 8800M launched, so it only supports up through the 8700M. They also didn't cover all GPUs on all OSes - so 8400-8700M got Vista drivers and GeForce Go 7xxx got XP drivers.The laptop vendors do have to agree to participate - so Dell pretty much tells NVIDIA it's okay if they release a driver that will work with the XPS laptops, as an example. Note that this is not just a vendor decision; it's a model decision as well. So while Dell is okay with "beta" drivers direct from NVIDIA for their XPS (gaming) laptops, they don't want beta drivers for Inspiron or Latitude laptops.
Normally, notebook vendors do not allow manufacturers to release "reference" updated drivers that support the mobile chipsets, which is why we see stuff like LaptopVideo2Go.com. Well, this is a step back from that stance, but only for laptops where updated video drivers are a major concern. Thus, the vendors still have to give NVIDIA permission to release the drivers to the public. Make sense?
builtone2many - Friday, March 14, 2008 - link
Great article. Kind of curious about the casing in the pictures. The latest version from Clevo for systems with X9000 processors has a slightly different casing, labled "Extreme Edition", with an additional molded section on the bottom to provide for better ventilation around the CPU. Wonder if AVA is shipping old case versions?JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Thanks for the comments. I've had this system for about a month, and it's pre-release. It could be that the final shipping models will cool the CPU better, have a working overclock for X9000, and not be as loud at idle. I can only hope so.