NVidia boosts notebook graphics

NVidia is promising to give notebook users the kind of graphics performance found on PCs with the introduction of what it claims are the world's fastest notebook graphics processors.

The new GeForce 8800M notebook graphics processing units (GPUs) will ship soon to notebook makers. nVidia maintained that they have hit the highest scores on industry-standard benchmarks.
Both the GeForce 8800M GTX and GeForce 8800M GTS support Direct X 10 and are targeted at the fast-growing market for gaming notebooks.
The new chips feature nVidia’s PureVideo HD engine for playing back HD DVD, Blu-ray and HD movie downloads. The in-built PowerMizer technology allows users to customise how the card is set up to balance battery life versus performance.
Both processors have a core clock speed of 500MHz, 512MB of graphics memory, shader and memory clock speeds of 1250MHz and 800MHz, respectively. The only difference is that the 8800M GTX chip has 96 stream processors compared with 64 on the GTS.
“I am absolutely amazed by the sheer performance of the new GeForce 8800M GTX-powered notebooks,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, creators of the game Unreal Tournament 3 and the Unreal Engine 3 game engine.
“These machines run Unreal Tournament 3 fantastically even at HD resolutions of 1,920x1,200.”
Frank Azor, executive vice president for Alienware’s product group and marketing, said: “Alienware’s philosophy when designing 17in and 15in notebooks was a commitment to using only the best components.
“Our next-generation notebooks, the Area-51 m17x and Area-51 m15x, launching early next year, will feature the raw power and vivid detail of the GeForce 8800M GTX.”
Notebooks boasting the new 8800M chips are expected to be available soon from European system integrators including Airis, Chiligreen, Cizmo, Cybersystem, Ergo, Nexoc, Novatech, Plaisio, Rock and XXODD.
Nvidia celebrates first billion-dollar quarter