NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: 'world's fastest' mobile GPU now official, landing in June
By Vlad Savov 
posted May 25th 2010 9:00AM
posted May 25th 2010 9:00AM
05/25/2010: New GeForce GTX 480M: the World's Fastest Notebook GPU
Today we introduced the new GeForce GTX 480M GPU for Notebooks and with it we're achieving some very impressive milestones. First, this is DirectX 11 done right for notebooks. Tessellation is the most important new feature for the DirectX 11 API, and the GeForce GTX 480M is a true tessellation monster for the notebook platform. It offers a dedicated Tessellation engine for up to 5x more performance than any other GPU.
Second, with the power of the GeForce GTX 480M GPUs, notebook manufacturers can set new records for notebook performance. Put simply: If a notebook maker wants to build the fastest possible system on the planet, they will start with GeForce GTX 480M as its foundation.
Third, we've now brought the vaunted Fermi architecture to notebooks. GeForce GTX 480M delivers nearly three times more NVIDIA CUDA cores over previous generation Notebook GPUs, which means users get unbelievably fast video transcoding, upscaling from standard definition to high definition and real-time movie clean-up with the click of a button.
And finally, the GeForce GTX 480M not only delivers the world's best gaming frame rates, it also gives added features that no other GPU offers, including NVIDIA 3D Vision technology for an immersive gaming experience, NVIDIA PhysX technology that brings games to life with dynamic, interactive environments and NVIDIA Verde Notebook Drivers for the most up-to-date performance from your notebook.
We're happy to partner with Clevo to introduce the first system based on GeForce GTX 480M. Stay tuned for more systems in the future.
Hmmmmm I wonder what device gets this?
@racerbmw
More importantly, how much will it cost? I think I want to keep my firstborn.
@BigJayDogg3 Most importantly, whats the TDP? There was no problem getting the 295W figure for the desktop 480 unit, where its arguably less important.
@BigJayDogg3
I want the Fermi quadro!
I'm wondering why they mentioned it's slower than the desktop 480; what mobile GPU is ever even close to it's desktop form?
@racerbmw I don't really care the device(s) that get this, it'll either bring down the price of the card in the m11x (helping to prevent any price increase from a new processor) or possibly come to it. Dude, I'm getting a dell - errr, close enough.
@chrisp
I thinks it's already been mentioned- 100 watts. Same as the 3800m quadro which only has 128 cores by the way. 400+ cores? That's wild! I'm looking forward to editing HD on laptops rather than a desktop this year.
@chrisp
*300+ cores
Any chance this thing requires a laptop to have 2 removable batteries?
@racerbmw
what device?? A Big Ass 17' Laptop desktop replacement gets this..lol what device..my friend its a beastly device.
@chrisp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If0Bkfnifi4
And if you thought battery fires were bad...
@racerbmw
'Worlds fastest'
And I'm the 'queen of Sheba'.
@chrisp It's been announced elsewhere that the TDP of the GTX-480M is 100W. This is well outside of the 75W TDP limit that the MXM 3.0b standard allows for, so any laptop that uses it will need to be specially designed. It's not just power either - this puppy will run a lot hotter than the 75W boards, so some beefy cooling will be needed. And you can probably forget about SLI configurations.
@racerbmw Its good to see Nvidia still hitting some title after that loss from the 5970, I say keep it up. I like to think as the fastest graphics card for laptop as well. http://j.mp/gefore-gtx-480m-deal
Wow ill take 2 please
@Jean Marc Ok, but in SLI they will only run at 215Mhz to have any hope of ever running on battery and keeping the skin on your lap from burning off.
@Jean Marc
I would take a fire insurance with that order.
its funny how these processor speeds manage to hit the 1Ghz mark in no time.. but then it kinda slows down..
Remember how we went from the 333mhz processor all the way up to the 1ghz from 98- 2001.. but after that.. things just seem to slow down..
- a novice speaking here. This might not even make sense to most of you.. just thought i'd put it out there..
@dimithra
Yes, because higher clock speeds uses more power and gets hotter. That is why there has been a movements last couple of years towards parallel architectures and other ways to do more instructions per seconds than just "brute force" clock speeds.
@dimithra U are soo true... now we are having 3.2 GHZ 6 cores... :O
we have broken the Moore's Law.. :P
@dimithra
I think it has a lot to do with processor manufacturers slowing clock speed and making processors all around more powerful. Judging on clock speed alone, many (if not most) of the C2Ds would be better than most of the i7 line. And we both know that isn't true. Now is the performance increase is worth the price jump? That's up to you and your wallet to decide.
@Razi No we have not. Moore's Law was never about speed or power. It was about cost. Moore simply said that transistors halve in cost ever couple years or so (later revised to 18 months). That is still the case.
@motorolo No, moores law was not about cost. It was about the resistor count doubling with each generation while size decreases. It is still happening.
@sys3175
No, you're ALL wrong, it's about the TRANSISTOR count doubling.
God damn, it takes 30 seconds to Google it and make sure you're right.
Sounds neat, but how hot will it get? That was why I reluctantly picked a gaming laptop with ATI card in it recently (even as a Linux dual-booter I know I'm going to get driver issues). All the nVidia based laptops I read reviews for mentioned that they got painfully hot and had really loud fans.
@wgren
I don't remember the model number, but my brother's Asus with the 240m doesn't have heat issues. Maybe we just don't push it enough?
@wgren Did you read the article? You know where it states how they processor is nearly halved in speed?
I think it's pretty scandalous for mobile graphics cards to have the same name as their desktop counter-parts when they're either totally underclocked OR a completely different and worse chip.
I would say this is even worse than name recycling which at least put the GPU in the correct performance "spot" in the naming scheme.
@Schmich, speed might has been halved. but cooling on a laptop can handle probably a quarter or less of heat output compared to an average desktop.
100W TDP is precisely twice more than mobile Radeon Mobility 5870 - http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/graphics/ati-mobility-hd-5800/Pages/hd-5870-specs.aspx - would be interesting to see the two in the benchmarks.
What would make the comparison even more interesting is that officially mobility 5870 can pump 1.1TFLOPs. ~200GFLOPs more than 480m.
@Dummy00001 I'm not sure about the official specs, but it appears that pretty much all of the Radeon Mobility 5870 MXM boards have a 70W TDP.
Peak power consumption? Out of all the specs they have cited, they leave out the most crucial one.
I wonder why...
@chrisp Fermi requires 1.21 Jiggawatts!
@Matt08642 Great Scott!
@Matt08642 I heard 1.4 AwesomeWATTS!
My lap is cowering in fear!
Seriously, I'd love to know what the heat and power consumption is like on these chips.
Timmeeeaaahh!
@FriskyQ32 immlibbinalye
Where is the TDP?
@iSmug
It's under my eggs and bacon. sunny side up anyone?
I think the ATI Mobility HD 5870 is the equivalant of a ATI HD 5770 desktop, wonder what the direct equivalant for this is :P
@TehSilentWolf A barbeque.
Not sure why people are worried about heat when these parts are obviously meant for portable workstations/gaming rigs, not true portable devices or laptops, and in it's intended role, heat won't be that big an issue
@z0phi3l
Heat in such a confined space IS an issue. And it also requires heavier cooling capability. I don't want my workstation laptop to sound like a Saturn V on takeoff.
@z0phi3l
It does matter if it cooks your wrist while you're playing. Not to mention the fact that heat kills computers.
@z0phi3l
The Dell M6500 already runs a 100 watt (supposedly the 480m is the same) GPU and it's actually known as a relatively cool runner.
You don't need heavier duty cooling hardware, just more efficient. It's something that both the technology can be improved, as well as it's implementation- because Dell gets it right.
@BigJayDogg3
When I had to go into hospital for certain leukemia treatments I used my laptop to warm my hands and wrists up for the canulas, brought my veins up.. lol
Could be a sellin' point for crack addicts too.
Enjoy delicious pork shoulders...on the go!
The question is, how long the battery can hold??
@ijat91
1.7 minutes
@ijat91
Interestingly enough, this card could be an amazing even for non-mobile situations where you don't need the full-steam performance (or price/heat) of the desktop version.
I hope they give it as an upgrade in the autumnal iMac.
Price: Your soul