GeForce G310 - NvidiaBloggo - All the latest Nvidia news! 2010

Introduction

Once upon a time, the portable PCs were seen as a very expensive tool for business users, and usually offered less performance than a normal desktop PC. Currently, that’s not the situation anymore. A notebook is now a very affordable PC, and the newest technologies make it reliable for many different usage scenarios.

The main issues found on notebooks nowadays, however, lies in the graphic area. Some notebooks now feature a dedicated GPU, with different performance levels, but always taking the energy consumption into consideration, in order not to have a big impact on the battery. Basically, every laptop has a GPU, which are described as being integrated or discrete. The integrated GPUs are those who come within a chip integrated in the chipset, or with the new Intel processors, on the processor package. A discrete GPU is, instead, its own chipset, nVIDIA or ATI usually, that is added to the motherboard and usually with a dedicated memory set.

The whole scenario is very varied: for those who want a biggest autonomy for the battery, an integrated GPU would be the best option. For those who need 3D performances, the discrete GPU would be the choice. But there are also the hybrid systems, that allow users to choose, according to their particular needs, whether to use the discrete or integrated graphic system, or even both at the same time. That’s what we’ll be covering in this article. We’ll also speak about nVIDIA’s new technology, Optimus.

After having presented the new GT200M mobile series from GeForce in March, nVIDIA has now updated their list, with the objective of fully supporting Windows 7. Right now, the GT200M is featured by three models, but nVIDIA introduced five more solutions, in order to replace the ones that already exist. The new models are called G210M, GT230M, GT240M, GTS250M and GTS260M.

The five new solutions, according to what was declared by nVIDIA, should replace the current offers, but there will obviously be an adaptation period on the market. Two will be the characteristicts that differ the new solutions from the old ones: 40nm fabrication process and support to DirectX 10.1. NVIDIA presents, in this way, the first GPUs manufactured and developed with the new fabrication process, that should be brought to the desktop products in the course of the next months.

It’s still not completely known which architecture was used to develop the new models: analyzing some of the technical specifications, however, it’s easy to notice how the shader values are quite similar to what was seen on the previous generation, hence it’s easy to assume that those are mobile GPU models that are based on the G92, and not on the GT200 as it had been thought. Some of the technical specifications on the GT240M, GTS250M and GTS260M models there’s the support to the GDDR5 memories: a major modification made by nVIDIA in order to make the new GPUs support this kind of memory and guarantee a better bandwidth. The memory bus was fixed at 128bit.

NVIDIA hasn’t only worked on developing five new solutions, but also continued to collaborate with a big number of OEM in order to develop more than a hundred models of notebooks by the time of the launch. Obviously, the technologies present in the past such as Hybrid Power, CUDA and PhysX were kept.

The Computex 2009 has finished a few days ago and it was the opportunity for many companies, especially for nVIDIA, to reveal some netbooks based on the Ion platform. And the guys from jkkmobile have released a video where a netbook with Ion plays Call of Duty 4.

The game seems to be played without any difficulties, with a lot of fluidity as well, although the resolution hasn’t really been commented on. But it’s still quite an accomplishment, since up to a few months ago, no one thought that a netbook could play a game, especially not one such as Call of Duty 4, as the first mini-notebooks were developed for the Internet navigation or office work.

The first netbooks with the Ion platform will be introduced in the market soon, although there are no official dates.

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

The tests with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were done with the same resolution as Crysis, 1024×768, 4x anti-aliasin and all the options set in both normal and medium for the single player missions.

The framerate results are clearly better than the 8800M GTX. There’s also a clear improvement compared to the 9800GT. With a resolution of 1280×1024 and the same level of details, the 9800M GTX is clearly better than the 9800GT. The framerate is kept at a constant average of 40fps

World in Conflict

The real time strategic title World in Conflict has its own integrated benchmark, which made it easier to compare the performances between the 9800 GT and the 9800 GTX. The resolutions used were 1024×768 and 1280×1024 with the settings at medium, high and very high. The GeForce 9800M GTX has clearly been the best card in all resolutions and detail levels, with a 45fps average rate.

Performance

The GeForce 9800M GTX has 112 steam processors, 16 more in comparison with the 9800M GT. Another difference is the video memory. The 9800M GTX features 1GB GDDR3 RAM. In the 3D Mark Benchmark 2006, the XMG7 has obtained a result of 9952 points, 10% more than similar systems with a 8800 GTX. The tests with 3D Mark 2005 show even a better improvement, although in these tests, the CPU has a huge impact on the results.

Gaming Performance

In order to better review the graphic card, it’s necessary to test it with some of the most recent games.

Crysis

As usual, the first test was done with Crysis, which is known to be a very demanding game. The resolution chosen was of 1024 x 768 with high and very high details. With these settings and high details, the system has obtained a framerate of 30 to 50 fps, which is a decent result. If the game settings are put in very high, the frame rate is reduced to 20-30 fps, which doesn’t allow for a complete gaming experience, as it lacks fluidity.

Not too long ago, nVidia launched two new graphic cards for notebooks, dedicated to the gaming world. Besides the GeForce 9800M GT, that can be installed on the 15″ notebooks, nVidia also offers the GeForce 9800M GTX. Based on the G92 architecture, the 9800M GTX is manufactured with a 65nm technology, but the number of shaders is definitely higher than the previous model.

The review was done with a notebook that already has the new Intel Express PM45 Chipset. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Extreme X9100, the most powerful available in the market. With a 3.06GHz core with 6MB cache, this is definitely a higher performance processor when compared to the Penryn line.

NVIDIA has announced that their GeForce 8200M GPU reach the new performance standards for Fujitsu-Siemens’ “entry-level” Esprimo Mobile V notebooks.

The Esprimo Mobile V series is a wonderful solution for small and medium companies and occasional users. Thanks to the introduction of the GeForce 8200M GPU, these notebooks allow a better performance for applications such as Google Earth, Adobe Acrobat 3D, Apple iTUNES and operational systems such as Apple Mac OS X Leopart and Microsoft Windows Vista, without sacrificing the battery duration. The GPU also allow for a better high-definition video and audio streaming, and the third-generation video engine from NVIDIA Pure Video HD unloads some of the energy burden from the CPU.

Armin Kumpf, Fujitsu-Siemens’ Business Mobile Senior Director explains: “We have chosen the GeForce 8200M for these products because it allows us to supply a perfect solution to occasional clients that are careful about the price. The Esprimo Mobile V series is fully capable of offering a great experience in all of the most important graphic applications and at the same time, is efficient when it comes to energy consumption. And it’s all offered at a convenient price”