NVidia 8800 released!

But from what i hear as good as this card is it wont be able to beat ati's Q1 DX10 cards.

I think its going to be months before we see mobile versions. But the reviews are pretty impressive. Generally has better performance than an SLI system.

I've been hearing the same thing.

Ouch, the common thread to both articles was the massive power requirements. Two power connectors per card, 150w. That alone makes it hard to stuff in a laptop, even one with a 130w psu.

The questions to answer will be:

- will ATI or Nvidia make a "midrange" DX10 part that equals the performance of a 7900 class mobile part with the power and heat requirements between a go7700 and go 7900? Or will laptops fester with DX9 parts that are only good for Aero?

- Will external graphics "docks" appear that allow any laptop to go mobile with a Intel 3000 or other low power onboard chip, and use a dock to house the power hungry DX10 chip?

- Is it a moot point? Will multicore game engines such as Valve's deliver enough performance increase with current GPU's to keep them competitive? Apple is touting a 100% frame rate improvement with their dual core optimized OpenGL engine. Valve is reporting similar gains with their multicore engine.

- Is the market large enough to care? Laptops and desktops NOT designed for high end gaming far outsell the game systems. Laptops are beginning to outsell desktops, as cost comes down and users want small, quiet, mobile internet workstations. Look at the laptops for sale today and count how many models ship with a GMA950, go7400, or ATI X1400 or lower gpu compared to the handful that ship with higher power gpu's and the 2-3 that ship with go7900 class processors.

All in all, the numbers are impressive enough for me to delay my Xmas purchase of a laptop to see if mobile DX10 parts show up in the next 6 months or so.

Yeah, like others have said, might wanna check those power requirements there. I don't think you'll be seeing this in a laptop for quite some time still

Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by "quite soon". If you mean "possibly before the end of next year", then you may be right. I would be very surprised if such a card came out before next summer.

I agree, they are going to have to do a major redesign to make sure to not have these cards melt your computer

It is entirely possible that Nvidia or ATI could produce a 48 shader engine part with power requirements similar to a go7700 or x1600 that still offered performance comparable to current 7900 parts. The key issue here is not to put the fastest gpu in a laptop but rather to get DX10 compatible parts into laptops.

Who knows?

All in all, its going to be a rough x-mas for system vendors as consumers wait for the first real Vista systems.

Mobile parts are typically downclocked and run at lower voltages. The GPU cores used are usually 'cream of the crop' so they can run at lower voltages and put out slightly less heat, while still running at a decent clock speed.

Here's to more mobile 3D goodness in the coming months!

23K in 3d Mark 06 ... Im selling my Gen2 and im out of no+ebook market till Next big Dell/Nvidia launch http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=122394

Because, you know, it's impossible to develop both a desktop and laptop GPU at the same time .

Is there a point that you are trying to make? If so, why don't you make it. The above, in any case, is entirely besides the point.

With a laptop GPU, it is not enough to provide the GPU, you also need to design a laptop that can deal with the corresponding power and thermal requirements, all of this in a form factor and at a cost such that a sufficient market can be expected for the resulting product. In the case of a hypothetical mobile 8800 card, it may be possible to meet all the requirements at some point, but this is not a trivial undertaking.

wowowowow
Yes all those smilies were necessary
I'd like to see the scores after those puppies are oc'd hard
Very interested to see what ati crossfire dx10 will run...

Gargghhh. I think you are spot on. Those are some amazing 3Dmark numbers! may have to go with a desktop for my next system as well, although I will really miss the quiet and ability to game anywhere my laptop gives me. Back to the old days of a honking fast desktop and a hobbled laptop.

How the hell did u get away from coalition forces with that attitude?

I noticed in those reviews that the 8800GTX in SLI was handling Oblivion at 30fps at 2500x1600. The Xbox and PS3 are hardpressed to handle 1080P.