Performance and benchmark results

We were invited to the nVidia offices last week to see their new mobile hardware in action. During briefings we were able to see some of the titles developed with the help of nVidia hardware and engineers doing what they do best... helping our games look and play better. A few of these new titles that should hit the shelves in time for Christmas include Age of Empires III, Call of Duty 2, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., and Starship Troopers.

We were also able to sample what consumers can expect from the Dell XPS M170. From what we have seen and tested, the performance of the system is impressive. From the short tests we have been able to perform on the pre-release hardware, the X170 was able to generate a score of 6656 in 3DMark 2005.

In Doom 3 with the image quality set to "High" (NoAA 8xAF) it posted scores of 104 frames per second (fps) at 1024x768 and 83.5 fps at 1600x1200. When we turned on Anti-Aliasing to 4x, it posted 85.1fps at 1024x768 and 46.9fps at 1600x1200.

As with the Go 6800 Ultra, once again we are impressed by the first test results of the chip. The Go 7800 GTX pushes mobile graphics deep into the performance desktop segment and enables gamers to play high resolution and high detailed games at extremely playable frame rates. Equally impressive is the time-to-market of the mobile chip: It used to take a year to a year and a half to see the desktop version reach the mobile segment, now we are down to slightly more than 3 months.