GeForce GTX 460M SLI: Mobile Gaming Value From AVADirect?

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 480M may hold the mobile performance crown, but GF100 is certainly not the most practical solution when it comes to power and heat. Today we see how its newer, smaller sibling stands up to the same tasks, aided by SLI support.

Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding

Apple iTunes pushes maximum frequencies from Intel Turbo Boost-enabled processors by putting a high load on a single thread. The X7200 and X8100 have the same 3.33 GHz top frequency, yet the 3.20 GHz M17x stays in the running.

HandBrake pushes all cores simultaneously, dropping them to non-Turbo speeds. The higher non-Turbo clock of AVADirect’s desktop processor easily wins here, but it may surprise some readers to see the X8100’s -940XM losing to the M17x’ -920XM. The most likely reasons we can think of for those results are thermal and/or power management issues on the higher-model mobile processor.

Power or thermal management issues again appear to plague the X8100’s -940XM using both DivX and H.264 encoding, while the X7200’s desktop processor has no such handicaps. We’re hoping a BIOS update might help the X8100, and will be receiving some new samples soon to find out.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bak0n
    $3,142 is not a value.
    Reply
  • jrocks84
    "three-gigapixel Webcam"

    Now that'd be an awesome webcam. If only it was true... :(
    Reply
  • dEAne
    thanks tom for this article.
    Reply
  • silversurfernhs
    last gaming laptop i'll ever own was the HDX20 8800m series... google it - thats why. It lasted me a few generations - and the wifey uses it now, still games well(for the games she plays anyway).

    All these "gaming" laptops are on 17" screens... i'd just as well plug it into an external monitor - which defeats the purpose a bit - might as well have a small fragbox for the price...

    I wish some company would rejuvinate the spirit of HP's HDX Dragon line...
    Reply
  • blibba
    So, why can#t we have a fully enabled GF106 for desktops? Ffs Nvidia...
    Reply
  • nebun
    it's so funny that the mid range sli setup destroys the top of the like ati crossfire setup, lol. nvidia for life..
    Reply
  • Maziar
    Thanks for the article;however,I hoped you compare it with 2 GTX 480Ms as well
    BTW,you can find this laptop(with the same config as the review) much cheaper from other sites such as XoticPC.(Starts from $2100)
    http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np7280-custom-laptop-built-the-clevo-x7200-p-2881.html
    Reply
  • jomofro39
    True value will hit when the cpus with the integrated graphics come out, hopefully. That is their purpose, right? I hardly find 3,100 or 2,100 dollars a value. Gaming on the go is a privilege, not a need. Value on a privilege needs to be steeper than this.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    MaziarThanks for the article;however,I hoped you compare it with 2 GTX 480Ms as wellYes, well, the X8100 didn't support two of them due to power issues (most HUGE notebooks won't) and the other X7200 (the one with the 980X installed) had already been sent back.
    Reply
  • theholylancer
    soo umm i7 950 DESKTOP vs i7 920 XM MOBILE?

    did someone forgot to mention that the AMD cards were paired with mobile procs, while 460Ms got the destkop stuff?

    It did not made any sense when I saw that crysis high AMD gets slaughtered, and then V High is evenish. Then I looked back and saw that AMD gets a mobile CPU that could have been the bottleneck given the gfx power...



    Reply