GeForce GTX 480M: AVADirect’s W880CU Is Packing The Heat

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

With the launch of its GeForce GTX 480M, Nvidia’s Fermi architecture takes center stage in high-end gaming notebooks. But is the notoriously-hot GPU able to compete against AMD's Mobility Radeon HD 5870? AVADirect gives us the answer with its new W880CU.

Benchmark Results: Encoding

Apple iTunes proves what we said about clock speed and Intel Turbo Boost: mainly, that all of today’s systems have the same processor performance in programs that use fewer than four cores at high load.

HandBrake, TMPGEnc and MainConcept utilize eight threads, putting the desktop system’s higher non-Turbo speed in the lead. Any LGA 1156-based Core i7 would have reversed the above trend, due to the higher Turbo Boost multipliers in those specific CPUs. We’re looking forward to games, which respond more like iTunes and less like the other encoding applications.

Putting aside the fact that no desktop processor is a direct match for the Core i7-820QM, the great result above is that all three notebooks have the same performance. That sets us up for a perfect notebook-to-notebook graphics comparison, regardless of where the desktop PC stands.

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.
53 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bin1127
    It plays Crysis!
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    ....all of these notebooks must be plugged into a power outlet before gaming commences.
    I think that sums it up.
    Reply
  • Lmeow
    Portable vasectomy!
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    LmeowPortable vasectomy!LOL +1
    Reply
  • xyzionz
    Quite a surprise on the power consumption...
    Reply
  • sprunth
    That's a crazy heat pipe setup...

    Agree on the naming thing on the last page, that would be helpful.
    Reply
  • Maziar
    Great review.
    Before its launch,it was rumored that it will have a much higher power consumption than 5870M, but now it seems they are close
    Reply
  • "Notice that the component on the left uses both fans and has two-thirds the total number of heat pipes" Ummmmm if I'm looking at the picture correctly the GPU and the majority of the heat pipes are on the Right, you may want to retype that.
    Reply
  • are there no temperatures for gpu in article or i missed it?
    Reply
  • Plyro109
    The funny thing is, AMD actually DID use the naming scheme you like in their LAST generation of mobile GPU's. The Mobility 4850 matched the standard 4850's number of stream processors, albeit with lower clock speeds. Same with the Mobility 4870 and Mobility 4870x2.

    They changed it in response to Nvidia's naming scheme, which is a shame. I liked the matching of desktop/laptop performance to names, too. :/
    Reply