Sponsored by NVIDIA Optimus
Sponsored: NVIDIA® Optimus™ Technology Strides into Back-To-School Season
NVIDIA Optimus technology launched in February to a ton of fanfare and was praised for its simplicity and efficiency. For those of you that don’t know, NVIDIA Optimus is a new technology for laptops that delivers the performance of discrete graphics processing while still delivering great battery life. Optimus accomplishes this by automatically and seamlessly selecting the right graphics processor (GPU) for the job between an NVIDIA discrete GPU or an Intel integrated GPU.
This is important for laptop users because in the past, consumers were forced to prioritize performance or battery life, as one feature typically suffered significantly in order to accommodate the other. Older technology called “Switchable Graphics” helped address this but there were still several issues. With switchable graphics, users have the benefit of both a discrete GPU and integrated graphics in a laptop, but they must manually switch between the two. Switching sometimes requires shutting down applications or rebooting the system. Also, with switchable graphics users must remember what state their laptop is in and switch when necessary. The result is users get frustrated and rarely switch.
Optimus is different because it determines the best processor for the workload and routes it accordingly. The result is users automatically get the performance they need while also maximizing battery life, transparently, and with zero effort. It just works.
Called ‘revolutionary’ by some, Tom's Hardware noted in its Optimus preview that the proof in the pudding would come from PC vendor adoption. NVIDIA launched Optimus with the Asus UL50-Vf as its lead product. Acer introduced Optimus in the netbook market with its Aspire One 532G. Later Asus brought the U30jc laptop to market with NVIDIA Optimus technology along with other models including the N61Jv, N71Jv, and N82Jv.
ASUS U30Jc
At the Netbook Summit in May NVIDIA promised that this summer, and particularly June, would be a landmark time period for Optimus with over 50 design wins coming to market and four new OEMs added.
The month started off strong for NVIDIA at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan with 16 new NVIDIA Optimus-enabled skus making their debut, including top brands like Gateway (14-inch ID49C and 13.3-inch EC39C) Lenovo (14-inch z460, 13-inch y360) and Packard Bell (15.6-inch EasyNote TX86 and 13.3-inch EasyNote Butterfly s). Asus also announced a pair of new Optimus-enabled netbooks (12-inch 1215PN and the 10-inch 1015PN).
Shortly after Computex things got really interesting with Dell’s announcement that the Alienware M11x would add NVIDIA Optimus support to the category-busting 11-inch gaming powerhouse.
Alienware M11x
Now Toshiba has rolled out three new skus, all with NVIDIA Optimus (14-inch Satellite M645-S4055, 15-inchSatellite A665-S6058 and 18-inch Satellite X505-Q882).
Toshiba Satellite M645
So it seems NVIDIA has made good on its earlier promises by announcing products from Acer, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba to go with over a dozen Optimus-enabled laptops from Asus.
NVIDIA has already established Optimus as a must-have feature for laptops, and AMD has no answer for it to date. With over 30 NVIDIA Optimus-enabled laptops and a hand full of netbooks to choose from, consumers are the big winners. Everyone who has used Optimus says great things about it. Now it seems there is an Optimus-enabled system from 10-inches all the way up to 18-inches and for every conceivable use-case from netbooks to gaming to desktop replacement. And all this comes just in time for the annual back-to-school laptop push.
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Casper42 Its kind of sad that you have a more encompassing list of Optimus enabled notebooks than nVidia does on their own site.Reply
Please smack around the appropriate nVidia contact and tell them to get on the ball and include a more comprehensive list at the bottom of their Optimus page. 4 notebooks listed currently and your article says 30 announced. Marketing FAIL -
eyefinity With the first batch of Fusion APU's due for release within six months, Optimus is already doomed.Reply -
TheGreatGrapeApe Still hating these ads parading as reviews, I don't care which side does them, just like having Palit in the forums, this undermines THG's credibility. :pouah:Reply
NVIDIA has already established Optimus as a must-have feature for laptops, and AMD has no answer for it to date.
Can't just promote nV got take a snide swipe at the competition on the way out, I was surprised not to see an intel cartoon too. I guess if you can't make a low power DX11 VPU for laptops you have to provide something like Optimus to make up for it offering the power hungry chip along side an integrated to make it 'mobile'.
BTW, what's nV's answer to X86 X64 Fusion? How long will that take? ;)
Everyone who has used Optimus says great things about it.
Seems a little over-reaching, but I'm sure even if some are saying a bunch of bad and a bunch of good, that qualifies as 'everyone'. :heink:
If they think it's all rosy no bad, they obviously don't check their own forums;
This person's single post, unanswered Optimus issue with 3D;
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=165137
Another single unanswered post about an issue with the drivers not working after an update w/ no display output from nV chip;
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=171025
So those two weren't saying 'great things' about it.
Then a longer thread with a few contributors having a detection error not allowing use of the discrete chip;
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=169588
And all this comes just in time for the annual back-to-school laptop push.
Kids are just getting out of school, still a few months away from those 'back to school' purchases. :lol:
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dEAne Yeah me too I have lots to say about Optimus. . . They are good to see in magazine but not when you used them.Reply -
cangelini TheGreatGrapeApeStill hating these ads parading as reviews, I don't care which side does them, just like having Palit in the forums, this undermines THG's credibility. Can't just promote nV got take a snide swipe at the competition on the way out, I was surprised not to see an intel cartoon too. I guess if you can't make a low power DX11 VPU for laptops you have to provide something like Optimus to make up for it offering the power hungry chip along side an integrated to make it 'mobile'.BTW, what's nV's answer to X86 X64 Fusion? How long will that take? Seems a little over-reaching, but I'm sure even if some are saying a bunch of bad and a bunch of good, that qualifies as 'everyone'. If they think it's all rosy no bad, they obviously don't check their own forums;This person's single post, unanswered Optimus issue with 3D;http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=165137Another single unanswered post about an issue with the drivers not working after an update w/ no display output from nV chip;http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=171025So those two weren't saying 'great things' about it.Then a longer thread with a few contributors having a detection error not allowing use of the discrete chip;http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=169588Kids are just getting out of school, still a few months away from those 'back to school' purchases.Reply
Just FYI, Great, I was also not happy to see this in the editorial section of the site. I've been assured that even if content is sponsored and labeled as such that it will not happen like this one in the future!