NVIDIA have announced their first Fermi-based GPU intended for notebooks, in the shape of the GeForce GTX 480M. Described as “DirectX 11 done right for notebooks”, the GTX 480M has a dedicated Tessellation engine that apparently boosts performance 5x over that of competing mobile GPUs, and three times more CUDA cores than the previous generation of chips.
There’s also NVIDIA 3D Vision for 3D gaming, PhysX technology for improved physics modelling in games, and the company’s Verde drivers system. It’s also possible to combine a pair of the GTX 480M GPUs in SLI configuration.
As for real-world results, NVIDIA say the GTX 480M will transcode video ten times faster than rivals. There are 352 CUDA cores, a 425MHz graphics clock and 850MHz processor clock, capable of 897 CUDA gigaflops, 76.8 GB/sec memory bandwidth and an 18.7 bn/sec texture fill rate. Clevo will be offering the first notebook to use the GPU, though they’re likely to be the first of many.