Best GPU & Optimus combination?

SimoxTa - The 260.99 are the only drivers that support Optimus directly from Nvidia and I can't be sure if the .inf file and driver in general support the gt420m the driver support for the 4XXm series in general is pretty low right now because they are so new. I'd say give it a month or so if the 260.99 drivers don't work and you should have some support for it

 

Thanks for your quick reply, i made this "silly" question just only because i've read somewhere around the web (and in some other topics on this forum too) that the GPU Hardware_ID of the XPS has been customized by Dell to fits its needs, so there should be the possibility to never have a primary support from nVidia referring to drivers. Considering what u said, the 260.99 were launched on October 25th, (while the XPS line launched officially on October 21st) so i hope to see the IDs in the next release

Thanks!

 

The id's may have been modified for all I know, most of Dell/Alienware's products in the last year or two have been able to use drivers from Nvidia with no issues but it's not a garantee. How have you been liking the XPS 14?

 

I took the XPS 15 and choosing the GT420 i had a lot of luck, cause its voltage is lower than the GT435 (0.9V instead of 0.96V and i can keep the GT420 overclocked @435 around 20°C degree below the temperatures of the stock gt435 (without any kind of crashes). For all the rest, i have to understand how to compare the performance of the GPU with the older generation, cause as i wrote in another topic, i had around 20% less performance (with the card OC'd @ GT435M compared to the GT335 in the alienware m11x). I hope it's only a driver issue mainly

 

The Dell XPS systems weren't finished with the qualification/certification runs when 260.99 Verde was finalized so they weren't included. We're just about to post the new Verde and these systems will be supported.

Sean

Sean Pelletier
Senior Technical Marketing Manager - Notebooks
NVIDIA

 

Name one Optimus laptop with 8 hours of battery life when browsing the web (WLAN on, of course). I'm not claiming there aren't any, I just haven't heard of any. In the end, it doesn't particularly matter whether ATI switchable or Nvidia Optimus has better battery life; battery life is more so determined by the design of the laptop. The Acer TimelineX series with the ATI 5650 (better than the Nvidia 425m) have longer battery life than most (all?) Nvidia 425m Optimus laptops (Asus, Dell...).

Shouldn't even turn on? So if you physically disconnect the GPU (on a laptop that allows that) you wouldn't even be able to see the BIOS screen? And when you uninstall GPU drivers, the GPU still outputs the image you see (after reinstalling Windows, for example)?

 

you missed:

4-all these programs haven't updated to support optimus, thus pulling the device information from windows driver registry.

your reply is funny. I showed you video evidence and you don't believe, but you chose to believe software info from which hasn't been updated for optimus.

 

You can show me what you want Richteralan, some peiced together motherboard in a Nvidia shop isn't always going to work the same as a real life EULA's computer. Alienware is known to change things from the way the OEM designed them, that may be the case for the M11x. I'm not arguing that may be the way it was designed but design and mass execution are two completely different situations. The major point I'm trying to get across here is Optimus is an amazing idea on paper and in theory, but it needs work as it has problems in real life application.

 

if you are into computers long enough, you'll remember what those GPU info tools show on screen (voltage/2D/3D frequencies) when ran on a new GPU which is not supported.

Of course every new pieces of technology will have all sorts of problems. My major point was to inform you the power consumption point you made was not correct, there are no other implications.

 

Please tell me the X505 Q892 will also be compatible with the new drivers and hopefully, for what it's worth it installs optimus and the optimus user interface, it might just help me with the drop in gaming performance unplugged.

 

it was just a random number; point being the extra battery life on the IGP is nice.

 

The Toshiba X505 should also be included. However, that system will never support Optimus via drivers as Toshiba did not choose to support Optimus on that notebook.

(Optimus isn't just a software change. For example, the LVDS notebook display is routed to the Intel IGP on an Optimus notebook. On a dGPU-only system, it is routed to the GPU. This is one of the main reasons it will never work unless it has been designed to support Optimus.)

 

I'm not sure what more we can show Richteralan. Clearly, he isn't a fan of Optimus. LOL

For what it's worth, if you have an ATI dGPU versus an NV GPU w/ Optimus on the same exact notebook (same CPU, battery size, etc.) then the Optimus notebook will always have better battery life overall. This is simply because 0W is lower than any low-power state (even 1W) the ATI GPU can drop into.

We'll see what new tricks the 6000-series has. However, it might be hard finding systems with those GPUs. Clearly, vendors want Optimus and GeForce.

NVIDIA Newsroom


Sean Pelletier
Senior Technical Marketing Manager - Notebooks
NVIDIA

 

I want Nvidia too, but not until the bugs get worked out of it. Look in my sig, I like Nvidia, I don't like major bugs

 

AMD just made the mistake of underestimating you guys, and look how that ended up for them. I'm not sure you want to make the same mistake. Then again, you are in the marketing department. I just hope that you guys step up your midrange offerings, since seeing the 330M and 420M competing against the 5650 and 5730 while offering up to 20% less performance is really starting to look silly. That 540M looks sweet, though.

On an unrelated note, I have been wondering something and I might as well ask you now. Does Optimus always activate the dGPU for Flash, or only when on A/C power? If it's always, can it be changed to only use the IGP? I just want to know this to open up my options a bit in case I do decide to get a new laptop this coming summer.

 

Are you sure you typed in the name correctly?

I'm not a fan? I was posting video supporting the technology that the video card shutdown completely instead of just reduce clock rate.

And I just ordered an Optimus laptop.

Is this how NV personnel respond on internet?

 

I have to agree. That response was extremely childish, and I was about to attack on that before stopping myself. It really casts some doubts, IMO.

EDIT: No, wait. This kind of trash talk is normal for NV reps. Nevermind!

 

So far in the 14-15 inch category, the Optimus combinations are garbage. The GT4xx are weak and even cause Starcraft 2 to stutter in heavy combat situations. I could see Crysis being a problem or some FPS, but didn't expect Starcraft.

Hopefully, the GPUs will be better in Q1 2011 combined with Sandy Bridge. Also, I don't know the deal with 2-3 GB GPU RAM when its not GDDR. Does all that even help these chips versus less of better type?

 

Sandy Bridge IGPs will not give dedicated GPUs any boost whatsoever. That's nothing more than a common misconception that seems to have appeared out of thin air.

 

Thanks, I'll update it with the new verde driver anyway, hopefully it does somehow enable the Toshiba X505 to have full performance on battery, since the earlier versions of verde enabled my Toshiba X305 to operate full performance on battery alone.

By the way don't mind the guys bashing optimus and Nvidia. I think you're already miles ahead in credibility as far as computer hardware and software are concerned, for all we know they could just be some 12 year old kids pretending to have computer electronics knowledge just by googling stuff. Like that guy stamar on the first couple pages. heh I don't even know why they got "repped" with all the misinformation they're spreading, they'll probably give advice that'll damage someone else's computer.

EDIT: oh btw just glancing through again, I noticed it's DangerGRClose that's instigating and being kinda harsh, Richteralan seems to be defending optimus, I think. Maybe that's why he was irritated. LOL


Thanks again Sean for putting in a word for Toshiba X505 support and I'll support Nvidia with future purchases...

 

DDR3 is cheap, and it's an easy way to boost the specs of the laptop for marketing purposes. However, I highly doubt it will make any difference performance wise. The 2-3GB that the new Dell XPSs pair with the 425, 435, and 445 will likely not make them one frame faster than if it was just 1GB. Even the fastest desktop cards, which are probably like 10x faster than the mid-range mobile ones, only have 1.5GB of GDDR5.

 

Jacob808, you tell me something if you believe I'm being harsh are you ok with spending more money on one product that has lower performance and more issues with that performance than what another product offers? Anybody who can say that Nvidia is winning in the "least amount of bugs on new products" and "most bang for the buck" categories needs to take a look at things again. All I am saying is I expect more out of Nvidia than what I've seen lately, simple as that. And honestly Sean I appreciate you coming out to talk to us but with a few of your recent comments I'm starting to get the feeling that you don't belive the problems with Nvidia's recent products are enough to seriously address, all you've done is talked up the positives about it, that's Nvidia's major problem right there. That was the downfall with the 8000 and 9000 series gpus and it's about to happen again with Optimus because Nvidia won't admit to the issues and fix them in a timely manner. I've had my last say, I do truly hope to see more from Nvidia in the future than what I've seen recently, Nvidia is a great company with the potential to make great products who has made some mistakes, hopefully Nvidia can learn from them by finally addressing them properly.

 

He's in the marketing department. He's paid to make the cards look perfect, even if they aren't. You'd see the exact same thing from a marketing manager from AMD, or Intel, or Microsoft, or Apple, or Dell, HP, Sony, Asus... I think you get the picture. It's also not his job to fix the issues. Sean isn't addressing the issues because he doesn't need to and it would defeat the purpose of him being here.

 

I will both agree and disagree. Nvidia is a company who overall makes good products, but the crap of trying to hide issues behind benefits and stringing customers along on fixes for apparent problems has got to stop. The very least that should happen is to keep silent if you are not certain you can fix something, and when you have a fix appologize for the wait

P.S. I work marketing sales as well and that's not the way marketing should be done, marketing should be honest if good and silent if bad. If someone calls you out on a problem, admit to it, just don't flaunt it. That part I understand perfectly.

 

^ The Optimus Whitepaper may be one of the only reliable sources of information I have found on Optimus. If Sean wrote it he is a valuable person to have here explaining things.

You guys all misread what he posted though. Try this

I would love to see people on the inside talk more about technologies like Optimus as it helps dispel some of the misconceptions. Overall it helps clear up whether the issues people are experiencing are due to an actual issue or just a misunderstanding.

I understand peoples anger over Optimus for the most part. No one likes to feel like they have been tricked into being one of the testing team when it comes to new technologies. Optimus has already evolved from its first from, in both hardware and software. But it still sucks to have issues with something that is meant to be "transparent" and "automatic". And I think this is part of where most of the anger in the community is coming from.

IMHO the first huge misstep was not having a defined set of terms to differentiate Optimus from previous "switching" technologies. Heck the term "Switchable Graphics" should not even be used for Optimus, in any context, as it doesn't really switch anything but the Nvidia GPU off (at least from a user perspective). This whole notion and the lack of understanding when it was first released (and even now) just adds to any frustration people already have.

So with all that said some points:
Users

-Optimus is not Switchable Graphics
-You will never be able to use just the Nvidia GPU by itself
-It might be easier 'for users' to think about the Nvidia graphics portion of Optimus as an accelerator rather than a full blown seperate GPU.​

Nvidia

-Why don't you implement a faux "switch"? A setting that forces the Nvidia graphics portion to be used (on) or off at all times. I know this overrides the "automatic" and "seamless" concept of Optimus but it would also address a feature that users want. (Heck hide it away in advanced settings some how.) This would also calm users feeling of a lack of control.

Transparent is great when it works 100%, when it doesn't it is the only thing you notice.​

 

Then what is the difference between both (Optimus and Switchable Grpahics)? It is only the automated software?

 

Sean, when oh when is the next verde coming out? and please make it increase performance in Battlefield Bad Company 2, otay....