GeForce Go 6800 Ultra: Powering the Dell Inspirion XPS Gen 2
by Derek Wilson on February 24, 2005 3:04 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
The performance of the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra is unprecedented in the mobile space. Of course, while the mobility of a DTR system is always debatable, there's no doubt that scaling down powerful systems to this size has its advantages and appeal (especially when there is no sacrifice in graphics performance).Without having a comparable comparison platform, we can't directly compare the Go 6800 Ultra and the desktop 6800 parts. It does seem clear that Go 6800 Ultra is at least as powerful as its desktop counterpart. Being limited by a less powerful CPU and still coming out on top in more than a couple tests is very impressive.
We would still like to setup a direct comparison between the Go and desktop 6800 parts in order to examine the part on a clock for clock level. We would like to better determine the impact of the power saving features in mobile part. The 50MHz speed bump from the desktop to the Go 6800 Ultra seems only possible due to power saving features. On the desktop NVIDIA tried the 6800 Ultra Extreme, but most vendors were only able to get their parts to about 425 (and this in a virtually thermally unlimited environment). Of course, performance is one of the tradeoffs in the balance, and a clock for clock comparison in the same platform would give us some good data on the GeForce Go line's efficiency compared to the desktop.
It's also useful to note that the new XPS Gen 2 did not get as hot to the touch. It seems Dell has done a better job of getting heat to move outside the system in spite of all the power packed into the chassis. We only had one night with the system, so we were unable to perform an in depth analysis of the system.
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sbuckler - Friday, February 25, 2005 - link
How much memory has it got - from the drop off at high res I suspect 128mb, it might have been nice to mention that in the article.#16 - you can get a audigy 2 card for laptops now.
whooosh - Friday, February 25, 2005 - link
how about comparing to other Geforce GO chipsets?ZoZo - Friday, February 25, 2005 - link
Why does does this review leave the impression that the Pentium M 2.13Ghz is weak?From benchmarks I've seen here and there, it's actually out there with the top lot in performance, sometimes beating the most powerful Pentium 4 EE!
mickyb - Friday, February 25, 2005 - link
First off...you could have put the previous M28 benchies with this article from November along with the original GeForce 6800 Go. Looks like this new nVidia card might be competitive. If I were nVidia, I would have been worried after the November article. Second, I would like to see the Star Wars and BattleField: Vietnam benchies. It looks to be the one that shows ATI dominating.This will look messed up with prop fonts.
Game ATI M28 6800Go 6800GoUltra
Doom3 47.6 51.4 83.2
HL-2 88.4 77.8 101.9
UT2004 48 45.8 57.5
Halo 52.9 46.8 55.6
Wolf 74.1 76.5 N/A
FarCry 87.4 65.3 88.5
Sims2 41 39 N/A
Battle:Viet 152 127 N/A
StarWars 63 33 N/A
DerekWilson - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
deathwalker --We haven't had any comparable gaming laptops in our labs.
Also, the review is of the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra, not of the Dell Inspirion XPS Gen 2.
...
I'm sure the notebook was using the higher speed HD, but that generally doesn't make a difference in the gaming experience except in load times.
The Pentium M should be more resilient to DDR2 than the P4. The low latency cache is what counts.
deathwalker - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
Oh ya..if forgot to mention in my previous post..Tom's Hardware has just posted a reiview on this system also...they did it right. Compared it to other high end gaming laptops.deathwalker - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
Dissapointing review...if i want a Gaming Laptop I want a review to compare it to other Gaming Latop's. Comparing it to desktops sure doesnt answer any questions of mine!! I think you missed the boat.bobsmith1492 - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
Wow, that's an amazing sounding machine; pics???Since when did they make DDR2 for the P-M? I would think its high latency would rather offset the M's best strength - low latency; although, it does retain its cache I suppose.
So is the mobile 6800 ultra a 12 or 16 pipe card? By the looks of it it must be 16, or else that extra 50MHz is doing a lot of work.
kmmatney - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
Tom's Hardware showed the system running Forceware 75.80. You can get 75.90 from here:http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=999
I can't find 75.80 anywhere...
kmmatney - Thursday, February 24, 2005 - link
#18, I doubt they much choice - they had to use whatever drivers came with the laptop 9and those would obviously be optimized for the new moobile GPU). It would be interesting to see if the drivers help out desktop cpu's, though.