The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M is a high-end graphics card for laptops based on the Fermi architecture. As a result, it supports DirectX 11 and is produced in 40nm at TSMC. Featuring 352 cores, the GTX480M is similar to the desktop GTX 465 but with a lower clock rate. The GeForce GTX 480M is combined with 2 GB of fast dedicated GDDR5 graphics memory and the overall performance should be generally superior to the Mobility Radeon HD 5870.
The GF100 (aka. Fermi) chip was redesigned from scratch and features 3 billion transistors, assuming all 512 shaders are present. Compared to the desktop HD 5870 with 2.13 billion transistors or the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (RV870) with 1.04 billion transistors, the GTX 480M die is physically quite large.
The mobile Fermi chip is stripped down to 352 shader cores (1-dimensional) with 32 ROPs and 44 Texture Units. The memory bus is 256 bit wide, but due to the fast GDDR5 memory, this should not be a bottleneck. The power consumption has been specified to 100 Watt TDP when taking into account the MXM board and the 2 GB GDDR5. AMD usually specifies the TDP of the chip alone, therefore this value is not directly comparable with competing Radeon cards. Still, the GTX 480M is only suited for very large desktop replacement (DTR) laptops with an excellent cooling solution. Originally, only Clevo was offering the GTX 480M in its 17" (D901F) and 18" (X8100) barebones.
The performance of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M is about 10% better on average than the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. In demanding DirectX 11 games and benchmarks (that make use of the Tessellation engine), the GTX 480M is even faster. That means the GTX480M is the fastest single GPU graphics solution for laptops as of early to mid 2010. Modern DirectX 10 games should run fluently in high resolutions and details with antialiasing. Only very demanding games like Crysis or Metro 2033 may need some reduced settings (see list below). Due to the DirectX 11 hardware support (and the good tessellation implementation), the Fermi based laptop graphics card should be well suited for upcoming DirectX 11 games.
As the GeForce 300M series, the GeForce GTX 480M supports PureVideo HD with VideoProcessor 4 (VP4 with Feature Set C). This means the GPU is able to fully decode HD videos in H.254, VC-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 ASP. The graphics card can also accelerate Flash videos by using Flash 10.1 or greater.
The rendering cores of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M can be used for general calculations with CUDA or DirectCompute. For example, the encoding of HD videos can be done significantly faster than most modern CPUs by using the shader cores of the GPU instead. PhysX is also supported by the mobile Fermi chip to calculate physics effects in supported games.
Compared to desktop GPUs, the Geforce GTX 480M is comparable to a nunderclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 (607/1200 clock speed) and is therefore on par with a desktop Radeon HD 5770.
GeForce GTX 400M Series
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | N11E-GTX-A3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | Fermi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pipelines | 352 - unified | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Core Speed | 425 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shader Speed | 850 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Speed | 1200 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Bus Width | 256 Bit | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Max. Amount of Memory | 2048 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shared Memory | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| API | DirectX 11, Shader 5.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power Consumption | 100 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistor Count | 3 Billion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| technology | 40 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notebook Size | large | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of Announcement | 25.05.2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Link to Manufacturer Page | www.nvidia.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Average benchmark values for this graphics cardThe following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mafia 2 | 67.1 | 60 | 40.9 | |||
| StarCraft 2 | 45.2 | 44.5 | 36.8 | |||
| Metro 2033 | 126 | 64 | 33 | 12 | ||
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 | 108 | 81 | 64 | 38 | ||
| CoD Modern Warfare 2 | 78.6 | 68 | 49 | |||
| Risen | 68.4 | 48.7 | 36 | |||
| Resident Evil 5 | 150.5 | 96.3 | 59.7 | |||
| Need for Speed Shift | 74 | 77 | 52 | |||
| Colin McRae: DIRT 2 | 176.5 | 112 | 83 | 47 | ||
| Anno 1404 | 170 | 53 | ||||
| Sims 3 | 105 | |||||
| F.E.A.R. 2 | 119 | 61 | ||||
| GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto | 53.9 | |||||
| Left 4 Dead | 142 | |||||
| Far Cry 2 | 174 | 106 | 45.4 | |||
| Crysis Warhead | 98 | 34 | ||||
| Trackmania Nations Forever | 52.8 | |||||
| Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare | 93 | |||||
| Supreme Commander - FA Bench | 52.4 | 45.1 | ||||
| Crysis - GPU Benchmark | 62.3 | 16.1 | ||||
| Crysis - CPU Benchmark | 58.3 | 15.5 | ||||
| World in Conflict - Benchmark | 84 | 35 | ||||
| Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark | 234 | |||||
| Quake 4 | 62 | |||||
| Counter-Strike Source | 191 | |||||
| Doom 3 | 310 | 290 | ||||
| Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo | 720 | |||||
| low | med. | high | ultra | QHD | 4K | < 30 fps < 60 fps < 120 fps ≥ 120 fps | 2 6 | 1 7 | 6 12 4 | 3 14 2 1 | | |
For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List
Clevo W880CU: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » Clevo W880CU
Deviltech Fragbook DTX (W881CU): Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » Deviltech Fragbook DTX (W881CU)
AVADirect Clevo W880CU: Intel Core i7-720QM, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » AVADirect Clevo W880CU
Sager NP8850: Intel Core i5-520M, 17.30", 3.9 kg
External Review » Sager NP8850
» Comparison of GPUs
Detailed list of all laptop GPUs sorted by class and performance.
» Benchmark List
Sort and restrict laptop GPUs based on performance in synthetic benchmarks.
» Notebook Gaming List
Playable games for each graphics card and their average FPS results.
* Approximate position of the graphics adapter
Notebooks
» Top 10 Multimedia Laptops
» Top 10 Budget Multimedia Laptops
» Top 10 Gaming Laptops
» Top 10 Budget Gaming Notebooks
» Top 10 Lightweight Gaming Laptops
» Top 10 Business Laptops
» Top 10 Budget Office Laptops
» Top 10 Workstation Laptops
» Top 10 Subnotebooks
» Top 10 Ultrabooks
» Top 10 Chromebooks
» Top 10 Laptops under 300 USD/Euros
» Top 10 Laptops under 500 USD/Euros
» Top 10 Laptops under 1.000 USD/Euros
» Best Laptop Displays
» Best Laptops for University Students
» Top alternatives to the Apple MacBook Pro 13
» Top alternatives to the Apple MacBook Pro 15
» Top alternatives to the MacBook 12/Air
» Top 10 Laptops for Picture and Video Editing
Tablets & Convertibles
» Top 10 Convertibles (Laptop 2-in-1)
» Top 10 Tablets (Android, iOS)
» Top 10 Convertibles (Windows Tablet 2-in-1)
» Top 10 Tablets under 250 USD/Euros
Smartphones
» Top 10 Smartphones
» Top 10 Phablets
» Top 10 Smartphones ≤5-inch
» Top 10 Smartphones under 500 USD/Euros
» Top 10 Smartphones under 300 USD/Euros
» Top 10 Smartphones under 160 USD/Euros
Quality journalism is made possible by advertising. We show the least amount of ads whenever possible. We intentionally show more ads when an adblocker is used. Please, switch off ad blockers.
