RSSNvidia adds PhysX engine to new line of video chips for notebooks
By Michael Hatamoto | Published July 29, 2008, 4:38 PM
Nvidia has unveiled a new generation of notebook video cards based upon the Ageia PhysX physics engine, which Nvidia acquired last year.
There are five new Nvidia GPUs available, with the GeForce 9800M GTX, GeForce 9800M GTS, and GeForce 9800 GT serving as the three higher-end cards. The GeForce 9700M GTS and GeForce 9700M GT are the two mid-range cards for mainstream notebooks the average customer will purchase.
The 9800M GTX and 9800M GTS both have 112 processing units, which is equivalent to the Nvidia 9800 GT GPU designed for desktop PCs. They feature have a 500MHz core frequency and operate at 1250MHz.
In addition, the two higher end cards will make use of Hybrid SLI technology, so they are able to run cooler and save battery power. There also will be PureVideo and Blu-ray support, along with MXM3.0, designed so the GPU can be upgraded later.
Toshiba is the first company to announce notebooks featuring the new NVidia GPUs, with the Toshiba Qosmio X305 powered by the 9M series.
Nvidia closed the deal with Ageia in February, and promised to include PhysX technology into GeForce GPU products as soon as it could. Analysts expected products to be rolled out sometime over the summer, and were accurate with their prediction.
Nvidia has had a steady control of the video game graphics card market, although AMD hopes its recent agreement with Havok will help the struggling ATI brand better compete in the future. AMD was forced to make a move with Intel-owned Havok after Nvidia purchased Ageia.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company plans to continue to roll out both mobile and desktop graphics gaming cards with Ageia technology throughout the remainder of the year.
luckily this is not going to Apple =]
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|A natural progression. ...and 'about' time!
I am quite frankly surprised that it took so long - aside from the internecine warfare that typically occurs between companies and rights holders.
Now if we can only get the laptop makers to increase RAM capacities and add socketed upgradeable video card technology to true desktop replacement suitable for multiple robust VM environments (instead of their sole preoccupation with credit card fruitfly machines). ...I don't care about battery life. I just need a workstation/server class machine I can take with me. I will plug it in when I get there.
...You listening Apple??????????????? (of course not! You are too busy telling us what we should be doing instead of simply enabling us to do what we need!)
Well, with quad core Nehalem becoming available in a quarter or two, we can at least HOPE! ;-)
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|Foxfyre : "add socketed upgradeable video card technology"
nVidia uses the MXM connector, but they keep changing the connector standard from MXM to MXM II (7900 and 7950 series) and now to MXM III (8700 or 8800 series).
I would like to see this go more mainstream, I mean 16x PCIe isn't that overly large, and 1x PCIe is already used for the wireless cards.
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|Changing the MXM standard is no different than going from PCI to AGP to PCI-e on a desktop computer.
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|It is different because it took years before AGP was fully switched to PCI-e, but it is taking months to switch the MXM standard.
The main problem with MXM is it is not nearly as widespread as it should be. It's a different ballgame including free slots in a notebook as opposed to a PC because every watt and every extra source of heat will require different engineering for the whole notebook--more so than every extra PCI slot on a desktop would require in changes.
Video cards take up a lot of power on notebooks, making it harder for vendors to justify putting in an MXM slot in their mainstream laptops. If we can get mainstream laptops to start using the slot it'd be great.
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|It would help if laptop manufacturers put bigger batteries in their laptops. Dell used to offer 16 cell lithium ion batteries for some of their midrange laptops.
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|It's my understanding that games written to take advantage of Ageia physics cards will not work on Havok physics cards and vice versa. If separate code has to be written for each brand of physics card then hardware physics will never take off. Isn't it possible to integrate support for hardware physics into DirectX (assuming it hasn't already been done)?
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|Yeah I don't like one company controlling something like this. We're going right back to the days of 3dfx and Glide. There needs to be an open physics standard.
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|I am about to get a new laptop so this is awesome news for me. I had no idea the new 9 series cards had the Physics engine!
I will hold off judgment until I see it in person, but the general consensus about the Toshiba X305 seems to be that it is hideous. I also heard someone say that one of the speakers in the front gets in the way when your using wasd to play games.
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|This is great news for laptop gamers. Its always hard to get a laptop that can do it all. From business to entertainment. This is 1 step closer to making that more the norm. NICE.
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