AVADirect M570RU: SLI, Drivers, and 8800M GTX Performance
by Jarred Walton on March 14, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Gaming Performance - SLI Scaling at 1920x1200
We saw on the previous page that SLI could definitely improve performance in a large number of situations. Considering that many of the top-end gaming notebooks come with 1920x1200 LCDs, however, it's highly likely that most people will want to run at that resolution. So what does SLI bring to the table there?
When we strip away the lower resolutions, the benefits of SLI become even more apparent. If you're interested in running games at 1920x1200 on the notebook, especially if you don't want to turn down detail settings, SLI is practically a must in many of the latest titles. Nearly all of the games we tested improve by 50% or more, and seven of the 17 games show improvements of 75% or more. FEAR, Company of Heroes, and Bioshock show the greatest improvements -- though we should note that in the case of Bioshock, you need to be running at 174.20 beta driver in order for SLI to help at all.
Unreal Tournament 3 is one of the few recent titles that really demands all the CPU performance you can throw at it. That's not particularly surprising, however, as that has been the case with almost every Unreal game ever released. We certainly think the visuals look good, and there are plenty of licensees of the Unreal Engine. Still, the code base seems to hammer the CPU more than competing engines. Battlefield 2 is the only game that doesn't scale very well with SLI, even at 1920x1200 and maximum detail settings. Considering the game's age and the fact that it has also been CPU limited for a long time, we won't complain too much. Certainly, there are other levels we could test in many of the games that would show better or worse performance scaling. All told, however, we're quite pleased with how well SLI performs these days, especially considering we're doing all of this on a notebook.
For those that prefer, here's a more detailed look at the performance figures for the above graph:
| SLI Performance Scaling at 1920x1200 | |||
| M1730 1GPU | M1730 SLI | % Increase | |
| Average | 69.6% | ||
| Battlefield 2 4xAA | 95.2 | 115.5 | 21.4% |
| Bioshock | 39.3 | 74.0 | 88.1% |
| Call of Duty 4 | 38.3 | 71.4 | 86.1% |
| Company of Heroes | 60.9 | 115.2 | 89.2% |
| Crysis - High | 16.7 | 29.5 | 76.9% |
| Crysis - Medium | 31.7 | 56.0 | 76.7% |
| ET: Quake Wars | 44.3 | 76.4 | 72.5% |
| Far Cry 4xAA | 64.8 | 98.0 | 51.4% |
| FEAR | 47.0 | 89.0 | 89.4% |
| HL2: Episode One | 103.6 | 179.9 | 73.7% |
| HL2: Episode Two | 52.5 | 82.0 | 56.3% |
| HL2: Lost Coast | 64.1 | 110.4 | 72.3% |
| Oblivion | 28.4 | 52.0 | 83.4% |
| Quake 4 4xAA | 55.3 | 92.9 | 68.1% |
| STALKER | 32.3 | 57.7 | 78.8% |
| Supreme Commander | 27.4 | 44.9 | 64.0% |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 61.9 | 90.8 | 46.6% |
| World in Conflict | 24.0 | 38.0 | 58.3% |
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docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So let me see if I understand this correctly, Nvidia will not be offering mobile drivers to the public but will make them available to the vendor who can validate them and then offer them to their customers on their web site? ie through Dell?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
See above. There will still be official driver updates from the vendors after validation, presumably - or at least, they'll come as often as they have in the past. :)docjon - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Jared,How about a link to the beta drivers? I checked the nvidia web site and can't find the 174.20 drivers you used.
JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
The 174.20 drivers were directly from NVIDIA but they are still undergoing testing and validation. The plan was to hopefully have those available (well, an updated version that addresses a few things probably) within the next month. Note that the LaptopVideo2Go 174.xx drivers are not the same, as those are based off the desktop parts and lack mobile optimizations as far as I can see.ap90033 - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
When they finally are on Nvidia's website, will they only work for 8800M GTX's or will they also work for 8800M GTS's? I have a P6831FX Gateway and would love some newer drivers. :)JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
My understanding is that the next "Mobile Driver Update" from NVIDIA will cover all GeForce M chips on Vista 32-bit/64-bit for participating vendors. So that means the Gateway FX, Toshiba X205, Dell XPS, and various Clevo notebooks should all work with the beta driver. Probably some others as well. I *hope* that they get GeForce Go support on Vista as well with the next driver, and likewise I would appreciate seeing new XP drivers for both Go and M series cards.docjon - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
So these drivers will not be offered by nvidia to the general public but will be made available to dell to offer after they validate them?JarredWalton - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
No, the "Mobile Gaming Drivers" or whatever you want to call it are going to be available from NVIDIA. The last release came just before 8800M launched, so it only supports up through the 8700M. They also didn't cover all GPUs on all OSes - so 8400-8700M got Vista drivers and GeForce Go 7xxx got XP drivers.The laptop vendors do have to agree to participate - so Dell pretty much tells NVIDIA it's okay if they release a driver that will work with the XPS laptops, as an example. Note that this is not just a vendor decision; it's a model decision as well. So while Dell is okay with "beta" drivers direct from NVIDIA for their XPS (gaming) laptops, they don't want beta drivers for Inspiron or Latitude laptops.
Normally, notebook vendors do not allow manufacturers to release "reference" updated drivers that support the mobile chipsets, which is why we see stuff like LaptopVideo2Go.com. Well, this is a step back from that stance, but only for laptops where updated video drivers are a major concern. Thus, the vendors still have to give NVIDIA permission to release the drivers to the public. Make sense?
builtone2many - Friday, March 14, 2008 - link
Great article. Kind of curious about the casing in the pictures. The latest version from Clevo for systems with X9000 processors has a slightly different casing, labled "Extreme Edition", with an additional molded section on the bottom to provide for better ventilation around the CPU. Wonder if AVA is shipping old case versions?JarredWalton - Saturday, March 15, 2008 - link
Thanks for the comments. I've had this system for about a month, and it's pre-release. It could be that the final shipping models will cool the CPU better, have a working overclock for X9000, and not be as loud at idle. I can only hope so.