Have you been looking for a laptop with good gaming graphics, but haven't pulled the trigger yet? Well, it's a good thing you waited. Nvidia has released their next wave of laptop GPUs, and they're an across-the-board upgrade in the middle and upper range of their line.
The 400M series of GPUs are the first laptop processors designed with DirectX11-oriented Fermi architecture, and all the new GPUs are enabled with Nvidia Optimus automatically-switching graphics. This should ramp up the exposure of Optimus automatic-switching graphics considerably, and provide extra battery-conserving performance in faster laptops.
The new processors consist of the GeForce GT 445M, 435M, 425M, 420M and 415M, forming the performance category, and the GeForce GTX 460M, 470M and 480M for enthusiasts. Processor cores range from 48 in the GeForce GT 415M up to a whopping 288 for the GeForce GTX 470M. A number of these GPUs support 3D Vision, and they all have CUDA support for GPU-enhanced processing in applications.
One important note: the stalwart lower-end GeForce 305M and 310M GPUs will remain unchanged, so it's status quo for anyone in the market for laptop featuring one of those.
These GPUs will be seen in every major laptop manufacturer starting today, with the exception of HP. We look forward to testing some of these new laptops soon.
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