NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI is a high-end graphics solution for laptops based on two GTX 480M graphics cards in SLI mode. Each card usually renders a single frame in an alternating manner. Therefore, it may suffer from micro stuttering in low fps ranges of 30fps. This happens because of different timespans between two frames (e.g. Irregular delays between sequential frames).
The GeForce GTX480M SLI supports the same features as a single GTX 480M card. A single card is based on the Fermi architecture. Therefore, it supports DirectX 11 and is produced in 40nm at TSMC. Featuring 352 cores, the GTX480M is similar to the desktop GTX 465 but features a lower clock rate. The GeForce GTX 480M is combined with 2 GB of fast GDDR5 graphics memory (dedicated) and the overall performance should be superior to the Mobility Radeon HD 5870.
The GF100 aka. Fermi chip was redesigned from scratch and features 3 billion transistors (with all 512 shaders). Compared to the desktop Radeon HD 5870 with 2.13 billion transistors or the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (RV870) with 1.04 billion transistors, the GTX480M chipset is 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 is specified with 100 Watt TDP including the MXM board and the 2 GB GDDR5. AMD usually specifies the TDP of the chip alone, therefore this value is not directly comparable. Still, the GTX 480M is only suited for very large DTR laptops with a good cooling system. Originally, only Clevo sold 17" (D901F) and 18" (X8100) barebone systems.
The fast performance of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M SLI is marginally better than two ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 in Crossfire Mode (CF), partly because of the superior driver support from Nvidia. This means the GTX 480M SLI was the fastest graphics solution for laptops at the time of arrival (2010-06). It allows the user to play all current games in high resolutions and detail settings with Antialiasing activated. Only Metro 2033 and Crysis have to run at lower settings (see below).
Still, in some games the performance gain from SLI may be very small or sometimes a single card may be even a bit faster (due to no SLI support and overhead). You can still disable SLI through the drivers in this case. In our gaming tests, a single 480M was about 16% (Starcraft 2) to 48% (Far Cry 2) slower than the SLI combination. Otherwise, most modern games run about 40% slower on the single card compared to the SLI setup. (see expandable gaming charts below). Due to the fast tessellation unit, upcoming DirectX 11 games may have an advantage over the AMD 5000 series.
Similar to the GeForce 300M series, the GeForce GTX 480M supports PureVideo HD with VideoProcessor 4 (VP4 with Feature Set C). As a result, the GPU is able to fully decode HD videos in H.254, VC-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 ASP. By using Flash 10.1 or later, the graphics card can also accelerate Flash videos, thus taking workload off of the CPU.
The rendering cores of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M can be used for general calculations by means of CUDA or DirectCompute. E.g., the encoding for HD videos can be done significantly faster by using the shader cores of the GPUs rather than using most modern CPUs. PhysX is also supported by the mobile Fermi to calculate physics effects in supported games. Furthermore, a single GTX480M can be used to calculate PhysX while the other card renders the game.
Compared to desktop GPUs, the Geforce GTX 480M is comparable to an underclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 SLI combination (607/1200 clock speed).
Manufacturer | NVIDIA |
GeForce GTX 400M Series | |
Codename | N11E-GTX-A3 |
Architecture | Fermi |
Pipelines | 704 - 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 | 4096 MB |
Shared Memory | no |
DirectX | DirectX 11, Shader 5.0 |
Transistor Count | 6000 Million |
technology | 40 nm |
Notebook Size | large |
Date of Announcement | 25.05.2010 |
Link to Manufacturer Page | http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_gtx... |
Benchmarks
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Score
4383 Points (10%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -7%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance GPU
4229 Points (7%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -5%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +3DMark Vantage - 3DM Vant. Perf. total
min: 15839 avg: 16500 median: 16499.5 (16%) max: 17160 Points
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -6%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 7%
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3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +3DMark Vantage - 3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX
14890 Points (14%)
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -6%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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3DMark 03 - 3DMark 03 - Standard
75704 Points (40%)
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AMD Radeon HD 6790 -23%
ATI Radeon HD 5850 -15%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 16%
AMD Radeon HD 6970 20%
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3DMark 05 - 3DMark 05 - Standard
28423 Points (41%)
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ATI Radeon HD 5770 -5%
AMD Radeon HD 6790 -3%
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 -2%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 4%
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AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 94%
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +20144 Points (37%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 135%
3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x768 +21792 Points (41%)
Model | CPU | GPU | RAM | Value |
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3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x768 |
AVADirect Clevo X7200  | 980X EE | GeForce GTX 480M SLI 4 GB | 12 GB | 21792 |
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - Heaven 2.1 high
58.8 fps (11%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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SPECviewperf 11
specvp11 snx-01 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 snx-01
0.9 fps (1%)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 tcvis-02 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 tcvis-02
0.6 fps (1%)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
...
specvp11 sw-02 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 sw-02
5.1 fps (6%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 proe-05 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 proe-05
1.1 fps (5%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 maya-03 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 maya-03
4.8 fps (4%)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 -70%
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 lightwave-01 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 lightwave-01
9.9 fps (11%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 -5%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 ensight-04 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 ensight-04
8.7 fps (4%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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specvp11 catia-03 +SPECviewperf 11 - specvp11 catia-03
4 fps (5%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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Windows 7 Experience Index - Win7 Gaming graphics
7.8 Points (99%)
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -1%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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Windows 7 Experience Index - Win7 Graphics
7.8 Points (99%)
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -1%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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Cinebench R10 Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit) +Cinebench R10 - Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit)
5178 points (24%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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Cinebench R11.5 Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit +Cinebench R11.5 - Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit
37.7 fps (16%)
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card

- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
Game Benchmarks
The 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.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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AMD Radeon HD 6790 -1%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 40%
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -11%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
...
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AMD Radeon HD 6790 -15%
ATI Radeon HD 5850 -14%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 12%
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» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -8%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
...
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ATI Radeon HD 4850 -4%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
ATI Radeon HD 5850 4%
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NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 -8%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 8%
ATI Radeon HD 5770 13%
AMD Radeon HD 6790 29%
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» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5770 -19%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
...
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 -7%
ATI Radeon HD 5850 -4%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 3%
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -7%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -3%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB 8%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 21%
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» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -20%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB -20%
ATI Radeon HD 5850 -8%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 41%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 64%
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» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -17%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 34%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -23%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -25%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -29%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -16%
AMD Radeon HD 6790 -13%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 17%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 17%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 17%
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti -17%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB -15%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 -6%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 44%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 61%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5770 -43%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -30%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti -30%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB -14%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 16%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 24%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 24%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -22%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
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ATI Radeon HD 5850 -9%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1%
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI