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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M

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

GeForce GTX 485M SLI compare 768 @ 0.58 GHz256 Bit @ 1500 MHz
GeForce GTX 470M SLI compare 576 @ 0.54 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 480M SLI compare 704 @ 0.43 GHz256 Bit @ 1200 MHz
GeForce GTX 460M SLI compare 384 @ 0.68 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 485M compare 384 @ 0.58 GHz256 Bit @ 1500 MHz
GeForce GTX 470M compare 288 @ 0.54 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
GeForce GTX 480M 352 @ 0.43 GHz256 Bit @ 1200 MHz
GeForce GTX 460M compare 192 @ 0.68 GHz192 Bit @ 1250 MHz
CodenameN11E-GTX-A3
ArchitectureFermi
Pipelines352 - unified
Core Speed425 MHz
Shader Speed850 MHz
Memory Speed1200 MHz
Memory Bus Width256 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory2048 MB
Shared Memoryno
APIDirectX 11, Shader 5.0
Power Consumption100 Watt
Transistor Count3 Billion
technology40 nm
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement25.05.2010
Link to Manufacturer Pagewww.nvidia.com

Benchmarks

3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Score
min: 2336     avg: 2387     median: 2387 (3%)     max: 2438 Points
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance GPU
min: 2177     avg: 2185     median: 2184.5 (2%)     max: 2192 Points
3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +
3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +
3DMark 2001SE - 3DMark 2001 - Standard
min: 37908     avg: 39907     median: 39907 (41%)     max: 41906 Points
3DMark 03 - 3DMark 03 - Standard
min: 42919     avg: 43733     median: 43552 (23%)     max: 44727 Points
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +
3DMark 06
min: 13273     avg: 15394     median: 15066.5 (20%)     max: 18731 Points
Cinebench R10 Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit) +
Cinebench R11.5 Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit +
- 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.

Mafia 2

Mafia 2

2010
med. 1024x768
67.1  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
60  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
40.9  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1360x768
high 1360x768
ultra 1920x1080
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
low 800x600
126  fps    + Compare
med. 1360x768
58.6 69 ~ 64 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
high 1600x900
31.3 34 ~ 33 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
ultra 1920x1080
11.8 12 ~ 12 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
low 1024x768
108  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
64.8 97 ~ 81 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
high 1366x768
58 70 ~ 64 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
ultra 1920x1080
37 38 ~ 38 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
68 68 ~ 68 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
ultra 1920x1080
47.9 51 ~ 49 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Risen

Risen

2009
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
ultra 1920x1080
33.7 38 ~ 36 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

2009
low 800x600
150.5  fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
96.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
59.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Need for Speed Shift

Need for Speed Shift

2009
med. 1024x768
high 1366x768
70.7 84 ~ 77 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
ultra 1920x1080
51 52.6 ~ 52 fps    + Compare + 📈 Graph
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Colin McRae: DIRT 2

Colin McRae: DIRT 2

2009
low 800x600
176.5  fps    + Compare
med. 1024x768
94.1 130.5 ~ 112 fps    + Compare
high 1360x768
81.6 84.4 ~ 83 fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
46.8 46.9 ~ 47 fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Anno 1404

Anno 1404

2009
low 1024x768
170  fps    + Compare
ultra 1280x1024
53  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
F.E.A.R. 2

F.E.A.R. 2

2009
high 1280x1024
119  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
61  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto

GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto

2008
high 1280x1024
53.9  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead

2008
high 1024x768
142  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

2008
low 640x480
174  fps    + Compare
high 1024x768
106  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
45.4  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Crysis Warhead

Crysis Warhead

2008
low 800x600
98  fps    + Compare
ultra 1024x768
34  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Trackmania Nations Forever

Trackmania Nations Forever

2008
ultra 1920x1080
52.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare

2007
high 1280x1024
93  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Supreme Commander - FA Bench

Supreme Commander - FA Bench

2007
Crysis - GPU Benchmark

Crysis - GPU Benchmark

2007
high 1024x768
62.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
16.1  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis - CPU Benchmark

Crysis - CPU Benchmark

2007
high 1024x768
58.3  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
15.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
World in Conflict - Benchmark

World in Conflict - Benchmark

2007
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark

2005
high 1024x768
234  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Quake 4

Quake 4

2005
ultra 1024x768
62  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Doom 3

Doom 3

2004
low 640x480
310  fps    + Compare
ultra 1024x768
290  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo

Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo

1999
high 1024x768
720  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
lowmed.highultraQHD4K
Mafia 267.16040.9
StarCraft 245.244.536.8
Metro 2033126643312
Battlefield: Bad Company 2108816438
CoD Modern Warfare 278.66849
Risen68.448.736
Resident Evil 5150.596.359.7
Need for Speed Shift747752
Colin McRae: DIRT 2176.51128347
Anno 140417053
Sims 3105
F.E.A.R. 211961
GTA IV - Grand Theft Auto53.9
Left 4 Dead142
Far Cry 217410645.4
Crysis Warhead9834
Trackmania Nations Forever52.8
Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare93
Supreme Commander - FA Bench52.445.1
Crysis - GPU Benchmark62.316.1
Crysis - CPU Benchmark58.315.5
World in Conflict - Benchmark8435
Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark234
Quake 462
Counter-Strike Source191
Doom 3310290
Quake 3 Arena - Timedemo720
< 30 fps
< 60 fps
< 120 fps
≥ 120 fps


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Playable games for each graphics card and their average FPS results.

Class 0

Arc A380

Class 1

Class 2

Radeon PRO W6600M *

Class 3

UHD Graphics 32EUs
UHD Graphics 750

Class 4

Class 5

* Approximate position of the graphics adapter