NVIDIA GPUs in laptops seem to be vanishing

R

rpg.314

Veteran
I was checking out laptops costing ~$800-$1000 at present exchange rates, and although it wasn't a exhaustive or extensive search by any means, I found only those with the lowest end ati gpu's.

NV's gpu's seemed to be MIA.

Is this just a coincidence, an India thing, or a broad trend all around?

PS: ATI's gpu's are off the table as

a) ati's linux drivers don't expose video decode hw. :cry:

b) nv's linux drivers are longer and bettter track record.
 
Which nV GPU are you looking for? In the 750-1000 USD range I show 21 laptops with nV GPUs in newegg's online store.
 
Seems like Asus uses more nV than most. I'd check Asus resellers in your area. 260M is quite good and falls in that price range.
 
It's a broad trend everywhere. I think it was due to several reasons: Intel having suitable integrated graphics on their i3/i5 mobile cpus, Nvidia failing to deliver for some time now, Nvidia's past massive failures with "Bump-Gate", and AMD's market lead in the mobile space.

As for Linux video decode, it depends if you use the older software or the current software. Linux is moving towards VaAPI (libVA) which supports the broad range of video acceleration decode and encode [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VaAPI | http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi ]

P.S. Your information is out of date. VLC 1.1.0 for Linux supports the AMD Hardware Decode. It uses the VaAPI [ http://www.videolan.org/ ].
 
Mize said:
Seems like Asus uses more nV than most. I'd check Asus resellers in your area. 260M is quite good and falls in that price range.
Click to expand...

Thanks. But there's no way in India I can afford a laptop with anything in the league of 260M. In India, OEM's screw us royally over so much as thinking about decent GPU's.

30-50% markup over US prices is normal for anything midrange (desktop ofc), in retail. And we only get launch prices to boot, ie no reductions. :devilish:
 
BRiT said:
It's a broad trend everywhere. I think it was due to several reasons: Intel having suitable integrated graphics on their i3/i5 mobile cpus, Nvidia failing to deliver for some time now, Nvidia's past massive failures with "Bump-Gate", and AMD's market lead in the mobile space.
Click to expand...
Bump gate should have been an old story by now.
:???:
P.S. Your information is out of date. VLC 1.1.0 for Linux supports the AMD Hardware Decode. It uses the VaAPI [ http://www.videolan.org/ ].
Click to expand...
VLC supports VAAPI. There is an AMD backend for VAAPI, but it is pretty limited, ie no evergreen support at all. Worse, it is not even planned. :cry: Plus it is a long road of banging your head with googling/patches/compiles/fighting-system-updates.

NV drivers for linux rock. Their OGL/OCL support is months ahead of AMD, everything else being equal, not to mention VDPAU works out of the box on almost every media player. Plus they have divx decode in newer gpu's too.

Apparently their ICD seemed to be borked/wouldn't play nice with AMD's for CPUs sometime ago, but it is a minor flaw overall.
 
Well if we go with a 30% markup that puts your price range at $500-$750 effectively.
For $680 you could get this:

ASUS K50ID-X3 NoteBook Intel Pentium T4500(2.30GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 320M
Equipped w/GT320M +Free 1 year Accidental Warranty
Click to expand...

Or this Sony for $730:
SONY VAIO CW Series VPCCW2PFX/L NoteBook Intel Core i3 330M(2.13GHz) 14" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 310M
Click to expand...
 
A GeForce GT 330M and an ATI HD 5650 are about the best you'll find in that price bracket. The 5650 is best, but the 330M is only a bit slower. Anything worse than that (like a GT 310M) will make it almost impossible to play recent games even on low at the native resolution.

MSI has some interesting models with a GTS 160M (which is top of the line in that price range), like the MSI GT628, but they're not very sturdy, crash a lot and get REALLY hot.


Edit: a GT 330M is quite a bit faster than a GT 310M, so both it and the 5650 allow you to play almost all recent games at least at medium on the native resolution (1366*768).

Edit2: Your best bet is most likely a Samsung R580, if you like the looks. ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, I spotted the date after I posted.

How does it perform? I ordered one as well.
 
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