Nvidia Demos Optimus by Yanking GPU Out of Running System
Nvidia Demos Optimus by Yanking GPU Out of Running System
Posted 03/02/2010 at 6:01pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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Nvidia has been talking up their new Optimus system as of late. An Optimus enabled notebook will be able to seamlessly switch between a low power integrated GPU to a higher power dedicated GPU. The power savings are said to be significant, nearly doubling rated battery life. Optimus can do this by completely powering off the GPU when using the on-board. To prove this, Nvidia went ahead a pulled the GPU from a running computer causing no interruption.
The real trick of Optimus is that the switch will happen automatically whenever the GPU is needed. For example, if you use the GPU acceleration in Flash 10.1 and open a Youtube video, the GPU would turn on to render the video. Close the Window, and the GPU powers down. This demo is meant to stress that when an Optimus system turns off the GPU, it is totally electrically off.
We’re excited about the possible energy savings this system could bring. Switchable graphics in notebooks have long been available, but poorly implemented. If Optimus is really as seamless as Nvidia makes it look, count us in.
Check out the full video:
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lien_meat
March 03, 2010 at 3:38pm
I'm so glad that nvidia is pushing hard into mobile graphics tech. SOMEBODY needed to, and they are more than just competing in that space. And thankfully not just with x86 chips either, tegra2 is pretty appealing as well. I honestly have given up on nvidia on the desktop front, as ati just keeps delivering really decent performing, decent priced parts that are decently power-efficient for a video card (and that's coming from someone who used to dislike ATI cards)...but on the mobile front...wow...they are really stunning me. I'm really excited to see what is in store the next couple of years for mobile computing...as it's just exploding right now.
violian
March 03, 2010 at 12:36am
I'd take "doubling the battery life" with caution. Users looking into a laptop with a dedicated GPU will see improvements in battery life. But for the majority of laptop users who are currently using onboard graphics...they wouldn't see any improvements in battery life as there isn't a dedicated GPU to suck the battery away in the first place.
Havok
March 02, 2010 at 7:34pm
At last, a cool new announcemant by our boys in green that has FINALLY got me excited. Screw this Fermi business, this is cool.
CLICK.
bingojubes
March 02, 2010 at 6:48pm
I have to say, that is very cool! upgrading while the PC is still ON is a cool feature, but still probably risk of something going horribly wrong. But i guess you can't take the CPU off completely...shutting it off is cool, but i don'think removing it to upgrade it might not be the best idea.
Digital-Storm
March 02, 2010 at 9:59pm
It is not ment to be upgraded while it is on. It is ment to show that the gpu gets turned off completely, and doesn't use any power whatsoever, so it has no effect if you where to remove it and then put it back in.
falconkestrel
March 02, 2010 at 7:47pm
That is a engineering board when they go to mass production it will not be romovable. It will be integrated right in to the board like any other GPU in a netbook or laptop.
nekollx
March 03, 2010 at 10:18am
i think you missed a line. Optimus will be part of the board, the dedicated GPU won't. And while hot swaping GPUs may not be a good idea the concept is that it would cause a critical failure if you did it
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