Fermi development on a laptop and the GTX 480M Experiences developing for Fermi on laptops

I am a mobile developer, sharing time between two cities. My company wants to target the Fermi architecture. We’ll mostly use desktops for this, but I would like my next laptop to have native Fermi capability so that I can do development and testing on it. I would like the Fermi card to be dedicated (or dedicatable) to running of HPC stuff. Hence, I need some other mechanism for running the display, like on board video, or another video card. Ideal would be to have two of these cards dedicated to HPC and some other mechanism for the display, but that is probably too much to ask for…

It appears as though the GTX 480M is Nvidia’s first, and currently the only, Fermi card for laptops. Is that correct?

I would like to hear from anyone who has a laptop with the ability to natively run on a Fermi board (a GTX 480M I guess). What is the make of your laptop? What is the size, weight, screen size? What CPU configs are possible? What’s the heat like? Do you use another video subsystem or card to handle the display? If so, how is this done? Is there a docking station for your laptop? Does it have two internal HD bays?

Any sharing of experiences would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Rob

Not answering your question, but have you thought of building two identical desktop systems (one for each office) and keeping your projects synced via a VPN or even just Dropbox?

Not answering your question, but have you thought of building two identical desktop systems (one for each office) and keeping your projects synced via a VPN or even just Dropbox?

Yes, it may well come to that. I worry about the heat generated in such a laptop, as well as the size. Be nice to have the hardware sitting there wherever I go. It’s not always possible to be on the net when traveling.

Yes, it may well come to that. I worry about the heat generated in such a laptop, as well as the size. Be nice to have the hardware sitting there wherever I go. It’s not always possible to be on the net when traveling.

Maybe this breakout box from another thread would be something for you.

Maybe this breakout box from another thread would be something for you.

Or through the wonders of distributed revision control, carrying just an USB stick around.

Or through the wonders of distributed revision control, carrying just an USB stick around.

Definitely kills the portability though. :)

Definitely kills the portability though. :)

Well, if he’s considering building two desktop systems, maybe two breakout boxes would do. Probably depends on the price of the box though…

Well, if he’s considering building two desktop systems, maybe two breakout boxes would do. Probably depends on the price of the box though…

So do the 8.5 pound “laptops” that use the GTX480m.

It’s likely NV will release some reasonable GF104 based mobile chips soon, which are much, much, much more balanced for mobile use than the GF100 based GTX480m.

I have no special knowledge of NV’s plans, just the performance and specs of the shipping GTX460 show you this.

(Those same arguments support the idea of a dual-chip GF104 “GTX495” board.)

So do the 8.5 pound “laptops” that use the GTX480m.

It’s likely NV will release some reasonable GF104 based mobile chips soon, which are much, much, much more balanced for mobile use than the GF100 based GTX480m.

I have no special knowledge of NV’s plans, just the performance and specs of the shipping GTX460 show you this.

(Those same arguments support the idea of a dual-chip GF104 “GTX495” board.)

Have any laptops two video cards?

Have any laptops two video cards?

Yes, including ones that have two GTX480m!

Yes, including ones that have two GTX480m!

Apple MacBook Pro
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 256 MB (thats Fermi)
[url=“Buy MacBook Pro - Apple (UK)”]http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop...mco=MTAyNTQzMzk[/url]

only the one graphics card though so you can’t dedicate it to HPC only