High performance CUDA notebooks GTX 285M anyone in a 15 inch form factor?

[SPWorley]

With the “handbrake” applied, the GTX 285 gives me 15 GB/sec of global memory throughput. Ouch. That’s like a GT 220 low cost desktop card.

There’s a similar hack for OSX.It may be useful to write a little OpenGL tool that does the bare minimum to keep the power mode in the right level.

[cbuchner1]

There’s a similar hack for OSX.It may be useful to write a little OpenGL tool that does the bare minimum to keep the power mode in the right level.

It would only be clocking up to 275 MHz Core / 550 MHz Shader / 301 MHz Memory due to an ACPI related problem.

Last news I heard nvidia hope to get a fix into the next Beta driver.

[cbuchner1]

There’s a similar hack for OSX.It may be useful to write a little OpenGL tool that does the bare minimum to keep the power mode in the right level.

It would only be clocking up to 275 MHz Core / 550 MHz Shader / 301 MHz Memory due to an ACPI related problem.

Last news I heard nvidia hope to get a fix into the next Beta driver.

[seibert]

Hmm too bad this product is probably too late for us to pick up. We’ve gotta deploy our software by end of June on available hardware.

This GTX 285 issue is already throwing me off schedule, I am in desperate search for alternatives.

With the “handbrake” applied, the GTX 285 gives me 15 GB/sec of global memory throughput. Ouch. That’s like a GT 220 low cost desktop card.

BTW I’d happily buy this GTX 480M product as a desktop card. It seems to be a decent compromise between power consumption and performance.

Christian

Yeah, actually, if this was under 25W, available in low profile form factors, and could be powered without a PCI-Express plug, this would let me install CUDA devices in several of the computers I have around the lab that otherwise are unsuitable for a decent card.

Also, looks like someone has already announced they will be shipping laptops with the 480M:

http://web.eurocom.com/EC/ec_model_config1(1,202,0)

For those of you in the 17", 12 lbs. laptop/strength training device market. :)

[seibert]

Hmm too bad this product is probably too late for us to pick up. We’ve gotta deploy our software by end of June on available hardware.

This GTX 285 issue is already throwing me off schedule, I am in desperate search for alternatives.

With the “handbrake” applied, the GTX 285 gives me 15 GB/sec of global memory throughput. Ouch. That’s like a GT 220 low cost desktop card.

BTW I’d happily buy this GTX 480M product as a desktop card. It seems to be a decent compromise between power consumption and performance.

Christian

Yeah, actually, if this was under 25W, available in low profile form factors, and could be powered without a PCI-Express plug, this would let me install CUDA devices in several of the computers I have around the lab that otherwise are unsuitable for a decent card.

Also, looks like someone has already announced they will be shipping laptops with the 480M:

http://web.eurocom.com/EC/ec_model_config1(1,202,0)

For those of you in the 17", 12 lbs. laptop/strength training device market. :)

[tera]

if this was under 25W

Doesn’t look like it is:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/nvidia-…june-crazy-pow/

[tera]

if this was under 25W

Doesn’t look like it is:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/nvidia-…june-crazy-pow/

[seibert]

Doesn’t look like it is:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/nvidia-…june-crazy-pow/

Wow, the old Homestarrunner sketch about the 42 lbs laptop with 5 minutes of battery life is not as much of an exaggeration as I thought. :)

[seibert]

Doesn’t look like it is:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/nvidia-…june-crazy-pow/

Wow, the old Homestarrunner sketch about the 42 lbs laptop with 5 minutes of battery life is not as much of an exaggeration as I thought. :)

[MacFan]

Can anyone recommend any high performance CUDA notebooks on the market that do have a business look and feel to them?

I have just taken delivery of a Kobalt Computers 15in machine with an i7 and GTX 285M. So far very good - the 285M is turning in very good numbers for CUDA and the i7 is doing nicely with GridMathematica. I will be using it for lectures and other demos.

The company is at

http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/

and I have the G860. They have just launched the G875 with a 480M!

I considered the Sony F series but the 330 was just too weak, and likewise with most of the other consumer machines. The other custom supplier in the UK is www.novatech.co.uk who do a 260M in a 15 ish size.

[cbuchner1]

According to this thread there is a bug in the nVidia drivers preventing the card from clocking to its full clock speed.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=141116

Well I got some confirmation that the next beta driver release will address this issue.

Having an nVidia developer account is useful sometimes.

[cbuchner1]

and I have the G860. They have just launched the G875 with a 480M!

cool, but I want a notebook - not a space heater. ;)

[cbuchner1]

We’ve recently found a company called Schenker notebooks which will put a core i7 (4 cores) and a GTX 285M in the same 15 inch case. We’ve just received one of these notebooks for testing purposes.

Here’s my Mini Review of the Clevo W860CU barebone chassis (15.6 inch display diagonal)

as sold by mySN.eu (Schenker Notebooks), equipped with core i7 920XM and nVidia GTX285M.

We chose the Full HD display option.

Identical configurations are available from Sagernotebook.com (USA). Kobalt Computers (UK) and

other resellers internationally.

Cons:

-it’s relatively thick and heavy.

-the 3800mAh battery lasts for impressive 50 minutes. When idling. I did not dare to test under

load. There are no other battery options available, it seems.

-the Phoenix BIOS has virtually no options to configure.

-the ACPI BIOS, as shipped, does not appear expose the CPU’s C3 sleep state necessary to enable

the Core i7 “turbo” mode. Hence under Ubuntu 9.04 the CPU was limited to 2 GHz. We did not test

with Windows.

-the GTX 285M does not reach its full speed under Linux, which will be addressed by a future nVidia

driver update

-I did not like the keyboard much. Reminded me of a Sinclair Zx 80 Spectrum. ;)

-Fans can get noisy under load (and we weren’t even able to load it fully yet due to above

restrictions)

-Battery state and AC power indicator are only visible from the front, but not from the top. By default

there was no audible warning for low battery (this has to be enabled explicitly in the BIOS).

Pros:

-all hardware except the WLAN was detected by the not-so-fresh Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)

and working just fine. This was really the only reason we did not immediately return this notebook.

-Professional appearance (not having the usual “Gamer” gimmicks and decals)

Verdict: certainly a small monster, but very much crippled. We’re still looking for workarounds to

release the handbrakes.

[cbuchner1]

WARNING: There is a BAD Driver issue GTX260M … GTX 285M equipped laptop card for CUDA when you run Linux.

Some updates on my hardware and driver troubles with this notebook:

The latest Beta Linux driver 256.29 finally fixed the problem with the notebook not reaching its nominal GPU speed.

mysn.eu (Schenker) contacted Clevo about the mysteriously missing C3 sleep state. Clevo flat out refused any

Linux support.

However I think the fix is this kernel patch from January 18 (part of kernels 2.6.32.7 and later)

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?..amp;action=diff

On Ubuntu 9.04 and older one may have to apply this manually (no more support after April this year).

It should also be available as a kernel update for Ubuntu 9.10 and it is part of Ubuntu 10.4 already.

Christian

[bernddude]

Can anyone recommend any high performance CUDA notebooks on the market that do have a business look and feel to them?

And they should not be bigger than 15 inches. Display should have full HD resolution (1280x768 or 1376x800 would be too low).

We have briefly looked at Alienware products, but the case just looked much too “gamer like”.

Some of the more professional quadro based notebook “workstations” (e.g. Dell) were simply priced too high and only came in 17 inch form factors

We’ve recently found a company called Schenker notebooks which will put a core i7 (4 cores) and a GTX 285M in the same 15 inch case. We’ve just received one of these notebooks for testing purposes.

The idea is that we demo our engineering applications and demonstrators on a mobile platform. For our radio simulations CUDA can never be fast enough. It’s really hard though to find all that performance in a small package. If you have any more recommendations, please chip in.

Christian

Check out Eurocom , i think i recall its a canadian maker of notebook, similar to sager , but they do build even a few more high end features into their systems

an other alternative, if money isn’t the issue might be Orion, they do promise you could name your components and build a machine as ordered