X-bit labs

NVIDIA Officially Unwraps Entry-Level GeForce 7 for Mobiles.

Category: Mobile

by Anton Shilov

[ 10/25/2005 | 06:03 PM ]

NVIDIA Corp. on Tuesday officially released details concerning its GeForce Go 7300 graphics processing unit (GPU), which was unveiled by the company’s partner ASUSTeK Computer a day earlier. The new processor brings capabilities and performance of the GeForce 7 family along with lower power consumption at mainstream pricing to notebooks.

“As consumers become more savvy and demanding in their requirements for good graphics and video on their PCs, the shortcomings of a lot of notebooks on the market become apparent.By utilizing the GeForce Go 7300 in these new notebooks, ASUS is delivering unparalleled multimedia capabilities, in a no-compromise portable notebook,” said Rob Csongor, general manager of notebook GPUs at NVIDIA.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Go 7300 visual processing unit for notebooks with PCI Express interconnection is believed to sport four pixel processors, three vertex processors as well as variety of other innovations found in the GeForce 7-series of GPUs, such as Shader Model 3.0, transparency antialiasing, PureVideo, multi-monitor capabilities and so on. The default version of the chip advertised by NVIDIA works at 350MHz and utilizes 700MHz memory with 64-bit interface, but actual specs may vary depending on the manufacturer. The part also sports the company’s TurboCache technology that allows to use system memory as frame-buffer.

To bring down power consumption of the new mobile GPU the designer has implemented its PowerMizer 6.0 technology which sports several enhancements over the previous versions, such as NVIDIA’s ASLM (Active State Link Management) that switches between x1 and x16 PCI Express link widths, lowering power consumption for applications that do not require the full x16 PCI Express bandwidth as well as ASPM (Active State Power Management) that extends the reach of PowerMizer’s PCI Express link power management: by detecting the level of activity on the PCI-Express link, PowerMizer can determine the optimal time to place the link into a lower power state.

NVIDIA did not unveil actual power envelope of the new part, but indicated that the part fits into the same power budget as “previous generation mobile GPUs”. The company also did not indicate which process technology is used to make the GeForce Go 7300, but the firm’s document dated late August that describes PowerMizer 6.0 advantages, a technology currently found only on the GeForce Go 7800- and 7300-series, claims that chips supporting the tech will be made using “advanced manufacturing fabrication (down to the latest 0.09 micron process technology)”.

Currently the GeForce Go 7300 is available in ASUSTeK’s A6Vm and A6Km notebooks. Later the GeForce 7300-series is likely to be available for desktop computers as well.