Issues, Questions, Availability and Conclusions
Despite how great my first experience with the new NVIDIA Optimus technology has been, there are still a couple of lingering questions and issues that I am hoping can be addressed by NVIDIA.  For one, while using a web browser by itself keeps the GPU turned off until a Flash video is played back, the GPU stays enabled after the video has finished playing or if you stop it and then move on WITHOUT changing pages.  This could be especially annoying for web readers that go through pages like PC Perspective, view a video near the top of a long stream of news, then spend the next 30 minutes reading the text and information along the rest of the page.  During that 30 minutes, until the user either closes the tab or navigates to a completely new page, the GPU will be enabled and using at least SOME amount of power that the IGP-only solution would not be doing.  Also, if a user watches a video then leaves the page open in a browser window that is minimized then again the GPU will remain on until the tab or browser window is closed.

Also worth noting is that in some instances, the GPU is enabled and working before it might actually be necessary.  For example, in Badaboom, the CUDA-powered video transcoding application, the discrete GPU turns on as soon as the program is opened.  While the GPU is definitely needed during the output part of this process, during the file setup and user configuration stages of the application the discrete GPU is not yet needed and is thus using more power than it should be, under perfectly ideal situations. 

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Now, that might seem greedy being as we are just now getting into the first stage of this technology’s implementation.  Perhaps, but once you start us down this path, forever will it dominate NVIDIA’s future.  And speaking of, the long term success of this product will depend completely on NVIDIA’s ability to stick it out and keep Optimus relevant.  That means years and years of profile updates for February 2010 buyers of the technology.  NVIDIA has a mixed track record for this ideal (see NVIDIA SLI versus NVIDIA Hybrid SLI) so this will be a wait and see type of thing.  I tend to believe that if the technology is successful (and I think it will be) then NVIDIA will stay behind it as long as it is making them some money.

System Availability

As you might expect based on our review samples, the primary launch partner with NVIDIA for the Optimus technology is ASUS.  Not only that, but there will be Optimus-enabled ASUS notebooks on sale THIS WEEK!  The first available models will be the ASUS N61Jv and the N71Jv that feature 16-in and 17-in displays and will be larger DTR-type systems.  We will have more specifications on this later in the day on Monday.

I am told that next week will see the availability of the new ASUS U30JC that will sell for around $900.

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This is a 13.3-in 1366×768 notebook with a Core i3-350M Arrandale processor, NVIDIA G310M graphics, 4GB of DDR3 memory, 320GB HDD and an 8-cell battery. 

A few more ASUS-based Arrandale machines will be available in March as well and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised by the near-immediate availability of the Optimus technology.  Usually when we write about new mobility product offerings we are talking about GPUs and CPUs that aren’t going to be available for months down the line but NVIDIA has obviously worked out the kinks in Optimus and ASUS believes it is ready for end users. 

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Conclusions and Final Thoughts

I think it is fair to say that NVIDIA Optimus is one of the most impressive mobile technologies we have ever seen.  While switchable graphics promised us a future of mobility computing that was both light on power consumption and heavy on performance, Optimus looks like it could actually deliver on that.  The ability to seamlessly and near-instantaneously switch between the integrated graphics on nearly any Intel platform and a large number of discrete graphics chips from NVIDIA enables a totally new paradigm for notebooks computers.  While hardware vendors still have to worry about dissipating the maximum thermal power of the discrete GPU they no longer have concerns over how much the battery life of the overall system will be drained courtesy of that discrete GPU.  Of course the thinnest and lightest machines will probably still be integrated-only, though I think we will see a huge in-flux of discrete-GPU capable notebooks across the market and into consumers hands. 

NVIDIA has obviously been hoping that Optimus Technology will be the answer to its critics and investors that ask how the company planned to survive in a world of CPU and GPU integration.  For as long as Intel’s GPU technology lags behind and NVIDIA continues to innovate, they will have a path to product viability and profitability that AMD will likely be missing out on. 

Keep an eye on PC Perspective for more reviews of Optimus-enabled notebooks coming very soon!

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