Nvidia Announces GeForce GTX 480M, Replaces Death Star as Ultimate Power in the Universe

Nvidia announced its newest, baddest notebook chip today, the GTX 480M, which is the world’s fastest notebook GPU, according to the company. And indeed, it might be just that.

The GTX 480M is based on Fermi architecture, and is manufactured using the 40nm process. That means it  has about three times more CUDA cores than Nvidia’s  previous most-powerful GPU, the GeForce 360M. How many, you ask? Try 352 cores, compared to the 360M’s 96 cores.

The 480M can support up to 2GB of DDR5 RAM, and is capable of 897 gigaflops. (The GeForce 360M maxed out at 413 gigaflops).

Additionally, the 480M supports DirectX 11, and has a tessellation engine. What is Tessellation? It’s the process by which the GPU divides up a larger object into little triangles in order to render the image. The chip also supports PhysX, 3D Vision, and 3DTV Play, which means you can hook the notebook up to a 3DTV via HDMI 1.4.

Finally, the 480M will support SLI, so if one of these bad boys isn’t enough for you, then you can add another to turn your notebook into some Mongo-like powerhouse. The GPU will make its first appearance in a rig from Clevo, but a number of systems from other manufacturers will be available by mid-June, according to Nvidia. We’re certainly looking forward to benchmarking it, so stay tuned.