Toshiba Launches Its Satellite Into Orbit With NVIDIA’s GeForce2Go – THG.RU

Introduction

Nvidia has been the driving force in the graphics business for quite a while. It started with the Riva 128 for desktops and continued as NVIDIA brought out new products every six months. The alarming speed at which NVIDIA executed its product roadmap left other graphics chip companies demoralized. As a result, ATI is more or less the only big player that has remained in direct competition with NVIDIA. In the desktop category, NVIDA is the clear leader.

ATI has been dominant in notebooks, where it has enjoyed significant market share since it displaced Cirrus Logic in the first half of the nineties. While the mobile market is not as good as the desktop for establishing a brand name, it is a volume business and, therefore, lucrative – the mobile market continues to grow at two-digit rates. Now, NVIDIA has come to conquer the last bastion of the graphics sector, partnering with Toshiba, a powerhouse in mobile computing itself.

Toshiba Worldwide

There are about 166 different notebook vendors, but Toshiba has established its name in this sector like no other company.

Toshiba’s corporations deliver a range of products covering industrial appliances, transportation, power plants, consumer products, medical systems, information and communications hardware.

When it comes to notebooks, this chart says it all when it comes to Toshiba’s dominance of the mobile market: if you want to penetrate the notebook market, you couldn’t do better than having Toshiba as a launch partner. Toshiba’s experience in the mobile market, in combination with the reach of its service and sales centers around the world, gives NVIDIA an experienced, and valued partner. For NVIDIA, having a strong partner is very important because, the graphics card business is quite different from the notebook business. With graphics cards, you can simply give your VGA manufacturer the Gerber layout file, tell him where to download the driver, and off you go to mass production heaven. For instance: all desktop cards with NVIDIA chips use NVIDIA’s driver, and most of them recycle NVIDIA’s reference design, so that the only value-added features left to worry about are fancy coolers and PCB’s in novelty colors.

However, this type of approach is not appropriate for the notebook industry. Every notebook design is unique, and requires extensive electronic, thermal and mechanical engineering, as well as dedicated driver support. With this in mind, the good old boys of the mobile VGA business had some mixed feelings about NVIDIA getting involved in this complicated but lucrative game. NVIDIA’s upcoming chipset, along with the pace of development set by NVIDIA itself, raises the question whether NVIDIA will be able to provide enough support that is good enough for its notebook partners.

Positioning

In one of my previous article, Nuts and Bolts of Notebooks I explained the different mobile segments. Toshiba covers each and every segment with a different brand of notebook.

The Protйgй series represents the one or two spindle sub 2kg category.

Most corporate customers prefer the Tecra series for its stability and for its approach: Toshiba guarantees the availability of the Tecra platform for 12 to 18month, which is not only vital to corporate planning, but also reduces the total cost of ownership. Without this guarantee, MIS departments of larger corporations would likely be left spending way too much time and money on testing and troubleshooting a mishmash of hardware.

Most office users and road warriors do not have the urgent desire for 3D performance in Excel and PowerPoint, but there is definitely a demand for it in the consumer market. This makes the Satellite series the perfect place for NVIDIA and Toshiba to launch their partnership allowing NVIDIA’s 3D expertise to reach an appreciative mobile audience.

GeForce Two Or More To Go

On February 12 2001 Nvidia and Toshiba announced the first notebook with the GeForce2Go.

This chip is used with the Toshiba Satellite 2805-S402 and Satellite 2800-500. Just two weeks later NVIDIA announced yet another two mobile chips, GeForce2Go 100 and 200, improving on the original design in many ways. So, it will be interesting to see how Toshiba reacts to the new GeForce2Go chipsets in future products.

The limited space on notebook motherboards always poses a challenge to component manufacturers. ATI, the leader in notebook graphics, offers one solution to this problem by selling its mobile VGA chips with embedded memory. Both the Geforce2Go 100 and 200 from NVIDIA benefit from a 45% reduction in size compared to the original GeForce2Go, which also frees up valuable real estate on the motherboard, and with its latest graphic chip, NVIDIA claims to use even less real estate than competing solutions with integrated memory.

GeForce2 Go To Integration

Most notebooks, including Toshiba’s Satellite, use an onboard VGA solution.

This portion is well hidden at the backside of the notebook motherboard, underneath the FDD.

On the upper side of the notebook motherboard you will find the external 16MB 64bit SDRAM video memory.

The 32bit SDRAM from Samsung is specified for up to 183MHz and offers quite some leeway for Overclocking. I personally do not expect to see any mobile graphics solution using 64MB 128bit DDR very soon.

Sorry, NVIDIA, but how could this solution with external memory be smaller than a single chip with embedded memory?

Star Wars: Toshiba Satellite 2800-500 vs. 2805-S402

Basically, if you live in Europe, you should catch a flight to the US and buy the notebook there. Not only will you get a great notebook, but also have a few days off too to take a vacation. Each market has its own individual structure and pricing, but this is the biggest price difference that I have ever seen! The prices shown above are suggested retail prices only – you could probably get it for about $200 cheaper through CNET or other online shopping resources.

Apart from the price difference, a first glance at the notebook will leave you astonished in other ways- man, this thing is huge!

Toshiba went all out with this notebook, giving it a large 15″ display, along with every hot feature available in the mobile market. Most of the latest high-end notebooks use the BX chipset with PCI or 2x AGP and UDMA33. The Toshiba Satellite has Intel’s latest i815EM chipset with 4x AGP and UDMA IDE, making this baby a real desktop replacement. Not only that, but its DVD drive also has CD-R(W) capabilities, and the sound is clearly the best I have ever heard from a notebook.

Subwoofer For The Road

Sound is typically a weak point with notebooks. Due to the space limitations, the speaker size is comparable to a quarter, and as a result, the lower frequencies are simply unavailable. To tackle this problem Toshiba, took an interesting route by integrating a subwoofer into the notebook.

To give you an impression of the subwoofer size I compared it with a 2.5″ HDD. This subwoofer emits sound from the bottom of the notebook, which is then reflected off (or absorbed into) the surface on which the notebook is sitting. If you have get the opportunity next time you are at computer store, take a look at this notebook and compare it against other notebooks for audio; you simply must try this feature, and don’t forget to hit the BASS button at the top side of the notebook.

Satellite Power Management

A notebook is nothing without power management. Together, the 15″ display and the PentiumIII processor (800MHz or 850MHz) really eat up the battery while you’re on the road. Therefore, you must find the optimal balance between performance and battery life. To help you with this, Transmeta has its LongRun system, and ASUS models with PentiumIII have the Intel Speedstep program, just to name a couple of examples. Toshiba also has a convenient power utility called Power Saver, which contains very detailed settings.

Next to the AC Power setting there are three different preinstalled battery settings: Battery Optimized, Normal and Maximum Performance.

These settings will ensure the longest possible battery life. There are four options for processor speed: Full = 100% performance, High = 75% performance, Mid = 50% performance and Low = 25% performance.

Satellite Power Management, Continued

The power consumption can be specified for up to four different battery states. The Maximum Performance setting, for example, displays the setting for a fast mobile device that saves some battery power.

My personal favorite is the Normal setting.

When we are talking power consumption we mainly focus on the CPU. The display also consumes quite a bit of the battery. That’s why Toshiba has three different settings for the display called: Super, Bright and Semi.

BIOS vs. Setup-Program

Most BIOS settings like the boot sequence and passwords require the user to enter the BIOS during boot up time. With Windows ME and modern BIOS versions this can be especially tricky because you only have a very short time during which to do this. Sometimes you get the timing wrong, and you have to reboot. Toshiba provides a way around this problem with a nice tool called HW Setup. Through this feature you have an easy way to modify BIOS options via your Windows OS.

Front view

1. button for opening the notebook.
2. Air intake for the built-in subwoofer

Left view

1. Kensington lock for the protection of the notebook.
2. This is a small lock for PCMCIA cards.
3. PCMCIA socket for 2x TypeI/II or 1x TypeIII
4. 1.44MB FDD
5. Reset button
6. Li-Ion Battery pack with 10.8V and 4000mAh

Rear view

1. AC power connector for 15V DC.
2. PS/2 Mouse or PS/2 Keyboard. The parallel usage of the built-in mouse stick and the external PS/2 mouse is not so good. The external PS/2 mouse is only detected during boot-up.
3. 2x USB
4. i.LINK (IEEE1394) S400 connector
5. Air out take of the CPU fan
6. V.90 56k modem connector
7. 10/100Mb Ethernet connector
8. VGA connector
9. Printer connector

Right view

1. Audio volume control
2. Stereo headphone connector
3. Microphone in connector
4. Video out for TV adapter cable
5. Reader for Smart Media flash memory cards
6. Toshiba SD-R2002 6xDVD, 24xCD-ROM and 4xCD-R(W)

Open notebook

The large 15″ display dominates the complete notebook.

1. You have to push the power button very hard to start the notebook.
2. Accupoint mouse buttons
3. The pointing device is the Toshiba typical Stick
4. More details on the status LEDs with the next picture.
5. Caps-lock, Cursor-mode and num-lock indicator
6. Control for the CD player and the bass function. More details with the next picture.
7. With this key you can start the notebook with an Internet browser.
8. The lid-switch will darken the display and, depending on the power management settings, trigger the hibernate mode.

Top view

1. This magic button enables the Bass function with the subwoofer.
2. Audio CD – Fast forward
3. Audio CD – Stop
4. Audio CD – Play/Pause
5. Audio CD – Fast Rewind
6. Move this to the right to start Audio CD Player function and open CD-ROM drive while the notebook remains in Soft-off. Move to the left to start the notebook with the Windows Media player.
7. Indicator for FDD/DVD/CD activity.
8. Indicator for HDD activity.
9. Indicator is orange for charging the battery and green for fully charged.
10. Indicator for system activity.
11. Indicator for AC power.

Bottom View

1. HDD bay
2. Memory socket
3. Subwoofer
4. Lan/Modem section
5. Battery bay

Removing the Battery

For all the DIY options it is recommend to remove the AC power connector and the battery.

Slide the battery cover to the right and remove the battery pack.

Upgrading the memory

This is an easy one. Just remove those two screws and open the cover.

With 1x 144pin SDRAM module you can upgrade the system memory to a total of 384MB. Toshiba positions this notebook in the consumer market and because of this it only offers one memory socket for upgrades. 128MB SDRAM is soldered on the motherboard. There is some free space on the PCB for the manufacturing option of onboard 256MB.

Upgrading the HDD

The HDD is only one screw away. Although there seems to be plenty of space in the HDD bay, Toshiba designed it to accept 2.5″ HDD 9.5mm drives only.

Exchange Motherboard

After removing the battery and the HDD, you will need to remove all other screws at the bottom. A very convenient feature of the Toshiba notebook is that every screw has a small ID. This simplifies the disassembly and the assembly.

At the rear-side of the notebook you need the remove these two screws.

Above the keyboard is a small cover. This can be removed by lifting it up.

Below that cover are the two screws that connect the keyboard to the chassis.

After you remove all the screws that you can find from this side, you will be able to lift up the complete display with the top cover of the base in one piece.

The DVD drive and the FDD can be removed in a snap. The CPU cooler is mounted with four screws. The fan is on top of the northbridge. The cable over the subwoofer must be removed, as well as the small connector board.

After you have removed three spacer screws near the subwoofer, the four spacer screws at the CPU and the other three screws near the edge of the board you can carefully lift the notebook motherboard.

Upgrading the CPU

This is the sad part of the Satellite 2800-500/2805-S402. Toshiba uses the BGA2 CPU. Unlike the equally priced mBGA2 CPU it is soldered onboard and cannot be upgraded.

Specification

The notebook tested is the German version of the Toshiba Satellite 2800-500.

Test Setup

Our testing section includes Notebook vs. Desktop benchmarks as well as Notebook vs. Notebook benchmarks.

BatteryMark

It is amazing that the same notebook grabs the first and the last position in the same test. With full steam ahead the battery is used up within 69 minutes. When power management kicks in with semi brightness and the CPU running at only 200MHz, it nearly doubles the battery life.

The power consumption test, calculated from the available battery capacity and battery life, shows some interesting results. The difference between Toshiba 2800-500 (/Maximum Performance) running at 600MHz and ASUS L8400B 600MHz Speedstep is 7.1W. The ASUS notebook uses the good old BX chipset with S3 graphics and a 14″ display.

These results are only the worse case figures. BatteryMark 4.0 also offers a Life-test with some breaks between the test runs where the power management can kick in.

The battery life increases significantly.

Quake III Arena

This test is crying out for a Desktop vs. Notebook and a Notebook vs. Notebook comparison. All graphic benchmarks were performed on the ASUS L8400B notebook from our previous test and a desktop system with similar clock speed. Both the notebooks as well as the desktop were clocked with 100MHz FSB and 100MHz SDRAM.

Lets start with the notebook comparison.

The S3 Savage/MX of the ASUS L8400B reaches its limit with ~33frames, while the GeForce2Go clearly plays in a different league. At last year’s CeBIT, the business notebooks debuted with the S3 chip. At the time, they offered the best graphics that you could get for a mobile. On the negative side, the OpenGL driver falls into software mode when Twinview is enabled.

Quake3 Desktop vs. Notebook

The GeForce2Go performs at the level of a MX200 card. 64bit SDRAM does not use the full potential of the GeForce2Go chip, but every mobile design is a compromise between space, power, complexity and thermal.

The notebook display is at 1024×768. When set to other resolutions, the main image is centered and surrounded by black, or it is stretched to the display resolution. The S3 notebook was not able to play in 1024×768 at all. An average of 25.1 frames per second with 32bit might not be sufficient to play those shooter games. 16bit might be a working alternative.

3DMark2000 V1.1

By now, those of you who have had the pleasure of reading my previous notebook articles are bound to be crying out for Mercedes Benz Truck Racing results. The driver for the Toshiba only displays the roof of the trucks, along with some space and ground. This is why I skipped this test and used the 3DMark2000 (unpublished as of yet) for comparison.

Not only does OpenGL get a boost, but the performance nearly tripled. However, the results of this test do not tell us much about the CPU power when compared to the Quake3 Benchmark.

3Dmark2000 Desktop vs. Notebook

Nvidia MX200 and the GeForce2Go of the Toshiba Satellite notebook have similar performances. The latest Beta Version of Powerstrip reported 166MHz for Engine and Memory clock with the mobile solution.

Specviewperf

That is the first time that we have run this benchmark on a notebook. The previous graphic solutions were simply not powerful enough for this. In our regular desktop testing we use a resolution of 1280×1024. To get a better comparison we always run those tests in 1024×768.

Up till now, the GeForce2Go has always managed to be a bit faster than the Nvidia MX200, but this time the desktops were better. Keep in mind, however, that these results are still very good for a notebook.

Sysmark 2000

Even after all these graphics tests – let’s not forget that the main purpose of a notebook is for office applications.

I have to admit that I was surprised and disappointed about the i815EM chipset with the Nvidia graphics. When Toshiba runs at Low, the performance renders the notebook incapable of handling real work. In this test, the BX chipset of the ASUS L8400B clearly kicks ass.

The BX chipset leads, followed closely by the Transmeta in the Sony C1V notebook.

HD Tach

Toshiba uses its own HDD and DVD drive.

The HD tach performance of the drive makes a very good impression. However, IBM remains the king of the hill with its Travelstar series.

Disk Access Time

The access time for Toshiba’s 2.5″ drive is way out of line, which puzzled me a bit.

Business Disk Winmark

In Business Disk performance, Toshiba lays right between the fast IBM and the slow Hitachi drive. Toshiba’s faster disk interface apparently does not give it any added advantages.

Highend Disk Winmark

The low disk access time and the faster IDE interface seem to have no effect on performance.

Final Thoughts

What we like:

• The big 15″ display has a very clear and crisp picture
• Sound with subwoofer is a must have for consumer notebook
• Toshiba offers a very detailed power management setup tool.
• DVD/CD/CD-R(W) combo drive offers all you need to replace a desktop.
• Finally, you can play real 3D games on a notebook.
• A very detailed manual that included all AT commands for the built-in modem.

What we don’t like:

• The size and weight of the notebook is too much for true mobile use.
• I sadly missed infrared, built-in microphone and a serial port
• A CPU that is soldered to the board offers no possibility for an upgrade.
• The price differential is going to hurt European buyers, but in the US it is competitive.
• When running in AC mode the battery charge time can be exceed 10 hours.

Conclusion

Toshiba draws a very clear line between its consumer and business notebooks. The Satellite series is definitely not geared towards business users, since it does not incorporate features such as a docking station. As for the subwoofer – business users wouldn’t really need it for typical office applications anyway.

The sheer size of the notebook made quite a first impression on me, which remained throughout the test. It became clear that this was clearly positioned to be a desktop replacement. Fast graphics, a 56k modem, great sound, LAN, DVD and CD-R(W) are all on my wish list for a computer, and here, the Toshiba notebook was able to provide them all.

For quite some time now, CPU horsepower has been readily available in the notebook market, and now it’s time for graphics power to follow. NVIDIA’s GeForce2Go has not only just begun to address the mobile market, but has opened a door to new dimensions in mobile gaming as well. With this notebook, even semi-professional gaming is possible.

For business professionals, the BX chipset, S3 Savage, a docking station and a display with higher resolution would be a more ideal combination.

The quality of the components used and all the little details in the design shows that Toshiba has earned its position as the number one notebook manufacturer.