Now, when we hear low power, we think mobile. On NVIDIA roadmaps of the past, NV11 was often marked as a mobile part. Unfortunately, ~4W is still too much power for a mobile machine. The ATI Rage Mobility 128 uses 2.1W in 3D games, and the MX would have to be closer to the 2W consumption level to be competitive, even if it has a lot more processing power. NVIDIA told us that, while they could have made design decisions to make the MX use less power, they could not line up a major mobile OEM partner for the part. So instead, they engineered the chip for more of a value angle.
One artifact in the MX's design from the original mobile design goals is the previously mentioned dual display pipelines. Today's high-end laptops have to carry a secondary VGA output and usually a TV-output as well for presentations. Laptops may be losing out but we still gain.
Now let's benchmark...
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