NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M

Earlier this month we took a look at the NVIDIA Quadro FX1700, which is one of NVIDIA's mid-range workstation graphics cards that boasts 512MB of video memory, support for CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), OpenGL 2.1, and the power consumption for this PCI Express graphics card is less than 50 Watts. In the tests that followed, the FX1700 had performed quite well at the workstation-oriented SPECViewPerf benchmark and we had compared its Ubuntu Linux performance to Solaris Express and Microsoft Windows Vista. The NVIDIA Linux driver with the FX1700 had the best performance and it ended up being a nice graphics card for around $500 USD. Today we are looking at the NVIDIA Linux workstation performance once again but this time it's on the mobile front with the Quadro NVS 140M, which can be found in a number of business notebooks including the Lenovo ThinkPad T61.

Unlike the NVIDIA Quadro FX Mobile series that is designed for notebooks with serious performance capabilities, the Quadro NVS series is a cut-down and optimized for performance in a stable business environment. The NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M is a mid-range component in the NVS series among the NVS 510M, 320M, 300M, 135M, 130M, 120M, and 110M. The Quadro NVS 140M supports up to 256MB of dedicated video memory (though many notebook vendors are opting for just 128MB, including Lenovo) on a 64-bit memory interface, uses PCI Express x16, supports OpenGL 2.1 (and DirectX 10.0 / Shader Model 4.0), and is capable of handling VGA, DVI, LVDS, HDTV, and HDMI connections (this GPU is also HDCP capable). The NVIDIA 140M is the fastest Quadro NVS in the mobile series that can be passively cooled. Its power consumption is just 10 Watts. This mobile GPU also supports NVIDIA's nView, PureVideo HD, and TurboCache technologies.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T61 that was used for testing this mobile workstation GPU had contained an Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 "Penryn" processor, Intel PM965 Express Chipset, 2GB of DDR2-667 memory, 15.4" WSXGA+ TFT display (1680 x 1050), and 120GB 5400RPM SATA drive. The ThinkPad T61 with the Quadro NVS 140M had 128MB of dedicated video memory. Loaded up on this notebook was the Ubuntu 8.04 Beta with the Linux 2.6.24 kernel. The NVIDIA Linux driver used during this testing was version 169.12.