NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go

We also tested the various PowerMizer settings while at idle. Current draw of the notebook did vary while in a static 2D mode depending on the PowerMizer setting. Here is what we found.

Power Consumption in 2D (watts) Maximum Battery Life Balanced Maximum Performance 45.8 46.4 47.0 | 0 | 9 | 19 | 28 | 38 | 47 | 56

Obviously, the benefits of PowerMizer are not fully realized in a 2D environment. This is because on top of the user selectable PowerMizer modes, the chip is already doing all it can in a static 2D environment to conserve battery, including clock gating. So, although battery life is slightly increased with PowerMizer enabled in 2D, its benefits are not as pronounced.

Finally we wanted to determine how much the power savings offered by PowerMizer affected real-world battery gaming performance. To find out, we used a program called BatteryMon to monitor the status of our system's battery during gameplay. We monitored the battery life of the system during a 25 minute loop of the Unreal Performance Test 2002 benchmark at 1024x768x32 (again, a popular gaming resolution). BatteryMon allowed us to view not only the percent of battery life left but also the estimated run time remaining as well as a graph of the battery discharge rate.

First we ran the test with PowerMizer set to Maximum Performance mode. After 25 minutes of looping, BatteryMon informed us that 58% of total battery life was left with an estimate of 45 minutes 36 seconds of game play left before the battery completely died.

Next we ran the same test with PowerMizer set to Balanced. This time battery life after the loop was 60% and the program estimated that there was 53 minutes 15 seconds of battery life left.

Finally, the test was done with PowerMizer set at Maximum Battery Life. This test revealed that there was 63% battery left and about 54 minutes 27 seconds.

We can now use this information to estimate exactly how much extra battery life PowerMizer results in under actual gaming situations. The step from maximum performance to balanced mode resulted in a 2% gain in battery life, resulting in (according to BatteryMon) a 7 minute 39 second increase in battery life. Sounds marginal, right? Well, you have to keep in mind that this estimate is taken in a worst case scenario, where the user keeps playing a very intensive 3D game for the entire life of the laptop. What is more likely is that the user will game for about 25 minutes or so, like in our test, and then quit the program to work on other tasks in a 2D environment. This leaves the user with an extra 2% of battery life if he or she was gaming in balanced mode as opposed to maximum performance mode. This 2% in a 2D mode can go a long way.

Going from the maximum performance setting to the maximum battery life setting resulted in a gain of 5% battery life. BatteryMon estimated this as a 8 minute 51 second life gain if all the user was doing was playing games. Again, it is more important to look at the battery life percentage savings. A 5% of extra battery life can go a long way in a 2D mode.

So we see that while the performance savings offered by PowerMizer are not mind blowing, they are in fact fairly impressive. The GeForce4 440 Go gives you the ability to play 3D games with PowerMizer set to maximum performance and realize a longer system run time. But obviously there is more to the GeForce4 440 Go than power savings. Let's see how the chip performs in 3D gaming.