On the notebook itself, I could max out games at 1080p, and connected to a monitor, throttling down the settings a smidgen allowed me to achieve 60 FPS at 1440p in modern games.
Advertisement
Aside from high-end graphics, the laptops will include fast 7 Gbps memory, 4-8 phase power supplies, and Nvidia’s G-SYNC technology, which tackles screen tearing by levelling the refresh rate of the display to match GPU output. Beginning next month, Nvidia will be bringing the GTX 980, an overclockable 2048 CUDA core GPU, to six gaming laptops from Gigabyte, Asus, MSI and Clevo.
Gaming laptops have always been a step behind desktop gaming PCs, as the portable nature of laptops have always been an issue in thermal design and power consumption. That’s simply because this is a desktop GTX 980, plain and simple. But anyone that has done research in this field would tell you that though they were named similarly, the mobile GPUs from both AMD and NVIDIA had a tendency to be noticeably slower than their desktop counterparts.
This headline mobile GPU has the exactly the same specifications as its desktop brethren released a year ago. The new notebooks will also offer up to 50 percent higher peak current. Now, however, that all seems to be changing rather quickly. Nvidia is working with its partners to provide various cooling options as well, so those looking to buy a GTX 980 based laptop will have plenty of choice. How many of you game on a notebook? Further, the mobile CPU parts will also be overclockable through the BIOS. It’s no cut-down derivative either; you still get the same number of shader cores, same clock speed and same amount of memory (4GB, although OEMs can add up to 8GB if they like).
For the first time, NVIDIA is also providing users with the ability to control the fan, allowing you to adjust the speed to balance noise and performance. OEMs will set a baseline fan curve, with users then able to increase (not decrease) cooling power by up to 2x via offset controls.
Advertisement
Nvidia says the new laptop-compatible version of the desktop GeForce GTX 980 should deliver performance close to, or in some cases equal to, a 980 card running in a similarly configured desktop PC. You should see systems based on the GTX 980 to have a ~25% price premium at the system level compared to similar hardware using the GTX 980M. Alongside this, there will be five other GTX 980-powered notebooks when it launches, including a MSI GT72 and GT80, a Clevo P870DM and P775DM, and an Aurus X7 DT. These cooling features will come in handy when you pair up an Oculus Rift and enjoy virtual reality on the world’s first notebook line designed with VR in mind.
