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  • marees - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    now wait for AMD to come-up with an equivalent mobile-Nano initiative
  • marees - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    not to forget
    I AM FIRST
  • syaaron - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link

    real kid and shit
  • WorldWithoutMadness - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Part of it actually already done by quantum.
    Well, the power is another matter but the space constraint was solved there.

    Next gen would be very interesting as HMB2 is out. Hope they can come out with new socket or dgpu dongle whatsoever so notebook can actually swap their gpu with only tiny space.
  • bugnguts - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    With the shrink form 28nm to 16nm and the HMB2 memory I expect some potent GPUs. I will make a mobile VR pack with one of these.
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Massive fan noise, regardless of whether it's Nvidia or AMD, eh?
  • jimjamjamie - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    I'm pretty tired of waiting for AMD at this point.
  • adithyay328 - Thursday, October 1, 2015 - link

    That's right. We're standing by for AMD to announce a dual R9 fury nanoM system.
  • edzieba - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Well that's certainly going to throw a wrench in the works of everyone designing VR 'backtops' with desktop components.

    I hope those 980 MXM cards get sold separately, too. With an appropriate adapter/riser it would be a great combo with a ITX motherboard.
  • dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Not sure how that would work with a desktop board. MXM doesn't have display out.
  • ddriver - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Output can be handled by the riser card.
  • dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    I see, though I wonder if a solution like that would really be worth it over simply getting a desktop 980. Most ITX cases are built with 10.5" cards in mind anyway, and there would surely be a massive price premium for the MXM 980.
  • Khenglish - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Around 40% of the pins in mxm are for display output. There's 4 DP, 2 LVDS, and 1 VGA output.
  • dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    I was referring to the lack of physical ports on the card. Of course MXM supports display out through its PCIe interface, or else, well... how would it work?
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    It's certainly an interesting form factor. Suitable for AIO PCs or very compact external graphics bricks. Just make sure the fan breathes environment air directly and exhausts directly instead of into a case. By far the biggest component would be the power supply!
  • vshade - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    So those will not support optimus? Or NVidia will make the rift work with optimus anytime soon?
  • Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    G-SYNC devices don't support Optimus. The GPU has to be directly connected to the display. All of the devices have G-SYNC with the exception of the GT80, and it has a hardware MUX for the GPU/iGPU instead of Optimus.
  • BMNify - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    The hardcore, high-end gaming laptop market has rejected Optimus and most of manufacturers have now removed optimus due to customer demand !! Just check out any gaming laptop forums and you will understand the kind of vitroil optimus gets from hardcore gaming laptop audience.
  • Goty - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    So they're going to put 980s into... slightly smaller desktops. (This is actually really cool, but I can't stand these 20 lb behemoths that get marketed as laptops. I can tote my full tower desktop around almost as easily as one of these things.)
  • BMNify - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    This shows you have no idea about Gaming laptop market.There are no 20lbs/10KG behemoths, cut that figure in half then you are looking at a realistic number and 10lbs or 4-5 KG weight is very portable for the kind of hardware such laptops have.
  • Morawka - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    yup and you can still unplug and put it in your car or backpack without it taking 20 minutes like a desktop would.

    i grant you, It's not ideal to pack around all day on a college campus, but most people pack their gaming notebook from point a to point b.
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Try flying with your desktop. And you know how they toss checked baggage around no matter how many fragile stickers you put on...
  • D. Lister - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    I can attest to that from personal experience. Fragile stickers are a joke to the airline luggage handlers, and most fully loaded desktop casings are too heavy for carrying by hand, unless you're willing to pay a premium per pound for the extra weight.
  • digiguy - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    The gap between mobile and desktop GPUs is definitely shrinking, but it remains to be seen how well laptops will cool these beasts. While the liquid cooling of the GX700 will certainly be enough even to overclock, but seems exaggerated and question the point of such a system compared say to Alienware 17 with graphics accelerator, I wonder how the GT80 will manage to effectively cool 2 980 in SLI. This configuration is probably the most interesting as 980m SLI could already beat 980 in most scenarios, but now 980 SLI is possible. And if the GT80 manages to achieve the same results as a desktop without a clunky external cooling system, that will be a major selling point.
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    I agree that the Alienware graphics accelerator is a much more reasonable way to get desktop graphics out of a laptop platform. While I've never been a huge fan of Alienware looks or pricing, it seems like the best compromise except that an external box with a GPU isn't widely available yet on non-gaming laptops. Honestly, even fairly low-budget laptops have enough CPU power at their disposal to drive a high end desktop GPU, but lack the interface and external components to do it. In my little universe, a cheap laptop with reasonable battery life and integrated graphics with an option for an external GPU would be much more suitable than buying a gaming laptop like an Alienware and soaking up the cost of an interal discrete GPU that I'd then infrequently use because of the option to plug in the graphics accelerator.

    Despite all that, there's certainly arguments in favor of closing the desktop-laptop performance gap without the need to external hardware. Some people have no option but to live with a gaming laptop if they travel as part of their work and wouldn't want to also lug around an external desktop GPU in a box. They'll want all the performance they can get in a self-contained package and it's nice to see GPUs are finally reaching that point. I hope this trend continues as we get to take advantage of smaller transistors in future graphics cards.
  • digiguy - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    Yes my 3rd gen desktop replacement laptop has as an Intel Core i7-3630QM which would be enough to drive a high end external GPU, but no port for a graphics accelerator. These gaming laptops however are no longer (maybe they have never really been) a good option for those that want a powerful desktop replacement notebook and are only occasional gamers. Too bulky, too short battery life (no more Optimus) and too much power consumption for those that don't need the GPU most of the time. The solution is probably either give up demanding games completely or have a second pc (preferably desktop) just for occasional gaming.
  • garadante - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Damn, the rjtech website is currently down right now. Do either of those Clevo models support desktop CPUs, and if so, are either of them sold in barebones form? I'm going to be getting a desktop CPU class laptop in several weeks here and if timing coincides with being able to put this GPU in it for not terribly much more money, that would be fantastic. So long as Nvidia doesn't overcharge as highly as they usually do since it looks like these won't be especially binned chips.
  • Qwertilot - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Clevo always at least sort of barebones via sundry smallish resellers I think?
  • garadante - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Do you know of any resellers other than rjtech? They're the only ones I've found so far but their prices look fair. It's so much cheaper to buy barebones and get the RAM/storage (and in the case of desktop CPU laptops, the CPU) separate. Why I want one of those two models to support desktop CPUs is also because a 6700k is much faster than the top of the line laptop CPU at less than a third the price.
  • Mr. Fox - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    There are a bunch of Clevo/Sager resellers. A few are Eurocom.com, PowerNotebooks.com, XoticPC.com, OriginPC.com, lpc-digital.com and Falcon-NW.com for starters.

    Prices can vary widely and some have more liberal price matching policies. Others, such as Falcon Northwest offer very expensive and exotic aesthetic customization options that do absolutely nothing in terms of performance.
  • garadante - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    I should have stated that more clearly. Barebones retailers rather than plain resellers. I don't want to pay the 20-40%+ markup on mediocre component quality from a fully built Clevo laptop from a reseller. rjtech is the only place I've found so far that sells Clevo barebones.
  • Morawka - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    rjtech makes the cost savings non-existant tho. by the time you add cpu gpu and ram, your already at $1500 without hard drives.. and that's picking the bottom of the barrel i7 quad core, and only a 970m.

    Add drives, os, and warranty your looking at $2300
  • garadante - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    That's why I'm getting a desktop CPU laptop, nor am I buying any component from rjtech themselves except for the GPU (since MXM GPUs are difficult to find and expensive everywhere). I'm not afraid to tear open my laptop to install my GPU, TIM, M2 WiFi, M2 SSD, RAM, the works. And it means I can get $3000 in hardware for not much over $2000.
  • digiguy - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    This is creating a sort of split in the 17 inches segment: the high end gaming laptops with GTX980m (such as Alienware 17, Asus G752, Acer Predator 17) and the "extreme" one with GTX980. The MSI GT80 with its SLI setup (among other things) has always been (and will continue to be) in a class of its own.
  • dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    I wonder what the TDP range will be for this card. Seeing how the 980M was already ~100W, this must be well above that. So all we know for certain is that it's much higher than 100W, but below 165W. That's a lot of heat for even a thick desktop replacement to dissipate.
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Clevo laptop already has 4790K with 980m (which is ~200W or more total) so a single mobile CPU with 980 is definitely coolable in 17 inch case, and should be better than 980m SLI for most applications.
  • azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Sweet! Now I can get 20 minutes of battery life in gaming when not docked! Hello 1987!
  • azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Before some one mentions, I do understand the point of the hardcore gaming laptops, but even if not in use as an easily portable desktop gaming machine in a laptop form factor, the fact that they make such huge compromises in the laptop department (as in don't use it as a laptop, even casual use. Place it on a desk. Preferably connected to mains power all the time), it still almost seems to me like you are better off with just a nice portable ITX or uATX case with a good handle. Manufacturers that work on a better flat folding monitor to go with.

    It is all about personal opinions and obviously there is some market for laptops like this, or Nvidia wouldn't be doing this, but I still can't help thinking the sweet spot if you are a gamer is in the 15-17" laptop range with something more like a x60m or x70m (as in 760m, 770m, 860m, 870m, etc.) class discrete graphics in there. You might actually get 90+ minutes of gaming on battery. The laptops typically are more like 5-6lbs machines you might actually want to carry further than from house to car and from car in to house. They won't incinerate your lap if placed directly on said meaty support system for more than 5 minutes at a time. They can be used for non-gaming and probably even get pretty respectable battery lives out of that (>6hrs).
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Gaming laptops with optimus (or manual switching) typically lasts 5-6hrs with IGPU.
  • no-stress - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Why soo focused on battery life. Dont you think people own a powersupply?

    and as previous mentioned, its just so easy to carry a laptop around compared to a desktop - even a big heavy laptop
  • thetuna - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    "NVIDIA was very quick to point that they are not binning chips to put in the notebook either, although they are [insert definition for binning]."
  • Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    That's pretty much right :)
  • mfenn - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    I logged in to say the same thing. Gotta love that press release doublespeak.
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    980 already have laptop-level TDP (120W) so it's quite natural to me.
  • dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    The 980 has a 165W TDP.
  • r3loaded - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link

    Mmm, packing a full-fat 980 and an overclockable CPU into a laptop sounds like a great way to make enough smoke for a barbecue! Either that, or we'll be stretching the very definition of a "lap" top.
  • yhselp - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    Welcome news, especially in regards to more widespread 'official' notebook overclocking support, and while this is undeniably an engineering accomplishment, it still feels like Nvidia is shoving good old aggressive marketing down people's throats.

    After all, what's so desktop-like about this new mobile chip? It's still a mid-sized GPU, and not 'Big Maxwell', just like 780m and 880m before. Kepler too offered fully enabled high-end GPUs for mobile. The big difference this time is 7 Gbps memory bandwidth, rather than 5 Gbps and that's before compression.

    Mid-size Maxwell may very well be slightly bigger than mid-size Kepler, but I still feel like the author should have specified that it's not quite like Nvidia has managed to fit a current gen flagship GPU into a notebook.

    When a casual consumer reads this piece, it's more likely than not they'll come away with the impression they would get flagship desktop performance (i.e. 980 Ti or Titan X) if they buy a 980-equipped notebook which, of course, they would not.
  • dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    It's desktop-like because it achieves performance parity with the desktop SKU of the same name. That doesn't happen very often. In fact I can't recall that ever happening with a ~400mm2 GPU targeted at the high-end. Even the 880m was down clocked on the core, not just the memory, relative to the 680/770.

    Actually GM204 is much better than GK104 relative to its bigger sibling. Besides the fact that it performs closer (mostly because it has 2/3 the compute resources, rather than ~1/2 with GK104), it also shares the same feature set and efficiency as its bigger sibling. For the most part GM200 is just a larger version of of GM204, while GK110 actually has a number of compute enhancing features and efficiency improvements that GK104 did not.

    It's never going to reach parity with a 250W desktop card of the same architecture due to TDP constraints, but the whole point is that it's getting closer. Some of that is due to simply bumping the TDP higher, but it's also due to the closer relationship between GM204 and GM200.
  • yhselp - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link

    It does not achieve performance parity with the desktop SKU of the same name because mobile 980 is downclocked relative to desktop 980, just like 880M and others before it.

    I my previous post I have acknowledged that GM204 is bigger than GK104, I have also (and above all else) acknowledged that mobile 980 is a welcome engineering accomplishment, however, it's still a mid-sized GPU. I'm not sure what you mean to illustrate with your GM200 and GK110 architectural comparison -- that mobile 980 is more like the current flagship because it's not compute-capable, or that Titan X/980 Ti are not true flagships because they don't do 1/3 FP32? Either way, I don't see the connection with the current discussion.

    Of course it won't reach parity with a 250W part, and it doesn't have to, my issue is that Nvidia makes it seem so in their marketing. For a major announcement touting notebooks having finally reached the very heights of desktop GPU performance, you would at least expect the revolutionary chip in question to be based on the flagship, big-GPU of its generation. It certainly doesn't sound far-fetched to expect a cut-down, downclocked GM200 to fit in a thick notebook chassis. This, combined with a high memory bandwidth technology, is precisely what I hope Nvidia do next time round.

    My only issue is that a general consumer can be very easily mislead into spending thousands of dollars for a high-end notebook expecting to get flagship desktop (i.e. 980 Ti) performance, and the author of this AnandTech article does not make it clear enough that this isn't the case.
  • dragonsqrrl - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link

    There can be quite a bit of variation in TDP and clocks in mobile SKUs, so it's often better to rely on benchmarks when determining their performance. Early results show it performing within 5% of the desktop 980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNYvF3E2m04

    Also consider that these laptops are running mobile CPUs, which would almost certainly impact their performance in some of those benchmarks. I would call that pretty much on par, certainly a lot closer than the 880m vs 770 that you're trying to draw a comparison to, which had a far greater clock/performance delta.

    I wasn't making a direct comparison between GK110 and GM200. I'm saying that GM204 is much closer to GM200 in terms of performance and feature set than GK104 is to GK110, which is very relevant to the current discussion. In your original comment you said that Nvidia was being deceptive in its marketing claims because they're suggesting GM200 levels of performance. I'm saying that even if that were the case, it's closer than it's ever been, and thus less of a problem than it's ever been, so I think some of your complaints seem a bit unfounded. However, I don't see the basis for your claims about unreasonable marketing. It's called a 980, in every instance they draw a specific comparison to the desktop 980, and I can't find any examples of them making generalizations beyond that. You keep saying that Nvidia makes it seem like consumers are getting the performance of GM200, without ever elaborating or specifying where or how they're doing that. Could you give some examples? If a "casual consumer" isn't informed enough to make this sort of a distinction, they're probably going to have bigger issues to deal with when purchasing a PC.

    "It certainly doesn't sound far-fetched to expect a cut-down, downclocked GM200 to fit in a thick notebook chassis."
    Really? They're already hitting the TDP ceiling integrating a fully enabled GM204 into these form factors. What makes you think that a heavily cut down GM200, which would be less efficient, would fare any better? And again, what's the basis for this expectation? The mobile high-end has almost always relied on the x04 equivalent GPU in the lineup, and because of the closer relationship between GM204 and GM200, there's even less of a reason to use the big GPU in low TDP SKUs than ever before.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    A major question was whether those benchmarks were run long enough to tax the laptop's cooling. When I run the Metro LL Benchmark on my MSI GE60 the first run on mostly high settings my 860M manages 45 FPS. By the fifth run it has thermally throttled and is down to 30 fps.

    The point is, the first run means nothing. You'll never see that sort of sustained performance. Now, maybe the GE60 is just a POS. A little while later they came out with GE62 that has 2 fans instead of one, so I guess MSI realized the cooling on the GE60 was totally inadequate. They didn't give those of us who bought the GE60 under the false impression that it could actually run the 860M our money back though. Might as well have saved money and went with the 850M model since my 860M is down clocked all the time under sustained use.

    Anyway, based on my experience, "gaming" laptops are a crock. From now on I'll buy a cheap, light and portable laptop and not even bother with the false pretense that it's capable of gaming.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    It won't achieve equivalent performance because it will most likely be severely thermally limited. No way does it perform as well in the confined space of a laptop as it does in a standard computer case. And on top of that it may make the whole laptop uncomfortably warm to the touch.

    My GE60's cooling is barely even capable of cooling the 860M in it. I suppose these will be going in thicker, heavier, laptops, but even so, I don't foresee good results.
  • zodiacfml - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link

    Nvidia getting ahead of AMD to install Desktops GPUs in notebooks though its rather too early as HBM is the technology to this properly.
  • Mikemk - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link

    This might be electrically compatible with MXM, but it's actually not MXM compliant. Notice the overhang on one side.
  • luca_ninja - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link

    MXM 3.0b is limited to 100W . How is possible to put a GPU of 165W on it?
    Are You sure GTX 980 (notebook) will be available in MXM format?
  • Madpacket - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    This is getting silly. An Osmi or Dan A4 ITX case can easily fit in a decent sized backpack with accessories (small mechanical keyboard, mouse, power cable) as well a 17" monitor. Sure it's not as convenient as a DTR to lug around but the days worrying about lugging around giant desktop PC's are long gone. The advantage of a real PC is that you can upgrade it where these DTR's become useless after a few years.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    It also will perform better and have adequate cooling to maintain full performance, instead of being thermally throttled 90% of the time.
  • adithyay328 - Thursday, October 1, 2015 - link

    Knowing that the TDP of the card will be reduced really is important because if the laptop's battery is connected to a beastly card like the 980(a normal 980, the laptop ones have a lower TDP, technically still making them a laptop adaptation), it'd have to have a big battery to live for a decent time. With reduced TDP, the battery need not be that big or the benefits would've been big.

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