Gamers have been waiting for Nvidia to unwrap its GTX 700M mobile GPUs ever since the company announced its entry-level 700M series on April 1. Now, just a few days before Haswell’s launch, that moment has finally come.
The new line of GTX 700M parts predictably consists of the GTX 760M, 765M, 770M, and 780M – four components that cover everything from entry-level gaming laptops to high-end systems for only the most hardcore. All of these new GPUs use Nvidia’s latest Kepler architecture and are built on a 28 nano-meter production process, two facts that the company says will boost efficiency as well as performance.
What about specs? Well, refer to the chart below:
The GTX 760M, the least powerful part in the series, still boasts 768 processors core and “up to” 2GB of GDDR3. Everything goes up from there, ending with the monstrous GTX 780M, which offers over 1,500 processor core and up to 4GB of GDDR5 memory. Nvidia says that even the GTX 760M will let gamers play modern titles smoothly at 1080p with High detail, while stepping up to the GTX 780M will enable the same at Ultra detail.
Performance is further enhanced by GPU Boost 2.0, an automatic overclocking technology that can boost a GPU’s clock speed by up to 15 percent if power consumption and thermal headroom allow it. In the real world, this usually doesn’t translate to a straight 15 percent frame-per-second improvement, but every little bit helps.
While speed is always the focus of a new graphics release, Nvidia also spent some time briefing on portability and convenience. All of the new GTX 700M parts, with the exception of those found in 3D Vision enabled laptops, will use the company’s Optimus technology to turn off the discrete chip when it’s unneeded and turn graphics work over to the less power-hungry Intel IGP. This, combined with the Kepler architecture’s efficiency, should allow for respectable battery life from many gaming systems.
Reductions in power consumption have also allowed for thinner, lighter designs, and Nvidia claims that 14-inch and 15-inch notebooks with a 700M series GPU are an average of 40 percent lighter and thinner than similar systems equipped with the outgoing 600M components.
Another interesting feature that Nvidia had previously enabled, and is continuing to refine, is the “GeForce Experience” software. This feature uses a huge database of game information to automatically find optimal playable settings for games based on the GPU available.
The company’s other exclusive features, including PhysX, CUDA, SLI, and optional 3D Vision, remain part of the GTX 700M series.
As expected, the new GPUs will be found in laptops also equipped with Haswell processors. That means the specifics are under embargo, but there’s a good chance the usual players in the gaming laptop market will announce laptops powered by the GTX 700M next month.
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