Nvidia plans to offers desktop-class GPU in laptops

By Brad Jones September 22, 2015

The GeForce GTX 980. — Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

The gaming laptop was once seen as a lesser alternative to a conventional rig, with the general consensus being that portability forced too great of a compromise in terms of system specs. Now, however, that all seems to be changing rather quickly.

Nvidia plans to integrate a desktop-class GPU into a new line of gaming laptops, according to a report from Maximum PC. At present, the fastest mobile GPU that the company offers is less powerful than its desktop equivalent in just about every category, from its number of CUDA cores to its amount of GDDR5 memory.

This looks set to have a major impact on the overall performance of any laptop using the component. Nvidia claims that a system using a GeForce GTX 980 rather than the laptop-friendly GeForce GTX 980M could be up to 35 percent faster.

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However, there will be some hurdles to overcome — as you might imagine, there are certainly practicalities that have prevented desktop GPUs being used in laptops in the past. One such issue is cooling, which Nvidia is attempting to circumvent by offering more fan control options to keep your rig running smoothly.

The size of the GPU itself also requires some consideration. While Nvidia did mention “engineering challenges” in making the GPU fit into a laptop, the company didn’t offer any details on the process. However, it was noted that there’s a performance delta of about 5 percent when compared to the standard desktop GPU, which is quite an impressive figure.

Nvidia’s attempt to bring laptop GPUs in line with desktop components will likely garner plenty of attention from enthusiast gamers — and manufacturers seem to be just as interested. Aorus, Asus, Clevo, and MSI have already confirmed plans to build notebooks around the GTX 980.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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