NVIDIA’s GeForce 800M Lineup for Laptops and Battery Boost
by Jarred Walton on March 12, 2014 12:00 PM ESTClosing Thoughts
Overall, NVIDIA’s mobile GPU solutions continue to be the de facto standard bearer for gaming laptops. AMD’s upcoming Kaveri APUs will almost certainly do well in the budget sector, but users that want more performance – from both the CPU as well as the GPU – will likely continue to go with NVIDIA Optimus solutions, and if you’re the type of gamer that wants to be able to run at least 1080p with high quality settings, you’ll need at least a GTX class GPU to get there. The good news is that you should have plenty of choices in the coming months, and not only are we seeing faster GPUs but many laptops are starting to come out with high quality 3K and 4K displays.
Speaking of which, I also want to note that anyone that thinks “gaming laptops” are a joke either needs to temper their requirements or else give some of the latest offerings a shot. While it’s not possible to simply run all games at 1080p (or QHD+) with maxed out settings without a beefy GPU, even the GT 750M GDDR5 is able to deliver a good gaming experience for most titles at 900p High/1080p Medium settings. The GTX 850M should be quite a bit faster (~60%) than the GT 750M, and we should see it in notebooks that may cost as little as $1000. It’s no surprise then that NVIDIA thinks 2014 gaming notebook sales will be “off the charts”.
As is often the case, we haven’t been sampled any notebooks prior to the launch of the latest 800M series, but we should get some in the near future. We’re looking forward to Maxwell parts in particular, though for now it appears we’ll have to wait a bit for the high-end Maxwell SKUs to arrive (just like on the desktop). It will also be interesting to see how the GTX 860M Kepler and Maxwell variants compare in terms of performance, power, and battery life; I suspect the Maxwell parts will be the ones to get for optimal performance and power requirements, but we shall see.
The latest updates from NVIDIA aren't revolutionary in most areas, but Battery Boost at least could open the doors for more people to consider gaming notebooks. There's always the question of long-term reliability and upgradeability, which are inherently easier to deal with on a desktop, but with a modern laptop I can quite easily connect to an external display, keyboard, mouse, and speakers and never realize that I'm not using a desktop – until I launch a game, at least. What's even better is that when it comes time to take a trip, if all your data already resides on a laptop there's nothing to worry about; you just pack up and leave. That convenience factor alone is enough for many to have made the switch to using a laptop full-time, and I'm not far off from joining them. 2014 may prove to be the year where I finally make the switch.
Last but not least, for those that like the unfiltered NVIDIA slides, you can find those in the gallery below.
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
_thumb.jpg)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
91 Comments
View All Comments
Connoisseur - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
Jarred. In regards to the ultra high-res displays, have you already or do you plan on putting together an article regarding gaming and upscaling on 3K and 4K screens? More and more laptops are coming out with these "retina" style displays where the graphics card won't be able to run games at native res. I'd like to see how the games would look/perform with upscaling. For example, running the game at 16x9 or 1080p with various settings on a 3k screen.I think it'd be an important article because it would affect my buying choice when offered multiple screen options with the same laptop.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
I commented on this in the Dell XPS 15 review. Basically, upscaling (or running at non-native) is much less noticeable in many respects as the pixels are so small. The other side of the coin is that there are way too many Windows apps that I use that don't work well with high DPI. In a few years, I think it will all get sorted out, but right now high DPI is "bleeding edge" stuff.rxzlmn - Thursday, March 13, 2014 - link
4K is much better than 3K though, due to the fact that you can natively scale to both 720p and 1080p.Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
I wonder if Vivek had a hand in that. ;)JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
Possibly, but I thought he was primarily concerned with making the chassis and waxing eloquent on the joys of the material choices and such. Speaking of which, what are you working on these days? Hahaha....WinterCharm - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
Just checked out Razer's website...That blade has an IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) IPS touchscreen, at a resolution of 3200x1800.
Looks like you're in luck! :) just... uh... prepare your wallet.
Connoisseur - Thursday, March 13, 2014 - link
Wallet is never prepared. I just club it on the head and drag it out. This will be one hell of an expensive purchase if I end up buying it. I'm really curious about the heat and noise generated by this beast. Looks like it's shipping in April? I'm hoping AT gets a review sample.talos113 - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
This is great news! I look forward to seeing laptops become thinner and more powerful. I know they will never fully reach desktop performance, but it makes me smile seeing them gain. I recently purchased a sager np9150 with a 7970m and I am honestly using my desktop less and less while I enjoy the benefits of mobility. Its an awesome time for technology!warezme - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
I'm still rocking a big Alienware 17x R3 with 580M so I have been eyeing the upgrade paths. But, I can't help but be very disappointed the "880M" is not Maxwell technology but just re-branded old stuff. I don't care if its 20% faster. I don't mind a carrying around a large laptop. I'm not a frail girl.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
My guess is we'll see Maxwell GTX 890M or 885M or something during the summer months -- just in time for the back-to-school shopping.