Investigating NVIDIA's BatteryBoost with MSI GT72
by Jarred Walton on October 23, 2014 9:00 AM ESTClosing Thoughts
The bottom line is that BatteryBoost is certainly improving battery life, though it does so at the cost of frame rates. Considering many console games target 30FPS it's not a horrible solution, but gamers willing to fork out the money for a notebook with a GTX 980M are likely to pack around their AC adapter so that they can get every ounce of performance possible out of their notebook. At some point, I still want to see a gaming notebook that can deliver a decent gaming experience at 60FPS and high quality for more than two hours – and once we reach that level, I'll want to see three or four hours of gaming battery life, I'm sure. It's the great thing about technology: there's always some further milestone to try to achieve.
The results of our testing also highlight another interesting potential for BatteryBoost: G-SYNC. While no one has created a G-SYNC enabled notebook display (at least, not that I'm aware of), I personally find that 30FPS is a bit too choppy but 40+ FPS with G-SYNC can work very well. The amount of power needed to reach 60FPS tends to be a lot higher than what would be needed for 40FPS, so at some point NVIDIA may have to work on G-SYNC notebooks. That of course G-SYNC might draw a bit more power as well for the extra circuitry, and for now G-SYNC also means no Optimus Technology (unless NVIDIA can figure out a workaround), but I suspect NVIDIA will cross those bridges when the time is right.
I suppose since I'm here testing the GT72, I should also note that I really like the changes MSI made with this model compared to the previous GT70. The decision to forego Optimus is also proving to be interesting; I like the idea of automatically switching to the Processor Graphics in theory, but there are definitely times when it gets in the way. For instance, I was just testing Civilization: Beyond Earth performance; none of the Optimus enabled laptops would let me connect an external 4K display over DisplayPort and run it (most likely due to a bug in either the Intel or NVIDIA drivers, though I'd lean towards Intel). What's more, I can't add a custom resolution through the Intel drivers of 2560x1440, because that "exceeds the available bandwidth", never mind the fact that 3840x2160 @ 60Hz works fine.
The full review of the GT72 will post next week, but if you're looking for a short verdict, I really like the notebook. It's expensive, and the battery is no longer externally accessible (so you can't take two or three batteries with you, though I don't know many people that ever do that). Overall however the design is much better looking, performance is great, and the dual cooling fans are definitely doing their job. When the IPS panels arrive, this will be one awesome notebook.
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inighthawki - Friday, October 24, 2014 - link
Yeah, at such high framerates, it wouldn't be uncommon to not always be at the max queue depth, so you'll get the illusion that it's always continuously rendering. But in this case you're really just rendering frames ahead. One nice advantage sis that if you hit the queue depth, you'll actually get more consistently smooth motion, since the frame rate is more consistent. Having the game wake up consistently every vblank and rendering one frame provides a more fixed timestep for things like animation, compared to having a variable rate by rendering as fast as you can. Most people will likely never notice though.It's unfortunate that Windows forces the games into that model, since sometimes I'd love the triple buffering model instead. I like the lower latency of that mode, while also removing screen tearing. Given that I run a GTX780 plugged into my wall socket, I'm not too concerned about the power savings - especially considering I usually disable vsync anyway, so I'm not really wasting any more than normal.
HiTechObsessed - Friday, October 24, 2014 - link
If what you're saying is true, battery life would decrease when turning on VSync... Looking at the results here, with BatteryBoost off, turning VSync on increases battery life.thepaleobiker - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Yes, please read the article good sir.limitedaccess - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Is there any actual difference in terms of thermal performance? Either lower temps and/or fanspeed (fan noise)? I would assume if the GPU itself is consuming significantly less power its average heat output should be lower as well and less stress placed upon the cooling system.As an extension of this are you able to ask Nvidia to comment on whether or not it is technically possible to extend a variation of this to desktop GPUs and if there is any plan to? This would enable the flexibility of building a system that is extremely low noise (or even passive) for certain gaming workloads yet still have performance on demand.
nevertell - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
As there is less energy consumed, there is less energy dissapated. Ultimately, all energy that is used by any computer that isn't then used to power LED's or displays will be turned into heat.limitedaccess - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Yes I'm aware of the theory. However I am curious as to what the actual tested impact would be in this case and how significant (or insignificant) the difference might be.Brett Howse - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
When I tested the Razer Blade, I noticed a significant decrease in temperatures and of course noise when playing with Battery Boost enabled, which is what you would expect since it is working far less.JarredWalton - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Yup. Running the GPU at lower clocks and reducing power consumed means the fans don't have to work as hard to keep the system cool. Targeting 30FPS, the GT72 is pretty quiet -- not silent, but not loud at all. I didn't take measurements (I'll try that for the final full review), but there's nothing too shocking: lower performance => less heat => less noise.CrazyElf - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
All in all, this new Battery Boost feature seems to indicate a modest incremental improvement in battery life. It's not as good as say, the leap in performance per watt that Maxwell gave, but it's welcome nonetheless.The issue has always been that there's a tradeoff between size, mobility, and battery life, especially for a large hungry gaming GPU.
Jarred, by any chance, are you aware that there is going to be are variants of the GT72 with an IPS monitor coming out in the coming months? It's already up for pre-order at many of the laptop sellers. Downside is there's a pretty big price premium.
sonicmerlin - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Don't these laptops have nvidia Optimus and Haswell processors? Why is their non gaming runtime so low despite their large batteries?