NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell

NVIDIA's impressive Maxwell architecture climbs into gaming notebooks, provides insane improvements over previous generation notebook GPUs.

Published
Updated
52 seconds read time

NVIDIA Editor's Day 2014 - Last month I was in Monterey Bay for NVIDIA's unveiling of their Maxwell architecture, where we saw the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 unveiled. I was blown away at what Maxwell was able to do with the GTX 980, but even more impressed with what NVIDIA is now doing to notebooks with the mobile version of the Maxwell GPU, in the GTX 970M and GTX 980M.

NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell 05
NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell 02

Notebook gamers have been asking for "desktop class performance" from NVIDIA, and now they have it. This is where the new second-generation Maxwell architecture steps in.

NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell 03

NVIDIA's Fermi architecture was introduced in 2010, with the GeForce GTX 480M providing around 40% of the performance that the desktop version, the GTX 480, provided. Moving onto the Kepler architecture, where the GTX 680M provided around 60% of the performance of the full-blown GTX 680 on desktop, but now the Maxwell-powered GTX 980M is delivering around 80% of the performance of the insanely-efficient GTX 980 GPU on the desktop.

NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell 04

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M allows for 'beyond 1080p' gaming on a notebook (2560x1440 on Ultra settings), compared to 1080p Ultra gaming on the GTX 680M from last year.

NVIDIA delivers desktop-class performance to notebooks with Maxwell 06

When compared to the GTX 680M, we have over double the performance on the GTX 980M, which is a massive improvement.

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Newsletter Subscription

Related Tags