Nvidia has revealed at Gamescom that its new 10-series GPUs (GTX1080, 1070 and 1060) will be installed on gaming notebooks from major manufacturers. Normally, Nvidia produces less-powerful mobile versions of its cards (i.e. GTX 970M). However, the company will not be downgrading its 10-series, intending to create ‘VR-ready’ laptops.
Nvidia has performed a similar move once in the past, with the GTX 980, A Maxwell version of which – almost identical to the desktop variant – was released in select notebooks last September.
The new graphics processos are said to be within 10% of the performance of the desktop models, or even faster in some cases. The new GTX 1070, for instance, features more CUDA cores than the desktop version, albeit at a lower clock speed. All three are classed as VR Ready, with full support for Nvidia’s VRWorks technologies.
CUDA cores stand at 2,560 on the GTX 1080 (boost clock: 1.73GHz); 2,048 on the 1070 (boost clock: 1.64GHz); and 1,280 on the 1060 (boost clock: 1.67GHz). Both the 1080 and 1070 have 8GB of GDDR5 (GDDR5X on the 1080) VRAM, while the 1060 has 6GB. VRAM is run at 10Gbps on the 1080 and 8Gbps on the other cards.
Nvidia says that notebooks with the new processors will start at $1,300. Both the GTX 1080 and 1070 will support SLI. Outside of VR, the chips will support features including G-Sync and 120Hz gaming.
The first notebook to be announced with Nvidia’s new mobile cards is EVGA’s SC17: a 17.3″ UltraHD model using the GTX 1070. It also features a Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD. Two USB 3.0 and a USB-C port are featured.
