phila_delphia

pcgameshardware.de has first hands on test: Maxwell Mobile ausprobiert: Geforce GTX 980M und GTX 970M (You`ll find the translation of the whole articel below) Maxwell Mobile: Geforce GTX 980M and GTX 970M MSI came to visit us in the newsroom and in the luggage were three new notebooks with Nvidia Maxwell mobile chips. The efficient and performance-oriented architecture of the new Geforce 970M and 980M ("Maxwell 2.0") to loft mobile gaming to a new level and increase both performance and runtime significantly. Below we take a look at the new Geforce mobile versions and present the MSI notebooks in word and moving image. With the Maxwell-generation Nvidia has been able to set new standards in energy efficiency. This is already in desktop systems a fine thing, especially interesting for high performance with low power consumption but in the mobile sector, where not only the battery limits the term, but also represent the heat and noise more critical factors. And it is here to set new standards Nvidia's new mobile GPUs Maxwell series. Already installed are the Maxwell mobile graphics cards refurbished notebook lineup of MSI. Their Marketing Manager Sascha Faber (MSI Germany) and Tina Chang (MSI Taiwan) came PC Games Hardware in the offices visit and presented the fancy new devices, including the top model GT72 Dominator with the Geforce GTX 980M. Before we go into more detail on the notebook, let's first take on the features and enhancements of mobile Maxwell graphics cards under the microscope. The mobile versions support just like the desktop GPUs the exciting new technologies voxel Global Illumination (VXGI), which tends to bring the indirect lighting in games to a new level; Multi-frame antialiasing (MFAA), an anti-aliasing that achieve a quality similar to four times multisampling, but should weigh significantly less the GPU, and Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), a feature which "fummel free" downsampling configurable with a Gaussian filter and thus a significant increase in image quality compared to the native resolutions allowed. In addition, the eigeführte with the Geforce 800M series Battery Boost has been improved for mobile use. This feature increases battery life by the clock speeds of the GPU will be adjusted so that it delivers far as possible between 30 and 60 frames per second, at higher frame rates, but the performance and thus restricts the power consumption. By default, 30 fps, the user can specify this but to try their own, up to and including the upper limit of 60 images per second. According to Nvidia made ​​available films can so the running time of 30% in Leaque of Legends to 55% in Tomb Raider be extended, while preserving the gameplay is affected. The well known Nvidia Optimus technology complements this the Battery Boost. The Geforce GTX 970M case has 1,280 cores, plus the variable boost clocked at 924 MHz, plus there's 3 or 6 GiByte GDDR5 RAM with 2500 MHz on a 192-bit memory interface. The top model, the GTX 980M, clocked its 1,536 cores with 1038 MHz plus Boost and binds to its 4 or 8 GiByte large, also 2500 MHz GDDR5 memory over a 256-bittiges interface. So much for the theory, but now we want to play our hand impressions based MSI notebooks. For this we would like to recommend the following video to my heart, there you will get a good impression of the Hands-On With the competent description of Sascha Faber. The three new Maxwell notebooks for gamers, the MSI has brought us to visit are all processed refined and know how to please a very pleasant look as haptics, the smart aluminum chassis also allow a high stability even at low overall height and weight. So could some be realized by just under two kilograms at GS60 a height of only two inches and a feather-light weight. Since aluminum has a relatively high thermal conductivity, MSI has also given some thought in cooling and heat dissipation. So is the top model, the example provided GT72 Dominatior Pro with a special coating for the palm rest, additionally required for cooling air is drawn in from the top and then blown away by the user to the rear. Thus, the extremely fast gaming laptop is warm even in very demanding games not over charge. Its predecessor, yet with GTX 880M, we have tested the way for the current PCGH Edition 11/2014 and awarded the PCGH-Top Product Award. The notebooks, including the GS60, GS70 and GT72 are each equipped with an Intel Core i7-4710HQ quad core with hyperthreading and Intel Turbo Boost up to 3.5 GHz, the GS60, GS70 and GT72 Dominator GTX 970M potters each one, in GT72 Dominator GTX 980M per one. Depending on the memory configuration options vary and facilities, the GPU of the GS60 has 3 GB of GDDR5 RAM and 16 GiByte DDR3 system memory, just like the GS70, the entry-level version is also available with 8 gigabytes of system memory. The GT72 Dominatior are available with 6 gigabytes of graphics and 8 or 16 gigabytes of main memory. The GeForce GTX 980M top model of the GT72 Dominator Pro is equipped with 8 GiByte graphics memory, the main memory is either 16 or 32 GiByte. For a complete overview of the features and variants, we refer you to the manufacturer's site, this is beyond the scope of this article. Who likes it very quickly, with all notebooks can select variants with SSDs in MSI's Super-RAID mode, allow the top model in which two or up to four separate synchronized M.2 SSDs lightning-fast access and boot times. Other equipment highlights: There would sound systems Dynaudio, which are additionally equipped next two or four speakers and a small subwoofer and offer an above average sound for notebooks. Or support the illuminated gaming keyboard from SteelSeries, which can be configured via the SteelSeries Engine and so for example macros. The top model GT72 Dominatior Pro also comes with a large backpack for easy transportation, a SteelSeries Kinzu mouse and a Syberia V2 headset. All notebooks also come with a 2-year-Pickup - & - Return Guarantee. In our hands-on test, we were very pleased with the notebook. While the GS60- and GS70 models provide a good compromise between performance and Transportablität at the same time chic and elegant slim design, the top model GT72 Dominator Pro is undoubtedly designed to ensure maximum gaming performance. Sorry, we could not prepare an extensive benchmarks due to time constraints. But for a quick round Crysis Warhead found herself nor the time. The former hardware killer ran perfectly well using Enthusiast settings at 1080p, including four times multisampling on MSIs hell little machine. The surface remained even after prolonged warm-cool pleasing, in addition, the noise was still in the frame - very softly is a powerful notebook due to design of course not. However, we were very impressed, a test of the GT72 Dominator GTX 980M GPU with Pro is already planned.

Nvidia Inspector zum Download: Version 1.9.7.3 ...is allready there. Gpu-z should follow soon. Best regards phila

Found this prediction on notebookcheck-ru.com (translated by google): "Apparently, GeForce GTX 980M will be comparable in performance to the desktop card Nvidia GeForce GTX 970. Not really so bad, perhaps." (Source: ПредÑтавлены GeForce GTX 980M и GTX 970M - Notebookcheck-ru.com) In comparission the following peace of news (issued just some minutes ago) seems more improtant to me: "Today NVIDIA finally reveals its first GeForce 900M Maxwell mobile GPUs. High-end Maxwell architecture finally makes its way to mobile segment. GeForce GTX 980M and GTX 970M are the first high-end Maxwell graphics cards in notebooks, and we finally see why NVIDIA made the transition to 900 series. The fact that NVIDIA did not use full GM204 core in mobile GPU is not shocking. These cards will never be as fast as desktop variants, due to strict TDP requirements. The lesson here is that next GeForce 1000 series, GTX 1800/1080M (whatever it’s called) will most likely feature GM204 with more SMMs enabled. NVIDIA has still large field of improvement, as there are 5 SMMs disabled in N16E-GX (980M GPU). In case you’re wondering how fast will GTX 980 be, MSI has posted a teaser with GTX 880M and GTX 980M comparison. Aos you can see have almost 60% improvement. You can find more results in our previous post." (Source: NVIDIA launches GeForce GTX 980M and GTX 970M | VideoCardz.com) This news is flanked by an other recent article (spanish) that announces the latest MSI notebooks: MSI actualiza sus porttiles gaming con las nuevas GTX 980M y GTX 970M | Noticias de Tecnologa | HispaZone.com Best regards phila P.S.: What`s interesting about this news is that both pages only mentions 1536 ALUs!!! This keeps me wondering if I should wait for the next iteration.

Hi there! Any news in regards to your notebook? Did it turn back on? Best regards phila

Curious about the new notebooks coming along. gunamike posted the following video. It has no completely new information, but the presentation is quite nice. PLUS gunamike mentions that the mobile cards might be avaliable from tht 7th of october. This would be really good news to me ;-) Best regards phila

Hi! From what I read the 970 and the 980m are somewaht equal (pipelines, bus width), yet the base clock of the 980m ist slightly slower and the RAM is runs with 5012mhz instead of 7000mhz. The 980m should be about 12% slower than the 970 perhaps. But this is just a guess. Best regards phila

Not really a blast of a news - but at least something new: Clevo Notebooks With GTX 970M and GTX 980M Incoming | NextPowerUp Best regards phila

This is something you guys will have to remedy ;-) Thank you in advance! Best regards phila P.S.: Which notebook is best in regard to flash the VBIOS - Clevo did work well for me, but I was thinking about having an ASUS or MSI this time.

Hi there! I`d not like to buy this card on its own. But Txordi might be happy... Best regards phila

Kinda noobish answer here: but even if you can lay your hands on an piece (which will not be that easy as those cards in general will go directly into the notebookproduction) it seems to be somewhat difficult to upgrade a notebook even if the cards use the same mxm slot. This has something to do with the periphery has to match as well. A friend of mine managed to use a 680m in an older clevo model but this allready involved editing the bios of the motherboard I guess. Of course in this forums there should be people who could do this, but unfortunately it is not simple plug and play. Best regards phila

Hi there! The following news from 3dcenter.org are not that new but organized in an informative way: Informationen & Benchmarks zu GeForce GTX 970M & 980M | 3DCenter.org I especially like the comparission with the desktop models. Best regards phila

Hi! I guess in general there is no test that will tell you if ALL is well. After spilling water (or the likes) on a notebook I`d recommend to instantly unplug it and turn it off. If it allready is, do not put it on "just to test if it works" but keep it turned off and put it in the oven on a mild (40 degree) temperature and allow it to dry for some hours (days) according to the ammount of liquid you spilled on it. Anyhow: If - like you stated - the notebook instantly dropped dead after your doughter spilled the water, there is a big chance that the notebook is damaged seriously. Perhaps you can save some parts (RAM) but in general there will be little chance to save only some parts ;-( Good luck! phila

Simply true! Stock?! You`re serious about this one?! Not entirely sure, but I guess what Prema meant was, that they/we/one has/have to manually overvolt (pencil mod) VRAM in order to fully profit from the potential the 980m seems to offer, as the possible frequency of the GPU could be bottlenecked by the VRAM. Check out this example of pencil modding below. You use graphite to make the lead cary more voltage: Best regards phila

Might be... Although I would call it late adopters dilemma. As it was obvious that a new and more powerful card would come up after the second refresh sooner (or later). I felt the same when my 580m (former 485m, former 480m) was followed up by the 680m. I`d rather buy the fist issue of a card and use take advantage of the ocing potential (with the help of svl7 and the other members here) than buy the second or third rebrand. best regards phila

This would be too sweet... I really was disappointed when nVidia made a big "boohai" about gtx980/970 on their Game24 event and did not netion the mobile Versions (except those slides) - even though Maxwell seems to be a fantastic cmobile gpu; especially in terms of FPS/Powerconsumption. Best regards phila

Still noone? Best regards phila

Hi there! I`ll not get me an 880m as thanks to svl7 my 680m performs really great. Yet I think the Maxwell architecture to be quite promissing. Is someone out there who wants to share any experience? I am hoping for a kind of 885m/980m based on Maxwell of course - but til then... I`d be happy to collect any news. Best regards phila

Wow! Thank you very much! Best regards phila

Hi there and thank you very much for the test! It`s much apreciated as I was looking forward to see the specs. I was hoping to see a Maxwell based 880m. As it is right now there is (thanks to svl7!!!) absolutely no need to trade in my 680m running at 943/2340 for a rebrand. I`ll save the money for the 885m (or 980m) Best regards phila

Hi! I am looking for a(n) (unmodded) 7970m bios for Clevo 150hm. Can anyone post me a link? This would be great! Best regards phila

Hi svl7! Hi all! I have one Question about overvolting in realtion to the voltage transductors (VT): If one reads throug OC forums one will find the importance of cooling the voltage transductors along with the GPU core... I presume, cooling the VT is not possile with an MXM module?! Have you any experiences in this field? I do not even know if I want to OV my card right now - svl7`s "standard" bios works flawles for me - I ask mainly out of curiosity. Best regards Phila P.S.: Did not even notice the boot text - what does it say - where can I find it? I do not notice it on the bootscreen?!?!

Yes, that may be right - still a pitty when you suffer from bad FPS ;-) Thank you fro the "arcitecture"-tip. I will have a look! Best regards phila

Hey! Thank you a lot! Simple as it is this might be one of the explanations why I do not reach a consistent framerate in MechWarrior Online. The FPS there really jump - as does the GPU load. A pitty, yet it is only beta of course. But the clocks won`t be stable for me. I achieved better FPS with my 580m in relation... This is why I asked about a higher "base" clock. Thank you again. phila

I liked this one ;-) You really intend to kill them?! Just kidding of course... Yet I still have this question, I posted two days ago: Have you done any bios-mods with base clock higher than 758? Would this make sense at all? Thank you & Best regards phila

Hi xZorbZx! To answer your questions from my point of view: I use all the actuall drivers with svl7`s Clevo 680m (80.04.33.00.10) and have no problems with crashing drivers. Off course some games will crash if the relation between clocks and voltage is not a stable one. But I did not experience any drivercrashes per se. Concearning the differences between the mods: As far as I know the only difference between the mods is the higher voltage... resulting in -> more OCpower at the cost of more heat (not only on the core but as well on the voltage transductors - which can hardly be kept cool by stock cooling methods). Best regards phila P.S.: As to Nofew`s reply to your question... You (due to a typing error, I guess) asked about a 1.5 Volt mod, which would be pretty much. You meant the 1.05, right? I guess because of this Nofew advised you to be careful. I think, he did not intend an offence.