Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

arstechnica.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#61

Post by vitovito »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #58

Anyone here have any experience with the new generation of TB3 External GPU docks like the Razer Core? $500 is pretty steep for what's essentially just a tiny case + power supply, but if it works as advertised with no serious pitfalls, I might be tempted to make a splurge for the extra flexibility. Though I wish someone could make a smaller, cheaper graphics dock that's built specifically to house less power hungry,…

I wrote up my initial experiences here: http://vitor.io/razer-blade-stealth-core-gtx-1080-12h

Works pretty well, no insurmountable issues. I haven't done any 3D engine-related dev on it yet, but am not expecting issues.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#62

Post by audreyt »

mastazi wrote: post #28
samwestdev wrote: post #4

What about thermal throttle?

Well you can always get a laptop with a liquid cooling dock! :-D https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ROG-GX800VH/

That setup actually works really well; its predecessor GX700 was one of the few previous-gen laptops that can drive HTC Vive _and_ Oculus Rift (adapters required) at the same time. https://plus.google.com/+AudreyTang/posts/VGebgzXnefP

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#63

Post by MAGZine »

catpolice wrote: post #54

"And if you can make it look like it's for grown ups too, that'd be great." THIS. I'm not going to buy a laptop that looks like a prop from a Michael Bay movie. The best current option for a laptop with a GPU and a design that wouldn't be embarrassing to leave the house with is the Microsoft Surface Book, which is expensive, has a mediocre GPU and is actually still kind of embarrassing to own. I'm pretty excited abou…

I think the surface book looks great. what's your hangup with its aesthetic?

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#64

Post by jdietrich »

WoodenChair wrote: post #45

I think this is a sign they're worried about AMD Polaris. Most people don't realize just how much AMD has turned around the past year. I saw an article recently about people shorting Nvidia. Full disclosure: I'm an AMD stock holder.

Polaris is not a serious threat to Nvidia. The GTX 1060 is significantly faster than the RX480 at a similar retail price; the GTX 1060 is considerably more expensive than the 960 was at launch and I expect that Nvidia have retained good margins. The RX480 seriously missed AMD's efficiency targets, hence the PCIe power fiasco. AMD have nothing to compete at the high end and have no serious HPC offering; with PC sales shrinking year-on-year, HPC is a crucial driver of growth.

Polaris is just barely enough to keep AMD in contention. As with their CPU range, AMD are relegated to a value-oriented offering for the low to mid market. This isn't a good place to be. Nvidia can afford to squeeze AMD's margins, because they have a monopoly on the more profitable high end. AMD are also being threatened from below by Intel's increasingly powerful iGPUs.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#65

Post by lewisl9029 »

vitovito wrote: post #61
lewisl9029 wrote: post #58

Anyone here have any experience with the new generation of TB3 External GPU docks like the Razer Core? $500 is pretty steep for what's essentially just a tiny case + power supply, but if it works as advertised with no serious pitfalls, I might be tempted to make a splurge for the extra flexibility. Though I wish someone could make a smaller, cheaper graphics dock that's built specifically to house less power hungry,…

I wrote up my initial experiences here: http://vitor.io/razer-blade-stealth-core-gtx-1080-12h Works pretty well, no insurmountable issues. I haven't done any 3D engine-related dev on it yet, but am not expecting issues.

Thank you for that very informative write up!

Very glad to hear the tech basically just works.

I hadn't bothered to look up the dimensions and weight on the Razer Core until you mentioned it though, and realized it's barely any more convenient to move around than my current desktop PC case (SilverStone FTZ01, only about 150mm more in a single dimension), which removes a lot of the appeal it had for my use case, unfortunately.

I honestly wouldn't mind a non-upgradable version that uses one of the laptop cards listed in this article if it means they could make it appreciably smaller and more discrete than a slim-SFF desktop case. I mean, the dock itself is a modular component that can be upgraded as a whole anyways.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#66

Post by happycube »

hatsunearu wrote: post #57

Meh, this is bullshit. NVIDIA laptop GPUs were always the "same chip". Each "chip" in NVIDIA can be floorswept differently, with parts lasered off and its operating clock range adjusted. This is why the 1080 and the 1070 is the "same chip"--GP104. Previous mobile chips were actually the "same chip" as the desktop ones, except they lasered more off and reduced the clocks even more, sometimes reduced the clocks a lot a…

It's actually a rather refreshing marketing move - in past gens the "M"s were often smaller chips - while the 980M had the GM204 like the non-ti 980, the GTX960 had the GM107 (GTX750!)

Now for BS, go to a store and look for a laptop i7 that's actually a quad core... outside of a gaming laptop.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#67

Post by devonkim »

catpolice wrote: post #54

"And if you can make it look like it's for grown ups too, that'd be great." THIS. I'm not going to buy a laptop that looks like a prop from a Michael Bay movie. The best current option for a laptop with a GPU and a design that wouldn't be embarrassing to leave the house with is the Microsoft Surface Book, which is expensive, has a mediocre GPU and is actually still kind of embarrassing to own. I'm pretty excited abou…

I don't see how much room for design there is on a Surface book besides the keyboard dock assembly, but even that looks pretty spartan with clean lines and a rather pale gray that could be mistaken for an Apple laptop from the Aluminum Powerbook era. So I don't know what's embarrassing about it except for, contentiously, the monochrome Microsoft logo attached to it.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#68

Post by snovv_crash »

jdietrich wrote: post #64
WoodenChair wrote: post #45

I think this is a sign they're worried about AMD Polaris. Most people don't realize just how much AMD has turned around the past year. I saw an article recently about people shorting Nvidia. Full disclosure: I'm an AMD stock holder.

Polaris is not a serious threat to Nvidia. The GTX 1060 is significantly faster than the RX480 at a similar retail price; the GTX 1060 is considerably more expensive than the 960 was at launch and I expect that Nvidia have retained good margins. The RX480 seriously missed AMD's efficiency targets, hence the PCIe power fiasco. AMD have nothing to compete at the high end and have no serious HPC offering; with PC sales…

>The GTX 1060 is significantly faster than the RX480 at a similar retail price

Not from what I saw. Slightly faster or equal in DX11, slightly slower or equal in DX12/Vulkan.

And not price-comparable either, there is a $50 difference. If you are pointing to the EVGA etc, note that they have a single fan and as such are going to throttle quickly. For a good price comparison I suspect we will need to wait for the rumoured 1050Ti, which should be actually price comparable to a 4GB RX-480.

Personally, if I was building a upper-midrange gaming PC right now, that marginal $50 would go to a bigger SSD, not to buy a 1060 over a 480.

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#69

Post by mixmastamyk »

pjmlp wrote: post #56
kitsunesoba wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a backer of and is invested in OpenCL. OS X itself leverages OpenCL throughout the OS (Quicklook for example uses it to make previews faster) and of course FCP/Motion/etc make heavy use of OpenCL as well. Nvidia cards are capable of OpenCL but they've never performed as well with it as they do with CUDA. AMD has always been the better option for that. Of course Apple could implement CUDA support in their sof…

You have some outdated information. Although Apple created OpenCL and gave it to Khronos, they have the most outdated support for OpenCL. The future on Apple platforms is called Metal compute. There were around 6 Metal talks at WWDC 2016 and zero about Khronos technologies.

How does that impact the AMD vs. Nvidia part of the discussion?

Re: Nvidia stuffs desktop GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 into laptops, drops the “M”

#70

Post by xchaotic »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #65
vitovito wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote up my initial experiences here: http://vitor.io/razer-blade-stealth-core-gtx-1080-12h Works pretty well, no insurmountable issues. I haven't done any 3D engine-related dev on it yet, but am not expecting issues.

Thank you for that very informative write up! Very glad to hear the tech basically just works. I hadn't bothered to look up the dimensions and weight on the Razer Core until you mentioned it though, and realized it's barely any more convenient to move around than my current desktop PC case (SilverStone FTZ01, only about 150mm more in a single dimension), which removes a lot of the appeal it had for my use case, unfor…

I also appreciate the review, but I think it's a case of too little, too late and too expensive. For that price you can simply build a spare HTPC in a box of similar size or get a powerful laptop with good GPU built-in.
Post reply on HN