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Why are mobile GPUs worse?
- Thread starter Edward78
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Soldato
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- 6 Feb 2010
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- 14,594
The chip and architecture are the same, but the difference in the number of stream processors/CUDA cores and memory bus and vram amount.
Take the 960M in my laptop for example, it is actually closer to the 750Ti in spec and performance than the graphic card's 960; and the 980M's performance is more like 960 performance rather than 980.
Take the 960M in my laptop for example, it is actually closer to the 750Ti in spec and performance than the graphic card's 960; and the 980M's performance is more like 960 performance rather than 980.
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Soldato
Because physics and sneaky marketing departments
Soldato
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Intel is equally guilty with the way they label their mobile CPUs
Power draw limits.
The 980 desktop card was superior to the reference card in power delivery and cooling. For the 980m the pcb is much more cramped meaning memory clocks were hard to rise up.
It also had more memory than any other 980.
You usually get the most power efficient silicon but pay a huge premium for it.
The 980 desktop card was superior to the reference card in power delivery and cooling. For the 980m the pcb is much more cramped meaning memory clocks were hard to rise up.
It also had more memory than any other 980.
You usually get the most power efficient silicon but pay a huge premium for it.
Soldato
And the reasons for all these design decisions, as this may help the OP, are heat and power consumption. In a compact little laptop it is a lot harder to dissipate heat than in a full case where there is a lot more airflow and you can have huge honking 120mm fans pulling air through to stop the GPU from cooking itself. That's a big factor.
Power consumption is a second very big factor. If your graphics card is drinking down an electric stream of 150W from your wall, people don't care. But if their laptop runs down in 90minutes, they're not going to be happy bunnies.
This is why AMD's Polaris is a big deal - it's helping (or should be) AMD to get a better foothold in the mobile market space as it consumes far less power than its predecessors. When they release Polaris-based APUs, I think that's going to be a big hit with laptop manufacturers.
Most people don't expect a gaming laptop to do huge amounts on battery. That's really more a weight/cooling thing as 200w (dual fan an heatsink) cards need much more cooling than 100w cards (dedicated fan and heatsink) and 100w cards much more than the 35w ones (shared singlr fan with cpu heatsink). So carrying it from place to place is an issue for a lot of people, 2-3kg is a lot nicer than 5kg for instance.
Battery tech would need to improve by an order of magnitude to make gaming on battery a propper thing.
Battery tech would need to improve by an order of magnitude to make gaming on battery a propper thing.
Basically just power consumption, and therefore the heat that gives out.
Look at the good coolers on GPUs and how big they are. Now that won't fit in a laptop unless it's VERY thick.
In addition, if you ran a GTX 1080 at full speed with an average laptop battery, it would only last ~45 minutes. And that is assuming 0 power draw from the rest of the laptop just to make the maths easy. Factor in all power draw from CPU, monitor, etc. and you're talking ~30 minutes of battery life unless you make the laptop much bigger and heavier than it would already have to be to cool the GPU.
Add to that also, remember the GTX 10 range is brand new, and previously to this they had to put the GTX 9 series in laptops. The GTX 9 series consumes ~1.6x the power for the same performance (and also gives out more heat). So if you wanted 980 Ti performance in a laptop you'd need an even bigger heatsink AND an even bigger battery just to get your ~30 mins of battery life.
Look at the good coolers on GPUs and how big they are. Now that won't fit in a laptop unless it's VERY thick.
In addition, if you ran a GTX 1080 at full speed with an average laptop battery, it would only last ~45 minutes. And that is assuming 0 power draw from the rest of the laptop just to make the maths easy. Factor in all power draw from CPU, monitor, etc. and you're talking ~30 minutes of battery life unless you make the laptop much bigger and heavier than it would already have to be to cool the GPU.
Add to that also, remember the GTX 10 range is brand new, and previously to this they had to put the GTX 9 series in laptops. The GTX 9 series consumes ~1.6x the power for the same performance (and also gives out more heat). So if you wanted 980 Ti performance in a laptop you'd need an even bigger heatsink AND an even bigger battery just to get your ~30 mins of battery life.
Associate
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also mobile gpus have the limitation they have to have lower power consumtion and lower temps thus they have to lower its power
Soldato
The Nvidia naming is that missleading full stop.
But you can get laptops with full blown 970/980, however you pay their weight in gold.
Hence AMD rx490m/495m is the most anticipated mgpu atm and followed by Zen APUs.
But you can get laptops with full blown 970/980, however you pay their weight in gold.
Hence AMD rx490m/495m is the most anticipated mgpu atm and followed by Zen APUs.
Nah that would be the replacement for the 970m that people are interested in. In the mobile high performance space AMD are dead, they did not even turn up to the fight last generation.
Soldato
That's if you could safely draw 300W from a laptop battery, which you can't
Meh! Who cares about safe! Those exploding laptops Dell had to recall some years ago were the most entertainment the hardware world had scene in ages.
Soldato
AMD are going ahead with a Polaris 10 mobile chip named 490M or 495M.