If you’re a PC gamer on the go, take notice. The super-powerful laptop graphics hardware menu just got more robust. However, you’ll need some serious cash to order up a big slab of this.
Maingear is equipping its gaming laptops with Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 980M and 970M GPUs. However, Maingear’s Nomad 17 will be the only member of the company’s lineup to get the 980M, for now at least. The firm’s Pulse 15, Pulse 17, and Nomad 15 systems can be had with the GeForce GTX 970M. If you so choose, you can downgrade to the 970M with the Nomad 17 as well.
Both the GeForce GTX 980M and 970M, like the desktop-based GeForce GTX 980 (which Nvidia launched several weeks ago), are based on the company’s Maxwell architecture.
Nvidia says that the GTX 980M is almost as powerful as its desktop counterpart, and the tests we conducted on the 980M revealed that Nvidia’s latest indeed holds up to this claim. The 980M is powered by 1,536 CUDA Cores, and a base clock of 1,038MHz. The desktop card, by comparison, has 2,048 CUDA Cores, and a base clock of 1,126MHz.
The 980M also uses the same 256-bit memory interface and GDDR5 RAM, though the amount of RAM you get with the 980M may vary from one system to the next. For instance, the 980M in the Maingear Nomad 17 has a whopping 8GB of GDDR5 RAM.
Meanwhile, the 970M offers 1,280 CUDA cores, and a base clock of 924MHz.
We haven’t had a chance to test the 970M yet, but if you’re in the market for a gaming laptop and you’re prioritizing graphics processing power, a system that wields the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M will more than serve you well.
To get a better idea of what a Maingear Nomad 17 equipped with a GTX 980M GPU can do, check out our GeForce GTX 980M testing and benchmark results here.
The Maingear Nomad 17 wears a 17.3-inch 1080p display, and when equipped with an Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU running at 2.5GHz, 16GB of RAM, a GeForce GTX 980M GPU, and a 750GB mechanical hard drive, it will run you $2,400. That’s not even the highest-end configuration you can get, so don’t say that we didn’t warn you about the asking price.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.