Laptops have been outselling desktops in the personal computer space for years. But there’s at least one area where desktops continue to have an edge: high-performance gaming machines. It’s hard to get the power of a full gaming desktop in a portable machine. While there are a few gaming laptops that manage the trick they’re usually big, heavy, and expensive.

But NVIDIA has a new solution that could make high-power portable gaming machines thinner and lighter. I doubt they’ll be any cheaper though.

NVIDIA says its new Max-Q design lets PC makers use up to a GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card into a laptop as thin as 18mm (0.71 inches).

The first Max-Q laptops should start to hit the streets June 27th, and NVIDIA says we should see models from companies including Acer, Alienware, Asus, Clevo, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, Maingear, MSI, Origin, and Sager, just to name a few.

The idea is to use NVIDIA Pascal-based graphics cards that are optimized to balance efficiency and performance to keep power consumption (and heat generation) low when possible, but to offer the performance needed for VR, 4K gaming, and other GPU-intensiveness tasks.

NVIDIA says Max-Q designed laptops also feature the company’s new WhisperMode tech which “intelligently paces the game’s frame rate while simultaneously configuring the graphics settings for optimal power efficiency.” In addition to reducing power consumption, WhisperMode should keep fan noise from getting overwhelming.

Q-Max systems support GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 graphics.

via NVIDIA

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One reply on “Slimmer gaming laptops coming soon, thanks to NVIDIA Max-Q”

  1. I hope the Max-Q of any laptop I own remains VERY low, but due to low airspeed and not low air pressure. I don’t need the chassis to fail and damage the valuable silicon, particularly if there’s a 1080 inside.

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