NVIDIA's GeForce 9700M / 9800M laptop GPUs get quasi-official

So it seems that NVIDIA has been sneaking its 9700M / 9800M GPUs into potent gaming laptops for a little while now, but we're finally getting some official-ish verbiage on the new-ish families. The GeForce 9700M GT, 9700M GTS, 9800M GT, 9800M GTS and 9800M GTX should all be available as we speak in some of your favorite portable LAN machines, with the latter capable of a mind-melting 420 gigaflops. For more on the graphical powerhouse that could be sitting within your machine right now, check the read link.

[icepop4who @ Jul 18th 2008 10:20AM]

Sweet. I was looking for a laptop with a beast like this.

Let's hope these are not defective like 8400M/8600Ms.
(the story was on engadget, look for it)

[Greg Spruce @ Jul 18th 2008 10:35AM]

Has there been official word from nVidia regarding that, I have an 8600mGT which runs extremely hot(lap-burningly hot) and was wondering if anything was being done. Can't find any official word from them directly.

[Jevanzz @ Jul 18th 2008 11:23AM]

My 8400M in my M1330 recently failed, and so Dell sent out a technician to replace the MoBo and 8400M itself, and there was no mention of it being a known fault, I can only hope they recognise it and as more fail replace them with 9400s - boy that'd be sweet.

[Mobius_1 @ Jul 18th 2008 11:39AM]

I really would pity anyone whose card fails just after warranty expires, would be painful.

But nVidia really messed up with those faulty cards, selling defective goods to customers is only going to turn future customers away to AMD/ATI

[Xirvin @ Jul 18th 2008 10:28AM]

It would be in Nvidia best interest to replaced defective gpu 8400/8600 with the new 9800 line. I would even pay the difference between depreciation value of my defective 8600 gs and the new 9800 card for my laptop.
Nvidia hear me out!!

[nerdtalker @ Jul 18th 2008 3:41PM]

No, they'd much rather just release a driver update promising various "fixes" which also downlocks and undervolts your GPU, and locks you out of overclocking.

Head on over to laptopvideo2go.com, it's been going on for a while now. Very frustrating if you spent money on a current-gen "gaming" notebook. Anything but.

[Cheeta @ Jul 18th 2008 10:32AM]

How much of a performance increase will the 9XXXm series have over the 8XXXm? The 8800M GT/GTS is running 35 watts of power and the 8800 GTS is running 37 watts. Are they keeping the same power wattage also for the new series?

[TMM @ Jul 18th 2008 10:48AM]

I hope the long rumored overhaul of the MacBook Pro will be ready soon ... and HOPEFULLY with at least a 9800m GT ... this time ...

Ach, who am I kidding: I'm gonna get the new one anyway ... this time ...

[Juxtah @ Jul 18th 2008 10:58AM]

A macbook pro's cooling system almost definitely could not handle a 9800 series card, it has to downclock the 8600 just to stay within limits the most you'll see is a 9600m in any refreshes they have planned.

[Pochi @ Jul 18th 2008 11:03AM]

@Juxtah

The MacBook is perfect. It could cool the fires of Hell itself. I have used one as sunscreen.

[Charles Han @ Jul 18th 2008 11:04AM]

@Juxtah

Yea you pretty much nailed it. Macbook pro gets fairly warmed up with even 8600m gt during intense gaming. And besided macbook pro is for general entertainment seeking people and 9600m gt would suit them fine, they are not meant to be hardcore gaming machines. If you want gaming laptops, you are better off hitting up sagers, or xps series.

[Skemo @ Jul 18th 2008 11:23AM]

Hopefully a re-design would alleviate those heating issues. However, given their track record of sacrificing practicality for aesthetics, probably not.

[dagamer34 @ Jul 18th 2008 2:10PM]

It's likely they'll flip to ATI for the next MacBook Pro refresh, as it's not a good idea to depend completely on one manufacturer, especially with the recent nVidia fiasco (all 8400/8600 mobile chips are faulty).

So I'd rather they go with a Mobility Radeon HD 3650, since it gets better performance anyway than Geforce 9600M.

[Charles Han @ Jul 18th 2008 10:58AM]

Yea like engadget states a lot of notebook are being shipped out as we speak with the 9800m gt cores, but not yet on 9800m gtx. One example is the new sager models 5796 being one. From what i get 9800m gt should perform fairly close to 8800 gtx.

[chris @ Jul 18th 2008 12:18PM]

Hmm seems like potent is engadgets word of choice for describing all gfx cards now (see last gfx card article)

[kal326 @ Jul 18th 2008 11:40AM]

After the whole G84/G86 fiasco, I'm a little hesitant to pickup a Nvidia powered laptop anytime soon. I already have a 8600GS that could be a ticking time bomb as it is. I'm pretty sure the 7150 integrated machine I picked up just days before the news should be fine, but you never know with all the speculation and nothing officially being disclosed regarding models.

[MacMan @ Jul 18th 2008 12:10PM]

@Pochi

So if our lives of sin eternally damn us, we got more of an excuse to pack an MBP :) - and if it had a 9800MGTX card we could challenge Lucifer to a Crysis deathmatch as well ;)

[Thorny @ Jul 18th 2008 12:17PM]

Wonder if any will be available in MXM type 2 format..

[Casper42 @ Jul 18th 2008 12:37PM]

Anyone know 65nm vs 55nm?

The Read link article specifically says at the very bottom that they dont know.

[El Taco @ Jul 18th 2008 1:53PM]

"mind-melting 420 gigaflops"

and computer-melting

and lap-melting

and sperm-killing

nty

[bryan @ Jul 18th 2008 5:14PM]

Will this GPU burn out motherboards too???

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/10/all-nvidia-8400m-8600m-chips-faulty/

[Schfelzerberg @ Jul 19th 2008 1:10AM]

Give me a 14 or 15 inch laptop that has a GPU about as fast as their new 9600 GT or even just their 9600 GSO and I'm sold.