NVIDIA Unleashes Their GTX 800M With Battery Boost Software For Extended Gaming Performance

NVIDIA Unleashes Their GTX 800M With Battery Boost Software For Extended Gaming Performance. As NVIDIA prepares to roll out their GTX 800M series this time we see more than just a new breed of mobile processors as NVIDIA is also releasing a new software tool called Battery Boost. If this were the desktop market the thought of enhanced battery life would mean nil, but when it come to portable devices battery power is a very key aspect of the entire notebook platform. NVIDIA has hinted that maybe a new version of the desktop PC may one day see the light that is powered by batteries, but on that one I am not holding my breath.

As this new technology arrives one of the biggest questions is what products have what GPU inside. Will it be a Maxwell or Kepler product? That is where the waters get a bit murky, as this question is a bit complicated. Some GPUs such as the GeForce 830M and 840M are both Haswell based, as is the GTX 85M and a few of the 860Ms so where does the conundrum come in? Well NVIDIA will be offering 2 different versions of the GeForce GTX 860M, one version is the 1152-core variant that is Kepler based and clocked at 797MHz (+ Boost) and the other a 640-core variant based off the Maxwell chipset that is clocked at 1029MHz (+Boost).

NVIDIA claims that even though they are 2 different animals that they will still run very similar and from the scores seen from around the net that seems to be a pretty accurate statement. Performance improvements can be seen on the whole with existing 800M Kepler cards thanks to some significant tweaks to the Kepler based cards. The 880M Kepler gets a clock speed increase going from 823MHZ as seen on the 780M Kepler to 954MHZ + boost and the 870M Kepler is up from 719MHz and 1344 cores seen on the GTX 775M to 941MHZ + boost, but with the same amount of cores. Although not earth shattering these new improvements show NVIDIA is able to squeeze out just a bit more performance and at the same TDP values.

NVIDIA states that dues to the maturity of the chipset as well as better binning of chips has allowed them to thus far keep the Kepler technology alive and flourishing even in the wake of a new GPU series. With battery boost obviously longevity of the life of the batter will be extended. Battery Boost is a brand new software application from NVIDIA entirely geared to save and extend the life of your battery. On paper that sounds like the yellow brick road to longer hours of playing or working on your laptop. So basically the new Boost software is a program that interfaces with the GPU and the game in question to maximize the longevity of your battery. The program allows the user to custom configure many aspects of the gaming environment.

You can adjust the frame rate cap, the level of in-game detail and other things as well, NVIDIA also has the program making an additional amount of changes all made for keeping you gaming longer. NVIDIA specifies a 30 FPS default frame rate for Battery Boost, but notes that this is completely user-configurable so if you want to play at higher frame rates, you can always tweak the game to allow it. The program can be set to run automatically when your system switches to battery power, or you can custom configure it on a game pre game basis depending on you preference. To use the software properly NVIDIA suggests that you launch the game from their desktop interface, as making changes in game seems to be a bit of a hassle and not worth the difficulty involved. NVIDIA is not saying much more at this time point other than the BB software does more than just save battery life as it should also help enhance other areas of your system to boot. For those who love to game on their laptop the news has never been better. Thanks for reading and have a great Monday folks. BTW Shadow Play, which is a great capturing program will be making its way to the mobile sector as well and if you have used it you know it works much better than a standalone program like FRAPS, and guess what, its free.

Source: Extremetech