Nvidia Pascal-powered laptops are blowing my mind

A few weeks back, I finally got around to reviewing a 17-inch MSI laptop with a built-in GeForce GTX 980 desktop graphics processing unit (GPU). Now, I’m running a 14-inch MSI notebook that is tiny compared to that older model — only it is just as powerful.

A new generation of laptops are starting to roll out that feature Nvidia’s 10-series cards built on the Pascal chip architecture. The company already unleashed the GTX Titan X, 1080, 1070, and 1060 in their desktop formats, but now manufacturers like MSI, Asus, and Razer are building the mobile versions of those chips into their gaming notebooks. Unlike previous GPUs, Pascal’s cool, energy-efficient 14-nanometer processors enable full desktop video cards to fit into a wide variety of portable PCs.