NVIDIA Mobile GeForce GTX 10-Series Review: Pascal Notebooks Slay Benchmarks

NVIDIA made summarizing the performance of the mobile GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1060 about as easy as could be. Quite simply, these are the two fastest mobile GPUs we have tested to date. The mobile GeForce GTX 1070 led across the board, in every game and application we tested. And the mobile GeForce GTX 1060 finished right behind it. Both GPUs were easily able to overpower previous-gen offerings, and even outpaced a desktop GeForce GTX 980 installed into an external Alienware Graphics Amplifier, if you can believe that.

What’s perhaps more exciting is that the mobile GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1060 aren’t even the fastest offerings in the mobile GeForce GTX 10-series. We have yet to test a mobile GeForce GTX 1080, which will be the fastest part in the line-up. Keep in mind, SLI is also an option with these GPUs -- talk about cranking things up to 11...

We’ve only had a very limited amount of time with the mobile GeForce GTX 10-series powered ASUS G752 and MSI GE62 Apache Pro notebooks, but are impressed nonetheless. We will be following up with more in-depth reviews of each machine, but in terms of their respective form factors and built quality, both ASUS and MSI have hit a lot of high notes, and each system seems to address its target audience well. The ASUS G752 is a larger desktop replacement with plenty of style and horsepower, while the MSI GE62 Apache Pro is more svelte machine, and only slightly less muscular. We’ll dive deeper into both laptops you can be sure, in our full reviews.

Back to the focus of this article – NVIDIA’s mobile GeForce GTX 10-series. The beauty of NVIDIA’s mobile Pascal-based GPUs is that they fit in the same power envelopes as their previous-generation, Maxwell-based counterparts, while offering significantly higher performance. As a result, there was no need for notebook manufacturers to completely revamp their designs to accommodate Pascal. So, not only are there a myriad of notebooks on the way powered by the mobile GeForce GTX 10-series, but many of them are refinement of already competent and capable systems.

We knew NVIDIA was going to have strong mobile offerings this generation, as soon as we saw the power and performance characteristics of its desktop GeForce GTX 10-series cards. What we didn’t know was just how strong. Cramming what are essentially desktop-class GPUs into mobile form factors was no small feat of physics or notebook platform design, and NVIDIA should be commended. Gaming on the go just got a hello of a lot more exciting.