Nvidia bumps up laptop graphics to GForce 9M series

Laptop gamers usually have a pretty serious case of desktop envy when it comes to their graphics cards, especially since even midprice desktops can sport water-cooled SLI dual-card setups these days.

It's gotten a bit better lately, as laptop gamers have had access to Nvidia's GeForce 8800 technology — albeit in sparing quantities — putting them in the same general ballpark as the desktop cards. But when desktop PCs got their latest upgrade a few months ago, we were again feeling a little left out — not to mention when it happens yet again this week.

Today at Computex, the computer trade show in Taiwan, Nvidia unveiled a new lineup of laptop GPUs, called the GeForce 9M Series. The new chips run from the GeForce 9100M through 9600M GT (sorry, no 9800 yet), and offer many of the same benefits found on Nvidia's latest desktop offerings, including Hybrid SLI, which allows a discrete GPU and an integrated GPU to work together. Also worth noting: These cards aren't officially spec'd for DirectX 10.1. Nvidia says, "DirectX 10.1 is a collection of incremental feature additions beyond DirectX 10, some of which GeForce 8/9/200 Series GPUs already support, but not all."

The new GPUs fall into three main categories, and will be available in laptops starting this winter:

Performance
GeForce 9600M GT
GeForce 9600M GS
GeForce 9500M G

Mainstream
GeForce 9400M
GeForce 9300M GS
GeForce 9200M GS

Value
GeForce 9100M G