NVIDIA's Maxwell has already made waves in the mobile market with the GM107 core which graced the second generation GTX 860M. In many ways that unassuming core heralded subsequent iterations of the architecture including the desktop-centric GTX 980 and GTX 970. Now this core design is getting a reintroduction to the notebook space with the GTX 980M and GTX 970M.

While the GM107 represented a so-called ?first generation? Maxwell design, that initial version of the architecture has since been refined. Now there is even more emphasis upon performance per watt and some additional latent features have been added as well. As a result, the GTX 980M and GTX 970M may be in the same lineup as the GTX 860M and use the same generalized core design but their actual capabilities have been drastically augmented.

For those wondering, the quick movement away from the GTX 880M series (they were initially launched in March) is due to a number of different reasons. First and foremost, the notebook gaming market is still expanding at a rapid pace and gamers are constantly searching for the best possible solution that combines performance and the capability to actually push playable framerates when they?re using battery power. While the Kepler architecture was extremely efficient for its time, Maxwell's primary focus is to enhance efficiency, making it a perfect fit for this demanding segment. In many ways the rebranded high end 800M-series cards were a stop-gap solution put in place until NVIDIA's notebook product stack could go exclusively with the newer architecture.