Why are laptop graphics cards no longer provided with a m for mobility?

Apparently at least NVidia does not label its video cards for the laptop sector (anymore) with an M. With my current laptop ACER Aspire 8950G I can well recognize that an AMD Radeon HD 6850M is installed. However, NVidia does not seem to have this distinction:

https://www.nvidia.com/...-gtx-1070/

https://www.nvidia.com/...s/laptops/

This makes it extremely difficult when comparing laptops. You do not even know if the laptop or desktop version is installed. For example, MSI explicitly states on the GT83 8RF product page that it is a "desktop class" video card.

https://de.msi.com/Laptop/GT83-Titan-8RF.html

I can't control this, however, because I find nowhere in the specification the clock rate of the two graphics cards used. This is probably the last option to distinguish the graphics cards for desktop and laptop.

Because maybe the M was unnecessary anyway? Everyone knows that a laptop GPU can never be as strong as the desktop version with a tripple fan design. No matter what, each laptop manufacturer can adjust the clock rates, so it does not come to the meltdown. In order to find out, you have to look at benchmarks of the respective devices anyway to find out how good the cooling concept is. For a laptop with a GTX1070 running only with 45W, of course, will be worse than one with GTX1060 can run on almost desktop level.

At the latest with the Geforce 1000 series it became technically possible to physically use the respective graphics chips 1: 1 both in desktops and in notebooks under the same designation, since in the 1000 series both electrical power consumption and thermal power conversion in the In contrast to previous models could be partly drastically reduced.

In the previous models, it was technically only with great effort and correspondingly heavy, chunky and expensive versions, e.g. As a DTR, it is possible to install a fully fledged GTX 980 with a power target> 100 watts into a notebook. Up to and including the GTX 1060, however, it is now possible to offer MXM graphics modules within the original performance specifications for notebooks up to 100 Watts PT 1: 1, while still largely maintaining at least the Nvidia reference specifications for the base clock of the respective chips.

Starting with the GTX 1070, it is not possible to implement the GPU reference clock (guaranteed base clock) of the respective graphics chips in a power target up to ~ 100 watts permanently under load without any special adjustments to the clocking, GPU voltage and absolute power target. Therefore, within these specifications, you must allow the clock to drop below the official base clock for the reference desktop operation under load.

https://www.nvidia.com/...s/laptops/

For corresponding performance chips with a higher clock rate and power target (> ~ 100 watts), otherwise adequately dimensioned notebook enclosures are still required.

But in the Geforce 1000 series there are also specially optimized graphics modules with corresponding identification letters and further reduced cycle and energy parameters.

For older graphics chips, however, the explicit "M-identifier" was absolutely necessary, as e.g. A GTX 960m was technically based on the graphics chip of the GTX 750 Ti, and for GTX 970M and GTX 980M even completely independent chips with fewer execution units had to be developed compared to the respective desktop derivatives.

If a GP106 GPU is physically installed in a notebook, the graphics chip next to the desktop can now also be marketed as a GTX 1060 in the notebook, even though the clock rates of the chip in the notebook may be adjusted slightly less than for desktop use.

However, your Radeon HD 6850M had to be legally labeled as a mobile variant because it is physically based only on the technology of a HD 6770 (desktop).

Thus, all in all, this is just about optimal marketing, without the risk of legal consumer deception.

NVidia has a good reason for that.

Until Generation 9xx, the mobile variants of the respective graphics chips were in fact considerably less powerful than their desktop pedants.

This has not been the case since Generation 10XX.

A graphics chip GTX1060 built into a notebook is not much more powerful than a GTX1060, which is on a desktop graphics card.