Nvidia GTX 960M, 950M GPUs spruce up thin and light gaming laptops

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M

Update: Razer has joined the bandwagon and announced its own Nvidia GTX 960M powered Razer Blade Pro.

Nvidia has added two new additions to its GTX 900 family of mobile graphics cards with the GeForce GTX 960M, 950M and 940M.

Destined for thin and light gaming machines, the new GPUs bring a few features to enhance gaming experience. BatteryBoost for starters will grant users longer playtime while unplugged with better performance.

Nvidia's new graphics cards also leverage Nvidia's Optimus technology, which automatically switches Windows laptops between integrated and discrete graphics based how intense applications are. ShadowPlay will enable gamers to record their gameplay for streaming on Twitch and uploading to YouTube

Of course, the new mobile graphics cards will be able to support Direct X12.

New models roll on in

The new Nvidia GTX 960M will first make its way into the new Alienware 13 and the superbly thin Asus G501. A few laptops will also be getting the GPU refresh including the Acer V Nitro, HP Omen and the Lenovo Y50.

MSI also announced a few new additions including the 15-inch GP60 and 17-inch GP70, both of which can be outfitted with any of Nvidia new GPU triplets. The Taiwanese computer maker also announced a new all-in-one, the Gaming 24GE, which sports a GTX 960 and a new virtual 7.1 audio technology called Nahimic Audio Enhancer.

Not to be left out Razer also refreshed its 17.3-inch Razer Blade Pro with the Nvidia GTX 960M. The new model starts at $2,299 (about £1544, AU$ 2990) with an Intel Core i7-4720HQ processor, 16GB of RAM and an 128GB SSD.

The new GPU options are available immediately giving users more choices than ever in the thin and light gaming notebook space. Given that the Nvidia GTX 970M and GTX 980M have thoroughly impressed us, we're looking forward to the performance kick the rest of the company's Maxwell family will deliver.

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.