The professional NVIDIA Quadro M5500 GPU is the gateway to virtual reality for notebooks
Looks like 2016 is one of the most important years for NVIDIA. For the first time since their 6th generation GeForce GPUs (announced in 2012), the company will introduce chips with smaller than 28nm manufacturing process. The new GPUs will have a codename Pascal and will feature 16nm manufacturing process and should be available on the market in a couple of months.
However, it seems that NVIDIA has other plans before the launch of the new models. The company is currently developing a technology called “GameWorks VR”, which should help improve the user experience when using Oculus Rift or other similar devices. It would seem, that they’re also going to try and bring virtual reality to notebooks as well. This has been confirmed by the manufacturer itself with releasing the Quadro M5500 GPU.
The graphics card will replace the mobile version of GeForce GTX 980 and the new chip will be perfectly capable of supporting virtual reality on a mobile device. Anyway, the GPU itself has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM and it’s clocked at 1140MHz making it the most powerful Quadro discrete chip yet.
Currently, only MSI’s WT72 model will be available with Quadro M5500, due to a couple of reasons – power consumption and temperatures. Since this is a high-end GPU, it requires 150W power supply and nothing less than excellent cooling capabilities. This is why MSI has chosen a 17.3-inch form factor weighing about 4kg. The notebook also sports an Intel Xeon CPU.