Maingear Oddly Opts For Desktop Skylake CPUs In Nomad 15 Gaming Laptop

Maingear announced that its upcoming Nomad 15 gaming laptop will use desktop Intel Skylake processors.

Maingear's decision to use the Intel 6th Gen (Skylake) Core i7-6700K inside of this laptop is a curious one. Although the i7-6700K features higher clock speeds than any mobile Core i7 processor, and should perform better as a result, the heat produced and the energy consumed by this processor is also considerably higher. Compared to the fastest mobile Core i7, the Intel 6th Gen (Skylake) Core i7-6920HQ, the i7-6700K operates 600 MHz faster, but is also rated with a TDP that is twice as high (45 W on the i7-6920HQ versus 91 W on the i7-6700K).

The motherboard inside of the system uses the enthusiast Z170 chipset, and users could theoretically overclock the CPU higher to achieve even more performance, but it is questionable if these systems will be capable of handling the additional heat and power consumption.

Paired with the CPU, Maingear installed an Nvidia GTX 980M graphics chip with 1536 CUDA cores. This is the fastest mobile GPU currently sold by Nvidia, and it was wise of Maingear to use it in this system, as the laptop uses a 4K G-Sync compatible display. Although this GPU is slower than the desktop GTX 970 and GTX 980, which struggle to play games at 4K resolutions with maxed out settings, the GTX 980M at least gives this laptop the potential to run games at 4K with reduced settings.

For storage, Maingear opted to use dual Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration. Maingear did not state the exact storage capacity or model, however, so it is unclear if the system will use 256 GB or 512 GB Samsung 950 Pro drives.

Maingear also stated that the systems would include several other features, including the use of DDR4 memory, a customizable backlit keyboard, THX TruStudio Pro audio software, and the Killer E2200 NIC.

There is no word on pricing or availability at this time.

______________________________________________________________________

Michael Justin Allen Sexton (or MJ) is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. As a tech enthusiast, MJ enjoys studying and writing about all areas of tech, but specializes in the study of chipsets and microprocessors. In his personal life, MJ spends most of his time gaming, practicing martial arts, studying history, and tinkering with electronics.

Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton @EmperorSunLao. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.