MAINGEAR won't be offering the most powerful NVIDIA GPUs because it wants to level price

Mar 13, 2014 09:00 GMT  ·  By

Following NVIDIA’s unveiling of the brand-new GeForce GTX 800M-series GPUs, most gaming notebooks manufacturers have rushed to push out new models bundling the new architecture. It’s the case of MAINGEAR and its refreshed new Pulse 14 laptop series, which can be considered an attempt to balance performance, portability and pricing.

MAINGEAR’s Pulse 14 base model offers an Intel Core i5-4300M processor under the hood and NIVIDIA’s Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 850 combined with 8GB of RAM plus 500GB 7,200 rpm hard drive.

The mid-range model ups things in the hardware department, where we have an Intel Core i7-4702MQ processor combined with the same specifications mentioned above.

The most powerful Pulse has the same CPU as the mid-range one, but is fitted with 16GB of RAM and has significantly faster storage via 128GB mSATA SSD in RAID 0 with 1TB hard drive.

Port-wise, the new Pulse 14 laptops bundle two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI and Ethernet. Each of the MAINGEAR laptop models presented above has the same GeForce GTX 850M GPUs under the lid.

Why aren't we seeing something more powerful than the GeForce GTX 850M being implemented with the Pulse 14 line-up? Since these are supposed to be gaming notebooks, more capable GPUs like the 880M might fit in perfectly, but then again the MAINGEAR laptops are trying to maintain a mid-range price-tag.

Compared to other gaming laptops, they are pretty cheap, considering the low-end one will go on sale for $1,199 / €860, the mid-range one for $1,399 / €1,003 while the most impressive will become available for $1,699 / €1,218.