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Apparently, there is a GPU of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series inside this laptop and apparently it will be released on January 26th or later.
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A range of laptop models with built-in RTX 3000 GPUs. Nvidia was not ready to launch a complete list of which models will be launched on January 26.
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That’s all we have so far in terms of performance gain estimates and … yes, it’s a little vague, Nvidia.
If you’re wondering when gaming laptops would get a more serious boost for 1440p panels, this week’s Nvidia revelations at CES are aimed directly at you. Here’s: a generational leap in the company’s laptop GPUs, this time with Ampere architecture and the RTX 3000 series brand.
Three GPU models have been announced in all, and they are named after the GeForce RTX 3080, 3070 and 3060. They are scheduled to launch on “70+” laptop models from January 26th. Nvidia listed “major OEMs”, such as Acer, Alienware, ASUS, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, MSI and Razer with the next RTX 3000 series laptops, along with “local OEMs and system integrators”.
Naming convention confirmation
Nvidia’s sales pitch positions the RTX 3060 laptop variant as “faster than RTX 2080 Super laptops”, although this model can land more specifically on 1080p systems. The two most sophisticated models are often referred to as part of the 1440p systems, a resolution that has long been left in the cold of gaming laptops (and will undoubtedly benefit greatly from Nvidia’s proprietary DLSS upscaling solution). While the latest promotional materials from Nvidia mention an economical upgrade compared to the latest generation of laptop GPUs, we are still waiting to see OEMs launch prices and specifications specific to their models in late January. (In addition, we are wondering if these laptops will run out too quickly for ordinary humans to get them.)
Nvidia continues its naming convention to lend desktop model numbers to its smaller laptop variants, and in a way, it works. The leap from the laptop to the RTX 3000 series is found with the inclusion of second-generation lightning-tracking cores and third-generation tensioner cores – which have proven on the RTX 3000 desktop models to offer performance upgrades outside of pure rasterization, while while reducing space requirements on physical hardware.
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Official Nvidia specification sheet for the RTX 3000 series laptop variants.
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For comparison, here are some of the models in the RTX 3000 series Workspace specifications. Obviously, they will be different, as they are dedicated GPUs with higher power consumption.
But if you put the desktop and laptop specifications side by side, the downgrades for each vary slightly more than you can expect by name alone. The RTX 3080, in particular, shows a drop of almost 30% in the CUDA cores, compared to 13% of the RTX 3070. (Strangely, the RTX 3060 laptop variant will have 6.6% More CUDA cores than its desktop variant, but 21.1 percent less than the 3060 Ti desktop.)
Honestly, the laptop version of the RTX 3080 probably deserves a different name, as it also downgrades to a 256-bit memory bus and GDDR6 VRAM (instead of the extremely hot GDDR6X variant found on the desktop model, attached to a 320 bus bits). Not that these downgrades are not necessary to operate within the thermal and power constraints of a laptop case; we’re just saying. Speaking of which, the clock speeds for the RTX 3000 series of notebooks also vary by card, and Nvidia’s announced ranges will certainly vary even more when they are free and packaged in a variety of OEM chassis.
And in a surprising twist, that RTX 3080, despite having a VRAM power downgrade, gets an optional capability improvement to 16GB GDDR6 sound. It’s not quite the rumor RTX 3080 Ti (which supposedly could come with up to 20 GB GDDR6X VRAM), but if you’re looking for serious VRAM on a studio laptop in 2021, you might want to break a few more piggy banks before January 26th.
Define “whisper”, Nvidia
The remainder of this week’s announcement mentions some efficiency gains that can be difficult to test, as its impulses revolve around statements like “power balance … per frame” and “access all VRAM GPUs simultaneously. ” (The latter, dubbed BAR Resizable, will not be ready at launch and will require a driver update.) There is also the issue of “WhisperMode 2.0”, which apparently will allow users to choose a fan noise level of their choice and see the performance system adjusted accordingly. Exactly how the performance will change from “listening to me thinking” to “staying in an airport hangar” is yet to be seen.
We look forward to going ahead with these GPUs to see exactly how these promises work, and it looks like Nvidia will once again beat AMD in the market for a given generation, with Team Red offering only a vague “first half of 2020 “commits to its RDNA2 laptop GPU line.
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