During a presentation for CES 2021, Nvidia shared several announcements that are exciting for laptop and desktop gamers alike. For desktop gamers, the RTX 3060 will be launching in February for $329 through add-in board partners and provide an accessible onramp to 30-series RTX gaming. For gamers on the go, a new line of RTX 30-series Max-Q laptops will be releasing at the end of the month.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Coming in February
The next entry in Nvidia’s RTX 30-series will be arriving in February in the form of the RTX 3060. Ther won’t be a Founders Edition of this board, but it will be launching through add-in board partners beginning at $329. The new card will feature:
- 13 shader-TFLOPs
- 25 RT-TFLOPs for ray tracing
- 101 tensor-TFLOPs to power NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling)
- 192-bit memory interface
- 12GB of GDDR6 memory
This new GPU is noteworthy because it continues the line of Nvidia’s most successful xx60 GPUs, most notably the GTX 1060 which has been the most popular graphics card on Steam since shortly after its release. It’s also striking that this card, the most accessible and entry-level 30-series yet, will feature 12GB of GDDR6 video memory, which surpasses even the RTX 3080 (albeit with slower GDDR6 memory versus the 3080’s GDDR6X). This car will also support Resizable BAR, allowing the CPU to access the entirety of the memory pool, achieving the same benefits of AMD’s Smart Access Memory.
70+ RTX 30-Series Max-Q Laptops, Coming This Month
Nvidia also announced the availability of its upcoming line of RTX 30-series Max-Q powered laptops. RTX 3060 Max-Q, RTX 3070 Max-Q, and RTX 3080 Max-Q versions will be available, each offering massive performance gains over the prior generation.
From the press release:
- GeForce RTX 3060 delivers 90 frames per second on the latest games with ultra settings at 1080p. RTX 3060 laptops start at $999 and are faster than laptops featuring NVIDIA’s previous flagship GPU, GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, which typically sell for $2,500.
- GeForce RTX 3070 is a 1440p gaming beast, delivering 90 frames per second with ultra settings at 1440p. RTX 3070 laptops start at $1,299 and are 50 percent faster than those equipped with the RTX 2070.
- GeForce RTX 3080 is NVIDIA’s new flagship laptop GPU. With up to 16GB of G6 memory, it powers the world’s fastest laptops for gamers and creators. It delivers 100+ frames per second with ultra settings at 1440p. Systems featuring the RTX 3080 start at $1,999.
These performance metrics are impressive to say the least, particularly the RTX 3060 variant which is stated to outperform the RTX 2080 Super Max-Q, which already offered very impressive performance at 1080p.
Also worth noting is that this launch also marks Nvidia’s push to drive 1440p displays in the laptop market. As many desktop gamers already know, 1440p represents an excellent middle group between image quality and performance. This transition should mark a welcome shift for gamers on the go.
To address power, acoustics, and performance, Nvidia also highlighted other key features found on these notebooks:
- Dynamic Boost 2.0: Traditionally, gaming laptops set the power for the CPU and GPU. Yet, games and creative apps are dynamic, and demands on the system change from frame to frame. With Dynamic Boost 2.0, AI networks balance the power between the CPU, GPU and now, GPU memory, depending on where it is needed the most — constantly optimizing for maximum performance.
- WhisperMode 2.0: Delivering a new level of acoustic control for gaming laptops, WhisperMode has been reengineered from the ground up and is custom built into each laptop. Once the desired acoustics are selected, WhisperMode 2.0’s AI-powered algorithms manage the CPU, GPU, system temperatures and fan speeds to deliver great acoustics at the best possible performance.
- Resizable BAR: This advanced PCI Express technology enables all of the GPU memory to be accessed by the CPU at once, providing a performance boost in many games.
- NVIDIA DLSS: NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling uses AI and RTX Tensor Cores to deliver up to 2x the performance at the same power. For a single 1440 frame, a GPU needs to calculate almost 4 million pixels. NVIDIA DLSS requires only a fraction of the pixels, which improves efficiency and increases performance.
Nvidia promises 70+ laptops to “kick off a new era” of laptop gaming.
What about you: do you plan to pick up an RTX 3060 or new gaming laptop? Let us know in the comments below!
