Geforce

The last generation budget gaming laptop still has some life left in it especially for gamers who are satisfied with playing the latest titles at 1080p and aren't aiming for 2K or 4K resolutions.

Sony announced that Days Gone would be leading the charge as a number of PlayStation exclusives are set to arrive on PC later in the year. Days Gone min specs were revealed and the game requires surprisingly reasonable GPU and CPU configs: The GeForce GTX 1060 and Ryzen 5 1500X are recommended, with the min spec calling for the R9 290 or GTX 780.

The Asus ROG Strix G15 is one of the latest gaming laptops equipped with an RTX 3000 GPU and a Ryzen 5000 CPU. The combination promises high performance that can be used optimally in games with the 300 Hz display. In the test, the Strix G15 reveals massive performance that is not limited to the graphics card.

The MSI PCB includes a 8+6-pin power connector instead of an 8-pin one, which should provide more stability for the overclocked core. Despite the increased boost speeds, the TGP matches the reference 170 W. The number of inductors appears to be modified as well, and the PCB supports 8 VRAM slots, of which only 6 are populated. Unfortunately, we will not be seeing 16 GB versions, due to the limitations imposed by the 192-bit memory bus.

A new leak suggests that Nvidia could launch a 6GB variant of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards soon. The Palit-branded graphics card showed up on the South Korean National Radio Research Agency website alongside other SKUs. However, Nvidia is yet to officially acknowledge the existence of such a GeForce RTX 3060 variant.

The GeForce RTX 3060 has arrived on the Ashes of the Singularity database, where it has outscored the RTX 2060 and the RTX 2070. The RTX 3060 appears to offer comparable performance to the RTX 2070 SUPER, despite having a US$170 lower MSRP.

Currently, it looks like only the upcoming RTX 3060 will be affected by NVIDIA's recent move to limit hash rates via drivers and firmware. NVIDIA recently launched dedicated CMP cards for miners seemingly to put more GeForce cards in the hands of gamers, but that move may not be really end user-friendly in the long run once the present cryptocurrency boom goes bust.

Three Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 cards have appeared for sale on a Belarusian online marketplace days before the boards are officially launched. The asking price for the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Eagle OC cards is 2,800 Belarusian rubles, which is roughly about US$1,080/€891/£770. The Nvidia MSRP for the GeForce RTX 3060 is US$329.

An IGN report indicates that Indian PlayStation 5 fans, already dealing with a US$700 MSRP are actively working to shut down scalpers, both by pressuring Sony and by reporting and initiating takedowns of scalper listings on eCommerce sites.

Just because GeForce RTX 30 laptops are available doesn't mean older RTX 20 models are suddenly useless. Users in the market for a new gaming laptop ought to keep an eye out for the inevitable sales on last year's top GeForce RTX 20 sellers.

Koei Tecmo’s Souls-like finally received some PC love with the addition of DLSS 2.0 support. While cards like the GeForce RTX 3080 were already capable of hitting 4K/60, DLSS 2.0 opens up that possibility to a wider range of RTX cards.

While NVIDIA has announced plans to scupper the crypto mining capabilities of the RTX 3060, multiple sources are claiming that the company will extend this to the rest of its RTX 30 series product stack. Apparently, NVIDIA may do so be releasing new RTX 30 series SKUs and discontinuing current ones.

It turns out that ZOTAC has been selling both its RTX 3060 cards before NVIDIA's release embargo on February 25. Now, the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC Edition has popped up in a video about mining Ethereum. However, it seems that the RTX 3060 can tell that it is mining cryptocurrencies even without software drivers being installed, which points to NVIDIA having baked something within the BIOS, not just its drivers.

AMD and NVIDIA may have new 8 GB cards on the way, albeit versions of ones that they have already released. For one reason or another, an NVIDIA board partner has registered an RTX 3060 with 8 GB of VRAM with the RRA in South Korea, while a retailer claims that people can pre-order desktop PCs with an 8 GB version of the RX 6800.

Nvidia has announced in an official blog post that the upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will feature drivers that limit the GPU’s performance if the board is used for crypto mining. At the same time, Team Green has also revealed the CMP HX processors that are specifically designed for digging up digital coins.

We recently tested the Aorus 15G XC. The gaming laptop has been updated from an RTX 2070 to a new RTX 3070. In exchange, the manufacturer seems to have made a surprising number of cuts and removed a number of the predecessor's popular features.

The Hong Kong-based video card maker ZOTAC has uploaded an image on Twitter that has already been met by considerable ire from gamers. The picture shows a lineup of White Edition GeForce RTX 30 Series cards that look like they are hooked up as part of a huge mining rig. Tags in the tweet are aimed at gamers but the caption is definitely for crypto miners.
Update: ZOTAC has now removed the polarizing tweet.

A fairly capable performance laptop for an entry-level price. The Gateway Creator 15.6 includes a Ryzen H-series CPU, GeForce GPU, and even a high refresh rate 120 Hz IPS display for a performance level that's similar to many flagship performance Ultrabooks.

The passively-cooled Asus TUF RTX 3080 GPU was tested in Furmark along with a Ryzen 5 5600X and the results were a bit sketchy. While the CPU was running at 40 degrees Celsius during the Furmark test, the GPU peaked at 87 degrees Celsius and it did not even level out. Total power draw appears to hover around 410 W, most likely in idle.

Nvidia allows laptops to have 140 W GeForce RTX 3070 GPUs and 100 W GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs which can lead to some peculiarities in raw performance. Certain laptop models with the RTX 3080 are going to run consistently slower than models with the "weaker" RTX 3070 because of their wide overlapping TGP ranges.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX desktop graphics cards of any nature are difficult to source currently. However, ZOTAC is now running a sale on the MAGNUS EN72070S and MAGNUS EN72070V, which have the RTX 2070 and RTX 2070 SUPER, respectively. The mini-PCs have an Intel Core i7-9750H too.

COVID-19 has caused some internet cafes to pivot their business models, with RTX 30 series graphics cards replacing people. Unsurprisingly these new graphics cards are being used for mining cryptocurrencies.

Lenovo ThinkPads are among the laptops that defy the trend of all-metal cases. Usually, a mix of different high-performance plastics with magnesium and aluminum is used. Magnesium is also used in the Lenovo ThinkPad T15p, but surprisingly, Lenovo has made most of the case of this 2,000-Euro (~$2,424) laptop out of simple ABS plastic.

News about the RTX 3070 Ti has been quiet in recent weeks, with FinalWire adding support for the card to AIDA64 Extreme in December. Now, a retailer briefly listed an RTX 3070 Ti with 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM on its website as part of a pre-built PC.

The new Prometheus XVII gaming laptop series comes with advanced features like the enhanced thermal design that supports overclocked Ryzen 7 5800H processors coupled with 150 W RTX 3080 mobile GPUs. All inside a 0.98-inch thick chassis. It also includes the Control Center 3.0 suite that lets users easily tweak CPU PL settings, custom power and fan profiles, GPU wattage etc.

There have been reports of computer part retailers in Europe hiking prices of GeForce RTX 3060 AIB boards before the graphics card is even launched. Nvidia’s MSRPs for the GeForce RTX 3060 are US$329/€329/£299 but retailer prices have gone beyond double in some cases. Gamers have been blaming the hikes on cryptocurrency miners.

NVIDIA secured an agreement to buy the often-essential chip-design company ARM for ~US$40 billion in late 2020. However, regulators are still scrutinizing it and its ramifications for the tech industry prior to approving it. Now, Qualcomm has sent an official notice of concern over the same with these bodies.

NVIDIA has taken matters into its hands and has intervened on how OEMs advertise its RTX 30 series laptop GPUs. OEMs will now be required to disclose their RTX 30 series laptops' TGPs and clock speeds, but NVIDIA has removed TGP values from its official release drivers.
Updated: A GeForce Hotfix Driver has re-enabled Maximum Graphics Power information for RTX 30 series laptops.

The GeForce RTX 3070 offers 20 percent faster graphics performance than the RTX 2080 Max-Q and it even comes with the same 1 TB SSD capacity, 32 GB RAM, and 300 Hz display. Interested buyers would be better off with the newer Ampere SKU or waiting until the RTX 2080 Max-Q SKU drops in price.

NVIDIA has formally announced that the GeForce RTX 3060 will arrive on February 25, following confirmation from various sources. The GA106 card is slated to launch for US$329 too, despite its apparent limited availability and amid concerns about price increases.

NVIDIA recently launched a DLSS plugin on the Unreal Marketplace, potentially kicking off widespread adoption of its AI-based upscaling technology. Developers should now be able to effortlessly incorporate DLSS in games that run on the Unreal engine.

Modders discovered that the MSI Leopard G76 vBIOS can be flashed on the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, allowing the RTX 3080 TGP to be raised from 115 W to 150 W. This trick can provide up to 18% increased performance, but it can also lead to serious stability issues like increased cooler noise, thermal throttling and battery problems caused by overwhelmed power supply.

New images and a video of Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 gaming laptops being used for cryptocurrency mining have been shared on Chinese social media. Hundreds of units from the laptop company Hasee can be seen lined up on shelves in a mining farm for digging up digital coins. The GeForce RTX 3060 notebooks are put straight to work right out of the box.

Back in the Nvidia Pascal days, the chipmaker boasted that its mobile GPUs have caught up to their desktop counterparts in terms of performance. Fast-forward to 2021 and that claim has all been thrown out the window.

The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is being given a new lease of life, almost half a decade after its initial release. According to a new report, NVIDIA has already started resupplying the card to plug the gap currently left by the RTX 30 series.

When it comes to NVIDIA's Ampere laptop GPUs, variation in TGPs is just one conundrum. Apparently, NVIDIA is keeping mum on Dynamic Boost 2.0 clocks due to which OEMs, apart from determining TGP and Max-Q features, are also deciding on which boost clocks to advertise further complicating matters for both reviewers and end users alike.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is already available to purchase through official channels and at more than double its MSRP. NVIDIA's first GA106 card will be available globally, albeit probably in extremely limited quantities, from the end of February.

According to a major European retailer, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series will become even harder to purchase between now and April. Prices of NVIDIA's latest graphics cards will continue to increase too, even those bought from retailers.

Asus says it's ok to use generic USB-C adapters to recharge the laptop in spite of the warning label telling owners otherwise. When charging via the AC barrel port, however, be sure to use only those provided by Asus.

AMD seems to be internally looking at a 2.5x performance increase for RDNA 3 compared to RDNA 2, flagship-to-flagship. RDNA 3 Navi 31 with 160 CUs is expected to be a multi-chip module while Navi 33 will continue to be monolithic. With Intel Xe also pegged to offer good ray tracing performance, NVIDIA Lovelace will have both Intel and AMD in its sights.

Eat your heart out, Razer Project Valerie. The Expanscape Aurora 7 is a laptop prototype that boasts an insane seven screens that fold out from every nook and cranny of the lid and chassis.

The TOPTON VG is a compact mini-PC that features a comparatively powerful graphics card and a choice of four desktop-class Intel processors. The VG has a remote control too, along with socketed RAM and storage.