Geforce

AMD won't be making the same exclusivity mistake again with the mobile Ryzen 5000 series. The chipmaker has confirmed that all of its mobile Zen 3 CPUs will be available for all major OEMs to deploy in contrast to the more limited approach with certain mobile Zen 2 processors the year before.

NVIDIA has confirmed that it is encouraging OEMs to list TGP and clock speeds of their RTX 30 series laptops. Few OEMs have done so yet. Additionally, the latest GeForce Experience version brings WhisperMode 2.0 to RTX 30 series laptops. The feature utilises 'AI-powered algorithms' to balance acoustics and system performance.

Is the GPU 90 W or 135 W? With "Max-Q" gone, performance hunters will be asking this question left and right to make sure they are buying the fastest possible laptop graphics. Fortunately, XMG is looking ahead by stating the numbers directly on the specifications list.

NVIDIA indicated that it would release the GeForce RTX 3060 with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM towards the end of February, following its announcement this month. New reports suggest that NVIDIA will begin selling the Ampere card in the final week of February, and that multiple embargoes are in place for the GeForce RTX 3060.

Fifty gaming laptops featuring Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs from major vendors such as Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have been listed on the Scan website. Many feature Ryzen 5000 APUs and there are a couple of Tiger Lake H-35 options too. Prices go from £998.99 (US$1,367) for an Asus TUF Dash RTX 3060 laptop up to £4,298.99 (US$5,882) for an MSI GS66 Stealth RTX 3080 laptop.

All configurations are expected to ship on March 3rd to be over a month later than competing models from Asus or MSI. The top-of-the-line GeForce RTX 3080 option will set users back almost $3000 USD.

YouTube VIK-on demonstrated a way to replace the Micron 8 GB GDDR6 modules on a Palit GeForce RTX 2070 card with Samsung 16 GB ones thereby confirming that NVIDIA did have plans to launch a 16 GB RTX 2070 back then. The experiment resulted in the PC booting up, but the GPU crashed under load and posted low 3DMark Time Spy Graphics scores.

NVIDIA claims that the GeForce RTX 3060 will start at £299 and US$329 when it launches next month, but early board partner pricing suggests otherwise. Instead, many custom GeForce RTX 3060 cards will sell for £499.99 through official channels, with prices varying between £457 and £513.

Capcom recently released Resident Evil Village Maiden as a surprise demo for PlayStation 5 owners. With just months to go before the game's May 7th release, Village Maiden gives us a (horrifying) glimpse of what's to come.

The GeForce RTX 3090 is the most power-hungry single-GPU card to date. This, however, didn't deter EK from releasing a Quantum Vector water block that promises lower temps and (possibly) higher overclocks.

The Asus ROG Flow X13 GV301 laptop in combination with an AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS APU has been spotted in a couple of test runs on Geekbench. The Ryzen 9 5980HS produced strong single-core and multi-core results that hold up well against the Ryzen 9 4900H and Intel Core i7-1165G7. At one point, the Zen 3 chip was measured reaching 4.789 GHz.

Back in mid-2020, laptop OEMs explained that the inclusion of dGPUs more powerful than the RTX 2060 would not really make sense on Ryzen 4000H systems, as their performance would be limited by the 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes. However, the Ryzen 5000H systems still use only 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes, yet they come with up to an RTX 3080 dGPU option. Something is not adding up.

NVIDIA and OEMs will no longer specify whether a given Ampere Mobile GPU is a Max-Q or a Max-P variant. Ampere Mobile will be offered in a range of TGPs, and it will be the OEMs' discretion to decide which third generation Max-Q specs and TGG value should be used. This can confuse end users as a higher Watt RTX 3060 Mobile can potentially outperform a lower Watt RTX 3080 Mobile for a given workload.

It has not been long since NVIDIA proclaimed that crypto miners were not a driving force behind stock shortages of the new GeForce RTX 30 series. However, it seems that MSI plans to launch GPU-mini specific cards under a MINER sub-brand. Currently, only MINER versions of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti have been certified with the EEC in Russia.

Expect a deluge of sales on 2020 AMD laptops now that retailers are preparing to stock up on Zen 3 replacements. The Asus ZenBook 14 is a flagship Ultrabook offering with both AMD and Nvidia parts for a low-moderate price.

NVIDIA may have got stuck into the Ampere architecture over the last few months, but it is reputedly going to have another crack at releasing Turing cards. In fact, the company and board partners will re-release the GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER for €300 and €400, respectively. If that is the case, then it would make the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER more expensive option than the GeForce RTX 3060.

A last-minute configuration change for the GA106 GPU seemed to have confused NVIDIA's add-in board (AiB) partners with respect to the RTX 3060's specifications, particularly the core clocks. We are also getting to know that the RTX 3060 may not arrive in a Founders Edition, and the render shown during NVIDIA's CES presentation was just a mockup.

Bloober Team, developers of The Medium, the first next-gen exclusive title to release on PC, recently shared update minimum, recommended, and ray-tracing system requirements for the game. PC gamers will require a GeForce RTX 1060 for a min-spec experience, with the GeForce RTX 3080 recommended for ray-tracing.

The new Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ has made a couple of appearances on Geekbench that point to the convertible laptop being ideal for some light gaming sessions. The Iris Xe iGPU in the Surface Pro 7+ device’s Intel Core i7-1165G7 managed to outscore both the Nvidia GeForce MX350 dGPU and AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 4000 class).

NVIDIA's board partners have begun announcing GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card for the Mini-ITX form factor. Currently, Gainward, MSI and Palit have announced single fan versions of the GeForce RTX 3060, which has 12 GB of VRAM. All cards offer memory clock speeds of 15 Gbps and NVIDIA's GA106-300 GPU.

Gigabyte has added a sort-of-new product to its graphics card range in the form of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC PRO 8G (rev 2.0). Desktop PC builders will likely be intrigued by the revisions that have been made to this RTX 3060 Ti variant, but it appears the biggest difference to the original model is a height reduction.

Huawei has updated the MateBook 13 to Intel's Tiger Lake platform. The MateBook 13 comes with a Core i5-1135G7 or Core i7-1165G7 processor, along with an NVIDIA GeForce MX450 GPU and a 13-inch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio. The MateBook 13 2021 starts at CNY 5,449 (~US$848), but little else has changed from its predecessor.

Units are expected to ship as early as January 22 while the $1800 GeForce RTX 3070 configuration will come a bit later. Asus is betting big on both AMD and liquid metal to pull itself ahead of the competition this year.

HP offers a privacy filter for its ultra-thin workstation that is supposed to protect the screen content from curious eyes. However, the HP Sure View technology is more of a curse than a blessing.

NVIDIA appears to have silently announced a GeForce GT 1010 GPU earlier this week. The GT 1010 is a Pascal card featuring the 14 nm GP108 GPU similar to the GT 1030. The GT 1010 has only 256 CUDA cores enabled, supports 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM, and has a TDP of 30 W. Availability information is not known yet.

NVIDIA has just unveiled a 12 GB version of the GeForce RTX 3060, which will be available sometime in February. However, a new EEC registration by Palit suggests that even more Ampere cards are on the way. Specifically, the board partner has registered multiple SKUs for the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti; both are rumoured to be arriving within the next few months.

NVIDIA has all but confirmed that the 2021 HP Omen 15 gaming laptop will be powered by RTX 3000-series graphics. According to a clearly premature sales listing on bestbuy.com, they will comprise the RTX 3070 Max-Q hinted at in previous tips. Its latest leak puts its starting price at US$1600.

Intel's NUC 11 series is official, following months of delays. The company has unveiled three models of varying sizes and specifications, although all are based on its Tiger Lake-U platform. There is even a NUC for gamers with a dedicated GeForce RTX 2060 onboard.

Although they have different colors and frequencies (minor factory overclocks, of course), the two new ZOTAC video cards that use the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 as foundation stay within the 170 W TDP value of the reference design. Thankfully, since these are (almost) low-end parts, finding them should not be a problem.

EVGA and ZOTAC have followed ASUS in increasing the price of their NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series custom cards. The changes range from 4% to 23%, which correlate to price increases of between US$70 and US$350. Overall, prices hikes average 10% across over 30 cards.

The huge catch is that you'll have to live with an older quad-core Core i5-10200H CPU and just 8 GB of base RAM. Shipments are expected to arrive by February 2nd.

According to AMD and NVIDIA, there will not be an uptick in GPU availability for a few months yet. Stock levels of the GeForce RTX 30 series will remain 'lean' until at least May, according to NVIDIA, while AMD believes that things will improve once the impact of COVID lessens.

Asus has upgraded its ROG Strix Scar 17 with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and RTX 3080 Mobile. Like all ROG models in 2021, the Scar 17 will use liquid metal as the thermal interface material for the CPU. The Scar 17 also features a 360 Hz display, optical mechanical keyboard, ROG Keystone II, and more.

XMG has announced that the 2021 iterations of its PRO and NEO 15/17 laptops will have new, slim cases in addition to new specs. The NEO 15 and 17 also boasts fresh Ryzen 9 5900HX or 7 5800H AMD platforms, while the PROs stick with a Core i7 processor so as to be among the first on the market to combine RTX 3000 graphics with Thunderbolt 3.

Asus has refreshed its unique ZenBook Pro Duo design with updated internals. The new ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED comes with Comet Lake-H and RTX 3070 Mobile options. Asus has also improved the multi-tasking experience with the new ScreenPad Plus that now brings native support for Adobe apps.

Both powered by 11th gen Intel Core processors with Irix Xe graphics, the Asus ExpertBook B1400 and B1500 feature up to 48 GB of memory, optional NVIDIA dedicated graphics, dual storage combinations that can provide up to 1 TB SSD + 2 TB HDD of space, as well as multiple connectivity options, and much more.

MSI has unveiled an upgraded Stealth 15M gaming laptop at its MSIology event at CES 2021. MSI calls the Stealth 15M the world's thinnest gaming laptop. The Stealth 15M is powered by the Core i7-11375H and RTX 3060 Mobile and comes in Carbon Gray and Pure White variants.

At its MSIology event, MSI has taken wraps off the GE76 Raider Dragon Edition Tiamat. Embodying ancient Babylonian folklore, the new GE76 Raider will replace the GT Titan as MSI's 2021 flagship gaming laptop. The GE76 Raider is also available in a non-cuneiform design and sports the same internals including the Core i9-10980HK and the RTX 3080 Mobile/RTX 3070 Mobile options.

Gigabyte has introduced new mid-range gaming laptops powered by both Intel Comet Lake-H and AMD Ryzen 5000H Zen 3 options. These laptops are aimed at the multi-tasking crowd that also likes to game. The Intel-based Gaming G5 and G7 and the AMD-based Gaming A5 and A7 share many features with the Aorus gaming series including the Windforce cooling system.

Gigabyte has refreshed its Aorus gaming laptop lineup to feature NVIDIA RTX 30 Mobile GPUs. The Aorus 15P and Aorus 15G offer largely identical specifications including the Core i7-10870H. The new Aorus laptops take advantage of Microsoft Azure AI to offer automatic performance optimizations depending on the use case.

Acer has introduced a refreshed Nitro 5 with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and NVIDIA RTX 3080 Mobile internals. The Nitro 5 is also being offered with three display options, one of which includes a 360 Hz FHD panel.

Dell has refreshed the Alienware m17 with NVIDIA Ampere mobile graphics. The Alienware m17 R4 features a largely similar configuration as last year and offers a slew of customization options including a 360 Hz FHD panel. The laptop is also recognized as a CES 2021 Innovation Award Honoree in the Gaming category.

Asus is throwing all of its craziest ideas onto its latest 13-inch convertible laptop including liquid metal cooling, an AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS CPU, vapor chamber external graphics, proprietary PCIe x8 connector, and a 16:10 120 Hz Gorilla Glass touchscreen.

NVIDIA has introduced a new member to the RTX 30 family, the RTX 3060 12 GB. The RTX 3060 is intended at those who are looking to upgrade from a GTX 1060-class card and features 3,584 CUDA cores, 12 GB of GDDR6 192-bit memory, and will be the first RTX 30 card to support resizable BAR. The RTX 3060 12 GB will be available in late February starting from US$329.

The latest iteration of the 15.6-inch Acer Predator Helios 300 could easily be mistaken for the last. However, the OEM asserts that it is rated for even smoother gameplay thanks to its new GPU and display option. Can these new specs help it blow the cobwebs of 2020 away?

The new Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 desktop PC brings Ryzen 5000 series CPUs to Alienware's desktop family. The machine can be configured with a number of AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs as well as the newest GPUs from Nvidia and AMD.

The refreshed models still feature the Comet Lake-H CPUs, as they are limited to Thunderbolt 3 connectors. However, Gigabyte is now offering upgraded professionally calibrated displays, as well as the newly released RTX 3000 mobile GPUs, plus redesigned thermal management. The new AERO laptops are also among the first to feature HDMI 2.1 connectors.