If you’ve been following the news here on PowerUp, you would have noticed that along with the launch of new Intel Comet Lake H processors, NVIDIA also launched its new mobile GPUs; the GeForce RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super. Additionally, NVIDIA has worked with manufacturers to bring a range of RTX 2060 laptops which start at a wallet-friendly USD $999.
“A little more than 18 months ago, NVIDIA reinvented graphics with real-time ray tracing, which represents a seismic shift in how games look, play and feel,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of gaming at NVIDIA. “Having this technology available in a laptop for just US$999 is amazing. And thanks to Max-Q, consumers will have a selection of remarkably thin and light laptops to choose from across all price points.”
With the ever-increasing number of skinny gaming laptops, you are most likely to come across the RTX 20-Super cards in the Max-Q configuration. Max-Q allows for thinner and more power-efficient designs while still maintaining excellent gaming performance. The Gigabyte AERO 15 OLED we recently reviewed is a perfect example of this.
NVIDIA says it has doubled the efficiency over previous designs and introduced a number of features that improve performance and longer battery life. Dynamic Boost intelligently balances power between the GPU and CPU on a per-frame boosting overall in-game performance. This works automatically and continuously without user intervention.
NVIDIA also worked with its memory partners to develop Low-voltage GDDR6 which improves memory performance. This combined with its Next-Gen Regulator Efficiency, the new GPUs run more efficiently and yet deliver higher overall performance than previous models.
Of course, even a power-efficient discrete GPU is still going to be a huge drain on a laptops battery. So NVIDIA has improved on its power management with the new Advanced Optimus. This controls which GPU is driving the display and intelligently determines which one to use based on workload. Advanced Optimus can switch GPU’s without requiring a reboot – something that was incredibly irritating in the previous Optimus implementation. The newly announced Lenovo Legion laptops are the first in the world to have this feature.
Additionally, all NVIDIA RTX GPU’s can make use of the improved Deep Learning Super Sampling(DLSS) 2.0. This new version of DLSS boosts games framerate and improves image quality by using deep learning neural network; all without additional load on the GPU. This gives the GPU more headroom for ray-tracing and higher resolution outputs. I’ve already noticed impressive gains in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus.
NVIDIA has also announced a new line of RTX Studio laptops that feature the new RTX Super GPUs as well as Intel’s new 10th Gen Comet Lake H processors. RTX Studio makes use of NVIDIAs drivers to boost performance in over 45 creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Blender and more. The apps can make use of the RT Core in the GPUs for realtime data manipulation. Here’s a complete list of RTX Studio laptops.
The new RTX Gaming and Studio laptops start shipping from April 15th across the globe. The RTZ 2060 powered laptops starting at USD $999 include the Acer Nitro 5, Asus ROG Strix G15, HP Omen 15, MSI GF65 Thin, the Lenovo Legion and 5i with more coming soon.