[IT동아 남시현 기자] It’s been less than 15 days since 2021 began, but this year the gaming market is expected to be hotter than ever. In a keynote address, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su unveiled the new AMD Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors and HX processor, a high-performance mobile processor, as well as announcing the launch of a mobile graphics card based on RDNA 2. Intel, too, is fighting for a high-performance processor for gaming and business at CES2021, an 11th-generation Intel Core H-series processor, and Rocket Lake-S, an 11th-generation core processor for desktop, and the next generation of processor Elder Lake.
While the two companies are struggling on the theme of games, Nvidia gives wings to both. That’s because it unveiled the RTX 3060, 3070, 3080, and RTX 3060 graphics cards for the desktop, which are the RTX 30 series for notebooks based on Ampere architecture. This product line is a product that will serve as a relief pitcher in the stagnant gaming laptop market and the mainstream desktop graphics card market.
NVIDIA unveils RTX 30 at its own event instead of participating in CES
Nvidia held the GeForce RTX: GAME ON event on the website at 2am (Korean time) on January 12th. Prior to the product release, NVIDIA GeForce Vice President Jeff Fisher said, “Two years ago, NVIDIA introduced RTX, a combination of ray tracing (real-time ray tracing) and artificial intelligence-based Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) in graphics.” “And last fall, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the second-generation RTX graphics card based on the Ampere architecture, the RTX 30 series graphics card, which achieved the greatest performance improvement between generations.”
The Ampere architecture has nearly doubled the performance of Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which improves image quality with artificial intelligence rendering, compared to its predecessor, and has a dedicated RT core to boost real-time ray tracing (ray tracing) performance. The performance improvement of the RTX 30 series is more than expected, and the RTX 3060Ti of the mid-range (mainstream) family is similar to or slightly higher than the 2080, which is the upper product of the RTX 20 series.
So naturally, attention is also being focused on the RTX 30 series for notebooks. Prior to the GTX 10 series, NVIDIA developed and released desktop GPUs and notebook GPUs separately. Therefore, even with the same process base, the performance variation was severe, and the preference of gaming laptops fell significantly. However, from the GTX 10 series onwards, laptops also have the same GPU as the desktop, and only reflects the degree of performance degradation for heat control, starting to produce performance comparable to that of the desktop. As the performance of the second-generation RTX graphics card, the RTX 30 series, is so high, the market’s expectation that laptops equipped with the same GPU will also produce high performance is inevitable.
Newly released amp-based notebook graphics cards are the RTX 3060, 3070, and the top-of-the-line 3080. The notebook RTX 3060 is 1.3 times faster than the PlayStation 5, and delivers 90 frames of performance at the highest optional FHD setting in most modern games. The top product, the RTX 3070 for laptops, is 1.5 times faster than the previous generation’s top model, the RTX 2070, and maintains 90 frames at the highest option at 1440p resolution. The RTX 3080 notebook graphics card, which has established itself as a new top-of-the-line model, has 16GB of GDDR6 memory and delivers more than 100 frames at 1440p resolution.
In addition, the 3rd generation MAX-Q technology is applied to the gaming laptop, so the thickness is thin, but the performance and efficiency are almost twice that of the previous generation. Introduced by Nvidia four years ago, MaxQ is a method of designing all aspects of CPU, GPU, software, board design, and power supply to achieve optimal performance even at a thin thickness. The 3rd generation MaxQ technology introduces Dynamic Boost 2.0, which converts power by autonomously determining where power is needed by the CPU and GPU through artificial intelligence, and Whisper Mode 2.0, a new level of sound control technology. In addition, the Resizable BAR, which enhances gaming performance by utilizing the advanced features of PCI-Express, was also unveiled. Resizable bar technology is a technology that simultaneously accesses the entire GPU memory in a game, and is effective for open world games that require a lot of memory or games that require frequent updates.
Manufacturers around the world are expected to ship laptops with RTX 3070 and 3080 from January 26th, and pricing starts from $1,299 for the RTX 3070 model and $1,99 for the RTX3080 model. The RTX3060-based laptop will then be available from February 2nd, and the RTX 3060 will start at $999.
RTX 20 series were skippable, RTX 30 series was different
At CES2019, Nvidia introduced the first gaming laptop with GeForce RTX 2060 that supports ray tracing and DLSS. However, the RTX 20 series itself did not show a significant difference in performance from the 10 series, and the ray tracing function released together was unreasonable to expect as a gaming laptop with a lower performance step by step than the desktop. The price was also set in the range of 2 to 5 million won, making it difficult for consumers to understand. It was said that the winner was the winner of the GTX1080 graphics card, the best of the previous generation.
But two years later, the Ampere architecture-based RTX 30 series is in the spotlight with a huge gap in performance compared to the previous generation. Gaming laptops with the same process-based chipset are also much more anticipated than when the RTX 20 series was released. In the meantime, many games have supported RTX more efficiently, and the basics of the RTX 30 series mobile graphic cards are attracting attention because the basics have become strong enough to play ray tracing games smoothly even with a laptop with limited performance.
Market research firm Statista predicts that the gaming notebook market in 2020 is estimated to be $10.96 billion (about 12 trillion won), and by the end of 2026, it is estimated to be $17.8 billion (about 19 trillion won). It is predicted to grow up to 100 billion won). This is because the demand for laptops due to Corona 19 is increasing, the gap between gaming laptops and desktops is reduced, and the demand for work using gaming laptops is increasing. Thanks to NVIDIA’s RTX 30 series meeting market expectations, the gaming laptop market is expected to go smooth this year. As AMD is also planning to release an RDNA 2-based mobile GPU to counter this, interest in gaming notebooks is expected to be hot in four years after the GTX 10 series.
Written by / IT Dong-A Nam Si-Hyeon ([email protected])