NVIDIA Geforce RTX 30 Ampere advances for gaming laptops

Changes in the generation of graphics architecture have always brought a lot of new things, often focusing more on improvements related to the performance of graphics chips and a little less on their efficiency. Such a strategy has long been practical for manufacturers, but until recently, most gamers who take gaming seriously have focused on the desktop segment, where efficiency is not an issue when considering more powerful power supplies and modern cooling systems.

However, as more and more customers are thinking about a laptop in recent years, the whole segment is gaining in importance, and investments in the development of mobile chips and the complete platform on which some of the best laptops are based are growing.

Progress in all segments when it comes to gaming laptops is nowhere more evident than in the case of the new GeForce RTX 30 series based on NVIDIA’s latest Ampere architecture.

Ampere’s architecture is impressive and represents one of the most significant leaps in performance and technology in the modern world of graphics accelerators. Never before has the transition from one generation to another brought such progress in both fields.

The most significant leap that Ampere as architecture has made possible with the new GeForce RTX 30 accelerators is assuredly the RayTracing technology that until just a few years ago was reserved exclusively for professional use in film animations.

RayTracing is an advanced technology for displaying scenes in real-time play that continuously calculates the effect of each light source on surrounding objects, counting shadows, reflections, transparency, and other effects that light creates on various materials in the environment.

RayTracing takes into account the effect of light on each visible pixel and requires significantly more processing power and time compared to other shading techniques. The result is drastically more convincing compared to scenes obtained by rasterization or other techniques.

 

 

NVIDIA DLSS Technology

Another technology that is very important for laptop users and that works on the integrated Tensor cores of Ampera chips is NVIDIA DLSS. This technology provides the benefit when we use Ray Tracing, which is a demanding operation for the GPU.

Because of this complexity, we mostly play in 1080p resolution with RT effects turned on to feel some minimum fluidity. Any increase in resolution further slows down the animation, making it too slow. NVIDIA Ampere changes all this by displaying each frame at a lower resolution (1440p) than predicted (4K).

Simply put, DLSS tracks changes between the last thumbnail displayed and the one that will be displayed. In parallel, it analyzes the entire scene by processing RayTracing effects with a classic thumbnail raster display, merging them at the end, and generating final frames in 4 or 8K resolution.

All this thanks to the fact that Tensor cores are capable of performing RT calculations and graphical operations simultaneously, combining details from multiple displayed frames into a final stage with much higher resolution.

The result of this complicated process is an image of incomparably higher sharpness and with much more detail, without a significant impact on performance, which is very important for laptop users.

In addition to RayTracing, DLSS, and other technologies featured on all Ampere chips, there are technologies specific to portable versions of the processor. The most important is the third generation of Max-Q technology.

NVIDIA realized a few years ago that if it wants to see gaming laptops on the market that is thin and quiet, the design of the components inside the notebook must change dramatically. Three generations later, we have the latest version of Max-Q technology that provides not only hardware specifications and designs that allow for a far better balance of performance, power consumption, and cooling, but also a software component that helps carefully balance in real-time between all three components, provided the best possible gaming experience.

Max-Q Technology

To explain the importance of Max-Q technology, we will take the example of two different games, one that relies heavily on the CPU and the other that much more on the GPU. In traditional laptops, consumption limits are set in advance, and the CPU and GPU respect the set limits, whether it is the first or second game.

In the case of a game that is demanding in terms of CPU resources, this means that we will not achieve the highest CPU frequencies, while the GPU will work solidly below the maximum. In the case of a game that relies more on the GPU, we will have the opposite situation where the CPU will be unloaded and the GPU will be limited, although there is the real room because the processor does not reach the set limits. Max-Q solves this problem dynamically and depending on which game or application is in question it balances between CPU and GPU performance to allow the user to use the power to the maximum.


The technology paired with the Max-Q hardware design and in charge of the aforementioned precise balancing is Dynamic Boost 2.0 and uses a machine intelligence algorithm to optimize power consumption. It monitors their work at all times at the level of the interval of an individual frame so that the laptop computer knows at all times how much energy is needed for each of the mentioned components to achieve maximum performance. This prevents unnecessary waste of energy and heat generation in high-performance laptops.

Dynamic Boost 2.0 is available on all GeForce RTX 30xx models of the Max-Q 3.0 series and what is important is that it is turned on immediately after starting the device without any need for any additional settings, thus bringing acceleration in all applications and games.

Max-Q technology also gives notebook manufacturers far more choices in terms of individual component features, leaving room for the same GPU to be configured precisely to match the cooling system, power supply, and other parts of the computer. All this results in a far larger selection of GeForce RTX 30 notebook computers and a situation where the manufacturers announced over 70 new computer models with the mentioned chip at the beginning of the year. When it comes to specific manufacturers and models that are available or announced in the coming period, almost all major NVIDIA partners such as Acer, Lenovo, Gigabyte, MSI, and others are planning new models in their offer.

Gigabyte Aorus models

The Gigabyte Aorus G5KC models with a 15-inch screen and 240Hz refresh are already available on the market today, on the 10th generation of the Intel Core i5 processor platform, 16 GB of RAM, and the GeForce RTX3060 with 6 GB of VRAM.

The more powerful Aorus 15G KC offers virtually the same configuration, but with a more powerful Core i7-10870H processor. Next to it, you can also find the Aorus 17KC with a 17-inch screen and a refresh rate of up to 300Hz. The platform of this model consists of Intel Core i7 10870H and RTX 3060 with 6 GB of memory, 16 GB of RAM, and 1 TB SSD. You can also find the most powerful Aorus 17G XC with a large 17-inch screen and refresh at 300Hz, a Core i7 10870H processor, an RTX 3070 graphics processor with 8 GB of VRAM, 32 GB of RAM.

Acer Nitro 5 model

Acer can also be expected in the coming period, announcing the arrival of the new Nitro 5 model, which will be an excellent gaming laptop with a 17-inch screen, IPS panel, and refresh at 144Hz. The notebook is powered by a Cezanne Ryzen 7 processor and comes with 32GB of RAM, a GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, and a 1TB M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, which is a good combination.

When we add it all up, all the new technologies, the advancement of solutions from before, and the freedom that NVIDIA gives to computer manufacturers, we can conclude that the coming period will be very interesting for gaming hardware. If you haven’t seriously considered a gaming notebook by now, maybe it’s time to consider some of the announced models.