Laptop makers have been firing out press releases with abandon after a double-barrelled update targeting the gaming laptop market arrived on Tuesday. Many of them have concocted new SKUs leveraging both the new high-end Intel 11th Gen Core 'Tiger Lake' laptop CPUs, and the 'accessible' Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050/Ti laptop GPUs. However, there is a definite trend with many premium laptop refresh models eschewing the Nvidia update for obvious reasons.
Intel's high-performance 11th Gen Core laptop CPUs
At CES 2021 in January Intel pushed forward its TGL H35 chips, keeping these top performing models back, and many gaming laptops which were previously Intel based just went with Nvidia RTX 30 updates at that time, or launched AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU packing models. Now Intel has launched the more powerful 6- and 8-core (12- and 16-thread) processors you can see tabulated below.
The above offerings should make the latest gen Intel gaming laptops a better balanced proposition as some from CES were stuck with older gen CPUs or were found to be rather unbalanced with the lower power budget mobile parts from Intel. According to Intel the new processors here offer a 10 per cent IPC uplift compared to the previous gen and the slide below goes as far as reclaiming "gameplay leadership," illustrated by a particular list of AAA titles.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 / 3050 Ti
Nvidia isn't just pitching its latest RTX 30 laptop GPUs at budget mobile gamers, reaching down to "millions more gamers". It suggests the parts will be rolled into thin and light gaming and creator laptops too. Design wins do indeed include the likes of the Dell XPS, MSI Creator, and HP Z Book series, but I think it will shift many more in entry level gaming laptops.
For gaming fun you will be able to pick up one of the new RTX 3050 laptops starting at US$799, reckons Nvidia. Thanks to technologies like ray tracing and DLSS being supported by the new GPU, these new GPU are targeting 60fps FHD gameplay in modern AAA titles with these features on. For pure rasterisation performance (games which don't support RT, or if you have RT off) you should be looking at a 50 per cent uplift vs previous gen – that is for the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti vs the GTX 1650 Ti.
Want to know more specifics, like details of the new laptops with the latest Intel and Nvidia processors? Then please check through the official press release links below, for product details from your favourite laptop brands. Asus, for example, has updated more than 10 of its ROG and TUF designs.
These new laptop models are up for pre-order in some regions. Availability and pricing will vary based upon your location.
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