Nvidia's Mobile GeForce RTX 30-Series GPUs Listed: Ampere Comes to Notebooks

Nvidia
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Skikk, a maker of gaming PCs from the Netherlands, has begun listing notebooks with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30-series graphics processing units inside. The laptops are said to be available in Q1 2021, which confirms a suggestion that Nvidia intends to introduce the first mobile GPUs powered by its Ampere architecture at CES in mid-January. 

Skikk lists eight laptops based on Intel's 10th Generation Core CPUs equipped with a 15.6-inch or 17.3-inch displays that pack Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 with 6GB of GDDR6 memory, GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q with 16GB of GDDR6. The systems are priced at €1,699 ~ €2,599 depending on configuration, as discovered by @momomo_us/Twitter

The PC supplier does not disclose the actual specifications of Nvidia's upcoming mobile GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs. Still, memory configurations can actually reveal several things about the upcoming products, assuming that these configurations are accurate.  

Firstly, none of the graphics solutions use GDDR6X memory, which suggests that the mobile RTX 3080 GPU is not based on the GA102 processor, which supports this type of DRAM.  

Secondly, given the fact that the mobile RTX 3080 carries 16GB of GDDR6, it features a 256-bit memory bus. Therefore, it is highly likely that the mobile GeForce RTX 3080 and the mobile GeForce RTX 3070 (which is accompanied by 8GB of GDDR6) are indeed powered by the GA104 chip. 

Thirdly, as the GeForce RTX 3060 is coupled with 6GB of DRAM, it has a 192-bit memory bus and thus either uses Nvidia's GA104 in a cut-down configuration or the company's yet-unannounced GA106 processor. 

Skikk did not publish images of these laptops, so it most probably does not have them at hand right now, which is logical given that they are set to ship in the first quarter.

Typically, European companies do not build notebooks but order them from large OEMs like Clevo or Sagger. That said, assuming that one of the Dutch laptop retailers plans to start shipments of GeForce RTX 30-powered machines in Q1 2021, it is more than likely that others will follow around the same time.      

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.