Nvidia will be running a 'special event' today at 9am PST / 12pm EST. The event is labeled GeForce RTX: Game On, and there's a countdown currently running on Nvidia's site. You can also watch the stream right here, which will likely be a pre-recorded video. This isn't an official CES presentation, and the stream will apparently feature Senior VP Jeff Fisher rather than CEO Jensen Huang, though perhaps we'll still get to see Jensen's smiling face and leather jacket.
As for the content, Nvidia isn't officially saying anything yet, but all indications are that it will unveil a full line of Ampere architecture GPUs for laptops. These will range from GeForce RTX 3080 down to GeForce RTX 3060, in both standard and efficiency optimized Max-Q variants. That means nearly every gaming laptop currently on sale is set for a refresh with the new graphics cards.
We also expect Nvidia to launch GeForce RTX 3060 desktop cards. Rumors are swirling, but the RTX 3060 will reportedly feature GA106 silicon and 6GB VRAM, and potentially a 12GB model as well. We're very interested to find out how the card performs and where it lands in our GPU Benchmarks hierarchy, though we also expect it will follow the rest of the best graphics cards and end up selling out about ten seconds after the launch.
That brings up an interesting point. If you want to get a new gaming PC, right now it's actually easier to find gaming laptops with decent graphics cards than it is to find desktop cards in stock at anything approaching reasonable prices. Maybe RTX 30-series laptops won't sell out quite as quickly as the desktop cards. Certainly we don't expect cryptocurrency miners or scalpers to try and snap them up. But that doesn't help people hoping to upgrade or build a gaming desktop.
