The 4 RTX 30 series models currently in development

The graphics card market is booming. AMD will announce its new Radeon 6000 series cards on October 28, 2020. Intel, for its part, continues to develop its Iris Xe series paired with its Tiger Lake processors. Nvidia is also busy and is working on four GeForce RTX 30 series models.

What cards is Nvidia working on?

Nvidia is currently working on four models: the GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q, the GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q, the GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q, and the GeForce RTX 3060 Max-P . These are laptop models optimized by Ampere. Nvidia has apparently already sent the specifications to its partners. If there are no changes, an announcement will be made in January 2021.

The cards will be based on three models: the RTX 3080, the RTX 3070, and the RTX 3060. There will be three Max-Q versions and one Max-P version. "Q" stands for quality; Max-Q cards consume less power and run cooler. They have a TDP of around 90 watts . There will also be a Max-P version of the RTX 3060. "P" stands for performance; this version offers higher performance but consumes slightly more power. As a reminder, Max-P versions can have a TDP of up to 350 watts.

Specifications of these GeForce cards

These notebook cards use the same GPU versions as those for desktop PCs. The RTX 3080 is an exception, featuring a GA104 instead of a GA102. These GPUs are manufactured by Samsung using an 8nm . They do not yet use the 7nm manufacturing process, like the one used by TSMC.

Rumors suggest that the RTX 3060 Max-Q and Max-P graphics cards will use GDDR6 memory, not GDDR6X. These cards will reportedly use a GA104 mini or a GA106. Initially, these graphics cards will be found in laptops with 10th generation Intel Core (Comet Lake) CPUs, before being used in PCs with Intel's 8-core, 16-thread Tiger Lake-H processors. Therefore:

• The RTX 3080 Max-Q will accompany the Comet-Lake (CML) laptop with a Core i9-10980HK processor, equipped with 64GB of RAM and two 1TB SSDs (2 x 1TB). The operating system used will be Windows 10 Pro;
• The RTX 3070 Max-Q will be installed in a Comet Lake laptop with a Core i9-10870H processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The laptop will run Windows 10 Pro. Another version running Windows 10 Home, also equipped with the RTX 3070 Max-Q, will be available. This laptop will feature a Core i9-10870H processor, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD.
• The RTX 3060 Max-P will be installed in a Comet Lake laptop with a Core i9-10870H processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. The operating system will be Windows 10 Pro.

Intel is reportedly producing Tiger Lake laptops equipped with GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards. The company is also expected to equip some of these next-generation PCs with its Iris Xe . We'll see how the competition fares, especially with the upcoming arrival of AMD's Radeon 6000 series, based on the RDNA 2 architecture.