Nvidia has surprisingly announced three new GPU variants for notebooks: the GeForce RTX 2050, GeForce MX 570 and GeForce MX 550. While the specifications of the MX models are unknown, those of the mobile GeForce RTX 2050 seem atypical.
The GPU uses 2048 shader cores and thus more the mobile GeForce RTX 2060 with 1920 cores. Due to the lower power consumption, the boost clock frequency drops, but only marginally from 1185 to 1560 MHz to 1155 to 1477 MHz (depending on the power limit). Notebook manufacturers can run the graphics chip with 30 to 45 watts. The GeForce RTX 2060 is much more power hungry with 65 to 115 watts.
There are significant cuts in the memory. Nvidia couples the GeForce RTX 2050 to 4 instead of 6 GB GDDR6 RAM with 64 instead of 192 data lines. This reduces the transfer rate from 336 to just 112 GB / s – at first glance, the GPU doesn’t seem well balanced, but it potentially works very efficiently.
RTX-2000 Series Specifications for Notebooks. The GeForce RTX 2050 is new.
(Image: Nvidia)
In the 50 watt range, Nvidia previously offered the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q with 1024 shader cores, up to 1560 MHz boost clock frequency and 4 GB of GDDR5 RAM (128 GB / s). Unlike the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q, the GeForce RTX 2050 can basically display ray tracing graphics effects, but according to the data sheet it should be too weak for a smooth display in most cases. DLSS upscaling via the tensor cores is more useful to increase the frame rate in games.
Turing substructure
Nvidia does not reveal which GPU is used in its own overview. Since the GeForce RTX 2050 belongs to the 2000 series, a Turing graphics chip with 12 nanometer technology is an obvious choice. A trimmed TU106 GPU like the GeForce RTX 2060 would be conceivable. The 3000 series uses the successor architecture Ampere with 8 nm technology from Samsung instead of TSMC. Even less is known about the GeForce MX 570 and MX 550. They replace the previous GeForce MX 450 with TU117 GPU and 896 shader cores.
Meanwhile, the timing of the announcement is interesting. In the spring of 2022, Intel will present the second generation of independent Xe GPUs under the series name Arc, which will take the lead in the newly introduced GeForce graphics chips. We expect the first announcements of such Intel notebooks at CES in January 2022.
(mma)