Written by Sam
Edited on
8 November 2023
·
08:21
What's a gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX video card?
Many powerful gaming laptops nowadays have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX video card. With such a card, your gaming laptop has enough power for demanding tasks like gaming and streaming. You can read what makes RTX video cards special and what you can do with them on this page.
What's an RTX video card?
A gaming laptop need a 'dedicated' video card to play games. This performs all the demanding graphic tasks. The RTX product series of NVIDIA is currently one of the most powerful ones. The advantage of RTX cards is that they do more than provide a great performance. They're also available in different versions, so you can always choose the card that suits you. RTX 3050 and 4050 cards are suitable for medium demanding games, while the RTX 4090 is powerful enough for the most demanding games and streaming.
View all gaming laptops with RTX cards
Ray tracing and DLSS
Ray tracing: realistic lighting
A large advantage of RTX video cards is the ray tracing support. This technology provides better lighting effects. This way, lighting, shadows, and reflections look more realistic. Think of the light that shines through clouds or smokes, and of reflections in the water or a shiny sword. In short, ray tracing improves mainly the visual gaming experience. A large number of games supports ray tracing, like Minecraft, Fortnite, Hogwarts Legacy, and Portal.
DLSS: higher fps
If you play a game that supports DLSS, the RTX video card provides extra smooth and sharp images. With the NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology, the video card renders frames at a lower resolution. If you play games in 4K resolution, the card renders frames in Full HD first. Afterwards, it converts them to 4K. This way, you can play with a sharp image at a high fps, because it's less demanding to render at a low resolution. Hogwarts Legacy, Dying Light 2, and Cyberpunk 2077 are some of the games that support this.
Different RTX series
RTX 3000 series
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series is the successor to the RTX 2000 series. The 3000 video cards are a lot more powerful than their predecessors. This way, the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3070 are faster than the RTX 2080. With an RTX 30 series card, you get more power than with a video card of a lower price range. The RTX 3000 series is already followed up by the 4000 series, but we still sell laptops with 3000 cards.
RTX 4000 series
At the start of 2023, NVIDIA released the first laptops with RTX 4000 series video cards. The difference in power is less big than the difference between the 3000 and 2000 series, but the 4000 cards are still a bit better. That's because RTX 4000 video cards use their power more efficiently. This improves the performance while you game. For example, you have a higher FPS and lighting effects look realistic with the improved ray tracing.
Also for students and creators
RTX cards are suitable for gamers, students, and graphic designers. You can use them to edit 3D designs in demanding software like Unreal Engine and Blender. Your photos and videos also render faster with an RTX video card. This makes them useful if you make professional banners or company videos or if you follow a graphic design or technical course.
The difference with NVIDIA GeForce GTX cards
In addition to the RTX series, NVIDIA also makes GTX video cards like the GTX 1650. These are less powerful and future-proof than RTX card. You can play light games at high settings, or slightly more demanding games at medium settings. This makes gaming laptops with a GTX video card mainly suitable for beginner or casual gamers. Do you often work in demanding 3D software like Unreal Engine? We recommend an RTX video card instead of GTX, because these have more RAM.
