NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q Mobile Turing GPU Reportedly Weeks Away From Launch
NVIDIA recently announced a new generation of desktop graphics cards for consumers based on its Turing GPU architecture, and with specialized real-time ray tracing hardware underneath the hood. These new cards have the potential to usher in a new era in gaming. But what about mobile? It stands to reason that mobile GPU launch will follow, and that seems to be the case.
Playing games with parts of scenes displaying real-time ray tracing effects is certainly exciting. It's also a demanding ask of the hardware. The desktop is the logical place to start, though it's not the only place gamers play PC games. Gaming laptops is a thriving category, and there is evidence to suggest that a mobile GeForce RTX 2080 with Max-Q design is headed to the sector.
We've already seen hints of this by laptop makers. In August, Eurocom had referenced a handful of unannounced mobile GPUs, including RTX parts. Where things get more interesting, however, is on Github where a bunch of NVIDIA device IDs have appeared. One entry that stands out is labeled "Turing TU104M: 1eab."
This is supposedly in reference to a mobile version of the GeForce RTX 2080. There is no mention of it being based on NVIDIA's Max-Q design, though it is a reasonable expectation. And for what it's worth, WCCFTech said it heard from a source that it will indeed be a Max-Q GPU.
"We will put the 2080 Max-Q into the current thin 15 and 17 [inch] with NVIDIA's help," the source said. "It's still unclear on when the 2070 will be out. It don't think the weight will increase significantly on this new card. Our ID/design will be pretty much the same as what you saw."
Assuming the information and speculation is accurate, it might be a longer wait before lower end mobile GeForce RTX SKUs find their way into laptops. For one, NVIDIA and its partners may choose instead to clear out inventories of existing Pascal GPUs. And secondly, the GeForce RTX 2070 won't ship until sometime in October, and it would be unusual for mobile parts based on the same GPU to release before the desktop SKU.
