MARCH 2021 PCWorld 17preorder status until later in the month.
Heading over to Newegg (go.pcworld.
com/negg), you’ll find several MSI RTX 3060
laptops, some still in preorder status. But
good news! A trio of Gigabyte offerings can
be purchased right now: the $1,500 Aorus
15G (go.pcworld.com/a15g), a $1,600 Aero
15 (go.pcworld.com/aer5) with a 4K OLED
display, and the larger $1,700 Aero 17 (go.
pcworld.com/aer7). Razer also offers RTX
3060-laden versions of its popular laptops
with the $1,700 Razer Blade (go.pcworld.
com/17bl) and $2,300 Razer Blade Pro (go.
pcworld.com/blpr), complete with Razer’s
typical hefty markup. You can buy those
today, too.
Most available GeForce RTX 3060 laptops
come in the form of thin-and-light machines,
which makes sense as PC makers want to put
their best (and most premium) foot forward.
That said, two notebooks come close to
Nvidia’s claimed $999 starting price
for RTX 3060 laptops: the
aforementioned $1,000 MSI GF
and the $1,100 Gigabyte G5 (go.
pcworld.com/gig5), slated for a
March 5 release date. Both come with
blisteringly fast displays—144Hz on
the MSI, 240Hz for the Gigabyte—
despite their affordable pricing. But
most of the models in the lineup cost
much more.
That’s a lot better than the abysmal
state of desktop graphics cards (go.
pcworld.com/absm), which remain
impossible to find. Even older models are
being price-gouged mercilessly.
Nevertheless, it appears that Nvidia’s RTX
30-series laptop rollout prioritizes pricier
hardware over more affordable options,
mirroring what we’ve seen from next-gen
graphics cards and AMD’s new Ryzen 5000
processors (go.pcworld.com/r5rv). That
might make budget-minded gamers bitter,
but with demand for virtually every PC
component or gaming gizmo through the
roof these days, it makes a lot of business
sense. Pricier parts mean more profits.
If you’re hoping to get your hands on a
gaming notebook, check out these RTX 3070
and 3080 laptops you can buy right now (go.
pcworld.com/11gf). Be warned that
shopping for gaming laptops is harder now
(go.pcworld.com/hrdr) due to some
fundamental changes in the RTX 30-series.GeForce RTX 30-series laptops can support Nvidia Max-Q
3.0 technologies like Advanced Optimus, Resizable BAR
(pictured), Dynamic Boost 2.0, and Whisper Mode 2.0.