44 PCWorld MARCH 2021REVIEWS NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 MOBILE
For example, the desktop
GeForce RTX 3080 packs 10GB
of GDDR6X using a 320-bit bus
and features 8,704 CUDA
cores. It rocks 760GBps of
memory bandwidth. Our review
called it a “staggering perfor-
mance upgrade,” and we
weren’t kidding.
The mobile RTX 3080 version
steps back to 6,144 CUDA cores,
either 16GB or 8GB of GDDR6 on
a 256-bit bus, and 384GBps of
memory bandwidth. You’re also
looking at nearly a 40-percent reduction in boost
clocks, as well as tensor cores and RT cores.
All told, while the GeForce RTX 3080
mobile carries the branding of the GeForce
RTX 3080 desktop, it’s a very, very different
beast—and a break from Nvidia’s two previous
generations. The 20-series and 10-series
mobile GPUs were mostly from the same dies
as the desktop GPUs, but tuned for laptops.
That’s no more the case. Comparing a
score from 3DMark Port Royal—a ray tracing–
focused GPU test—a desktop GeForce RTX
2080 Super might exceed a mobile GeForce
RTX 2080 Super Max-Q by about 30 percent.
A GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition,
however, might exceed a GeForce RTX 3080
(max-Q) in Port Royal by 50 to 75 percent.
Stew on that.
We say all this because if you’re expecting
the mobile RTX 30-series to replicate adesktop GeForce RTX 3080 that has a thermal
rating of 320 watts and a minimum 750-watt
power supply for the PC itself (remember that
a laptop runs the entire system on the power
brick), you’ve probably set yourself up for
disappointment. There’s only so much you
can do in a 4- to 6-pound gaming laptop
running with a thermal envelope of 80 to 105
watts for the GPU on a 230-watt power brick.
But as you’ll see in our tests, the RTX 30-series
makes the most of what it has.DYNAMIC BOOST 2.0
Among the new features Nvidia brings to its
30-series is an improved Dynamic Boost 2.0.
Dynamic Boost works by shunting power
from the CPU to the GPU when needed,
giving the GPU 15 additional watts of power.
Nvidia raises the AI catchphrase and says
Dynamic Boost 2.0 can increase performanceGigabyte Aorus 17 with GeForce RTX 3080 and Core i7-10870H.