TAIPEI, TAIWAN -- Nvidia just kicked off an entirely new class of performance laptops that will be housed under the Nvidia Studio brand. Whenever you see an "Nvidia Studio" sticker on a laptop, it means that the system is part of a program designed to help creators generate content by ensuring that they have the best hardware and software to work with.
The news comes shortly after Nvidia unveiled new Turing-based Quadro GPUs for mobile workstations, some of which are already being used on Nvidia Studio-branded laptops.
Nvidia Studio
So, what exactly are the benefits of buying an Nvidia Studio-branded laptops? When you see an RTX Studio sticker, it means a system complies with Nvidia's set of standards for providing the right balance of software optimization and hardware performance in order to sufficiently run demanding tasks, like video editing or 3D graphics modeling.
In short, Nvidia Studio is a set of rules designed to improve the performance and reliability of laptops made for creators. It does so using a software stack of SDKs and drivers that maximize performance when you're rendering, video editing and processing 2D animation. Nvidia says it works alongside software developers, like Adobe and Autodesk, to test the laptops on various programs.
Nvidia Studio laptops use RTX Max-Q GPUs, which provide plenty of performance while allowing for a thin and lightweight form factor. More specifically, these systems require at least a 1080p or 4K display, an H-series Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and Quadro RTX graphics (see below) or RTX 2080, 2070 and 2060 GPUs to quality. With these specs, Nvidia Studio laptops can supposedly offer 7x performance over the MacBook Pro.
“NVIDIA Studio pairs RTX GPUs, which enable real-time ray tracing, AI processing and high-resolution video editing, with studio-grade software to surpass the growing demands of today’s creators,” said Jason Paul, general manager of GeForce software and technology at Nvidia. “The new RTX Studio laptops are the perfect tool for creatives who need desktop-class performance while on the go.”
Seventeen Nvidia Studio-certified laptops have already been announced by several major laptop makers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, MSI and Razer. These systems will be available in June at a starting price of $1,600.
Turing-based Quadro GPUs
Nvidia's Studio program coincides with the release of new Turing-based Quadro RTX graphics cards. Designed for mobile workstations, the new cards include the Quadro RTX 5000, 4000 and 3000 on the high-end as well as the Quadro T2000 and T1000.
Credit: Nvidia
As the newest member of the Turing lineup, these Quadro GPUs wield RT cores for real-time ray tracing as well as Tensor cores for deep learning applications. Performance between the Quadro RTX 5000 and its Pascal-based predecessor, the P5200, should be comparable, but the new RTX cards are more efficient and support ray tracing for more realistic lighting effects.
We should be seeing sleeker workstations in the coming months because the new Quadro RTX cards are small enough to fit in laptops that pack Max-Q graphics.
We'll be getting some more hands-on time with Nvidia Studio-compliant laptops --- some of which house the new Quadro RTX cards --- in the next few days, so stick around for more coverage.
