Contrary to what one might think, sometimes less high-end graphics cards can be more powerful than their counterparts. In reality, this is especially in the case of very recent laptops. Indeed, from year to year, the manufacturers increase the performances of their machine and, at the same time, those of the GPU.
When the GeForce RTX 3060 hit the market in early 2021, success was almost immediate. It must be said that with the situation for the least complicated stocks of the time, necessarily coupled with an exponential rise in prices, the players were not asked to throw themselves on a graphics card cheaper than its congeners. At the risk of ignoring performance… at least, in theory only.
Indeed, according to benchmarks carried out on 3DMark, some portable gaming PCs equipped with RTX 3060 obtain better performance than those on RTX 3070. How is this possible? In reality, everything is played on the release date. While the RTX 4000s are still long overdue, Nvidia hasn’t released a new generation of GPUs in over a year. However, in the meantime, PC manufacturers continue to market new products, which they must make more efficient to convince users.
Better a recent laptop than an RTX 3090
In fact, they find several tricks to increase the power without changing the graphics card. Take the example of the Asus TUF Gaming F15 FX507ZM, released in 2022. Equipped with an RTX 3060, it scores better on 3DMark than the Asus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QR-AZ061T, equipped with an RTX 3070… but released last year. How? ‘Or’ What ?
On the same subject: Hundreds of GeForce RTX 3060s sold at bargain prices invade the second-hand market
To do this, the firm has increased the TGP to 140W, instead of 95W for the 2021 model. The clock frequency has also been considerably boosted, since it goes from 1710 MHz to 1927 MHz. Coupled with faster DDR5 RAM, the laptop gets 10% to 20% better graphics performance. That’s enough to exceed the performance of the Asus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QR-AZ061T and its RTX 3070. Moral of the story: if you want a laptop for gaming, look at the newer models instead.
