Nvidia has announced an all-digital GeForce RTX event on January 12, setting the stage for what's likely to be an official reveal of the GeForce RTX 3060 and laptop variants of the RTX 3000-series.
Promising to showcase “the latest innovations in gaming and graphics," the event and would be an ideal opportunity to reveal a mid-range RTX graphics card targeting the $300 mark. And the event could even see the initial reveal of GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ahead of its rumoured February release.
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The event, titled ‘GeForce RTX: Game On,' will be hosted by GeForce VP Jeff Fisher, meaning while we probably won’t get to see Jensen Huang pulling any new GPUs out of his oven like he did for the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 launch. Still, Nvidia definitely has new hardware cooking.
The most likely candidate for a big reveal is the GeForce RTX 3060. This graphics card will sit below the $400 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti - which is effectively a less powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 - and will likely offer impressive 1440p resolution gaming at 60 frames per second. You can think of the RTX 3060 as very much a mainstream graphics card for PCs priced at around $1,000, and one that offers an entry intro Nvidia's latest ray tracing and DLSS tech.
And there are whispers that two RTX 3060 variants could launch in January: a 12GB model to rival the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB, and a 6GB RTX 3060 that was previously planned to be the RTX 3050 Ti.
As the event is part of 2021’s online CES show, we'd expect the next generation of RTX mobile GPUs to be a focus as well. Nvidia has previously used CES shows to announce new laptop cards, and CES 2021 would seem like a logical time to show off the GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile and the RTX 3070 Mobile.
Those laptop-grade graphics cards are set to have standard and lower-power Max-Q variants. The latter will likely be slightly less powerful but smaller and more efficient, so don’t be surprised if they end up in some of next year’s best gaming laptops.
Is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti coming?
According to the latest rumor, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti - which isn't yet official - has been delayed until Febuary. What's not clear is whether Febuary will be when the rumored Ti card will be revealed or released.
We’ve corroborated reports that the 20GB GeForce RTX 3080 Ti could launch sometime between February 11-17. So with that in mind, Nvidia could use its January event to announce the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and detail its Febuary release.
However, the RTX 3080 Ti is set to have the same GPU as the GeForce RTX 3080, only with boosted video memory. So Team Green might not use its event to retread over what it covered in the initial reveal of the GeForce RTX 3000-series.
Nevertheless, leaked benchmarks have re-confirmed the RTX 3080 Ti is on its way. And given how its very difficult to find where to buy the where to buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, having another variant of that card available will certainly put a smile on the faces of frustrated gaming PC builders.
If you want to tune into Nvidia January event yourself, GeForce RTX: Game On will be streamed online at 12 p.m. ET on Nvidia's website.
