NVIDIA has quietly expanded its mobile graphics cards by announcing a new RTX 5070 Laptop GPU configuration with 12GB of VRAM.
The original RTX 5070 mobile with 8GB of VRAM doesn't look to be going anywhere. Instead, this is a play by NVIDIA to give its OEM partners more options to work with while the global RAM crisis rages on.
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How does adding more VRAM to a GPU help solve memory shortages?
How does adding more VRAM to a GPU help when memory is so hard to come by? It's all about the type of memory used in the new 12GB configurations.
The new RTX 5070 mobile with 12GB of VRAM uses 24Gb GDDR7 memory, whereas the 8GB VRAM model uses 16Gb GDDR7 memory.
Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs remains strong, and memory supply is constrained. In order to maximize memory availability, we are releasing the GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU 12GB configuration with 24Gb G7 memory. This gives our partners access to an additional pool of memory to complement the 16Gb G7 supply that currently ships with most GeForce GPUs. The 12GB configuration will exist alongside the current 8GB configuration, and allows our partners to bring a broader range of GeForce RTX 5070 laptops to consumers.
NVIDIA
The manufacturing process for these types of memory is different. 24Gb uses 3GB memory modules, whereas 16Gb uses 2GB modules. The former modules have seen increased production of late by manufacturers like Samsung and Micron.
Spreading out the memory type should help NVIDIA source components for its mobile cards, allowing it to provide more GPUs to its partners.
It doesn't appear that NVIDIA is changing anything else on its RTX 5070 mobile GPU. Core counts remain the same, as does bandwidth and memory bus.
Windows Central's take
Regardless of a lack of other changes to the RTX 5070, with how memory-hungry modern games have become, getting a 50% boost compared to the original isn't a bad thing.
And if it allows NVIDIA to keep the mobile GPUs flowing to its partners, I'm on board.
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