Having had a successful launch of its desktop GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics card, Nvidia is kicking off 2021 with a CES announcement that focuses on gaming. The company announced that it will be hosting a GeForce RTX: Game On event at the trade show on January 12, 2021, without detailing specifics on what gamers can expect.
Like in the recent past, Nvidia’s keynote will be livestreamed. Given the state of the ongoing pandemic, CES is a virtual event this year and won’t be held in Las Vegas, as in years prior. Nvidia will follow the virtual format for CES, as it had done with previous announcements, like the debut of the highly acclaimed RTX 3000 series GPUs.
How to watch Nvidia’s Game On keynote
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX: Game On event will kick off at 9 a.m. PT (noon ET) on Tuesday, January 12. GeForce fans can visit Nvidia’s dedicated page to watch the video feed of the announcement, which will likely be pre-recorded rather than live.
Nvidia’s Game On page also lists links to YouTube and Twitch. The company had used both platforms in the past to connect with its gaming fans, so you can likely expect the keynote to also be streamed there as well. We’ll update this post with an embedded video feed once we have a direct link.
Alternatively, if you’re not able to view the stream live for whatever reason, be sure to follow Digital Trends’ CES 2021 coverage for all the latest technology news.
What to expect from Nvidia’s GeForce RTX announcement
Nvidia
With the 2020 launch of the RTX 3000 series, Nvidia had launched four desktop graphics cards: RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and the more affordable RTX 3060 Ti. Come January, we expect Nvidia to both expand its desktop lineup with even more affordable GPUs as well as announce new mobile graphics cards for laptop gaming.
The RTX 3000 series mobile GPUs will likely be the biggest news from Nvidia at CES 2021, and we can expect to see mobile variants of the flagship RTX 3080 in portable gaming laptops from many manufacturers.
Late last year, Twitter user @TUM_APISAK had spotted an accidental leaking from retailer Pinnacle that showed an unannounced Asus ROG Zephyrus gaming notebook with a discrete RTX 3080 GPU.
Nvidia’s mobile GPU will likely include other models of the RTX 3000 series. Like the desktop variants, these mobile cards will be based on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture that introduced us to the company’s second-generation ray tracing core. In effect, gamers can expect better ray tracing performance, particularly at higher resolutions.
On the desktop side, Nvidia will likely augment its lineup by potentially adding more affordable cards, like an RTX 3050. At the high-end of the spectrum, it’s been rumored that Nvidia is also working on an RTX 3080 Ti card that will come with more memory. That card will slot in between the RTX 3080 flagship and the RTX 3090 enthusiast-grade GPU. Though the card could get unveiled in January, insiders speculate that the RTX 3080 Ti won’t be available for purchase until February around the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.
It’s unclear if Nvidia will use the event to give gamers an update on some of its highly publicized supply issues that have created shortages of its desktop GPUs.