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Nvidia’s GeForce cards aren’t just for gamers anymore. Many professional laptops have new 40-series GPUs on board. A walk over the test bench shows that the chips have
Nvidia’s GeForce cards aren’t just for gamers anymore. Many professional laptops have new 40-series GPUs on board. A walk over the test bench shows that the chips have earned their place in the workshop.
The fact that GeForce cards are also successful in the professional environment has been an open secret for many years. Freelancers and SMBs across the country have saved a ton of money by opting for GeForce GPUs over the much more expensive Quadro cards.
This had drawbacks, such as frequent gaming driver updates and a lack of official support for ISVs. However, those who needed GPU performance for video editing or 3D design outside of a corporate environment were happy to accept these limitations. Unfortunately, the choice couldn’t be hidden: a laptop with an adequate GeForce card is usually built for gamers, with all the design options that come with it.
Today the situation is different. With the elimination of the Quadro brand name, Nvidia no longer makes much of a difference when it comes to GPUs outside of the corporate context. comes instead Studio. This is not a type of GPU, but a designation that indicates that computers are suitable for creative people, even in a professional context.
Studio laptops are therefore perfect for business use and come with Nvidia GeForce RTX cards on board. The latest devices have GPUs from the new RTX 40 series on board, which Nvidia has built on Ada Lovelace-architecture. GeForce and gaming don’t have too much in common on these devices.
For example, we recently started working with the MSI Prestige 16 Studio (read our full review here). The PrestigiousThe brand name already suggests that this device is not intended for gamers, and it looks like it. Thanks to its simple but elegant design, this device also fits perfectly into the more stylish office environment.
Even more important than style is what Studio means to functionality. Studio laptops are optimized for their GPU and support the Nvidia Studio drivers. These are alternative drivers for the GeForce RTX cards they contain, which were developed for professional use. While the traditional GeForce Game Ready drivers receive many updates to be compatible with the latest games, Studio prioritizes stability.
Thanks to the professional drivers, software developers are no longer afraid of GeForce. Vendors like Adobe are happy to support studio computers with Nvidia GeForce RTX chips on board, provided the right driver is available.
The entire studio story is more than a theoretical marketing pitch. Using the MSI Prestige 16 Studio and MSI Stealth 16 Studio (read our full review here) we were able to put the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 through their paces. The laptops were not given preferential treatment and were tested as full-fledged workstations.
The results support the studio story. Let’s first look at graphics workloads in the context of media and 3D design. For workloads within Maya or 3ds Max, we see good numbers for both cards, with the RTX 4070 being a notch above, as expected.
Benchmark numbers alone don’t tell much, so we bring another laptop with Nvidia RTX A4500. This is a GPU that Nvidia developed exclusively for professional use. This GPU is better suited to the corporate context (thanks in part to ECC memory).
The numbers don’t lie. The GeForce RTX cards perform well in the same category. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 belongs to the mid-range and therefore has less performance on board than the RTX A4500, but the GeForce RTX 4070 is already closer to the top of the segment and therefore performs better.
However, studio laptops are not just for design. Data workloads accelerated by graphics cards are also very popular today. To do this, we test the laptops with the deep learning framework Caffe and Folding@Home: a workload that simulates drug design.
The results agree. The GeForce RTX cards are perfect for this type of work and the GeForce RTX 4070 easily outperforms even the “pure” pro GPU.
The tests show that the studio story is correct. In a professional context, a laptop with such a label is definitely the right choice. The connotation that GeForce may still have in mind can be linked to the garbage.
Of course, Nvidia continues to only produce professional cards like the RTX A4500. You also have a right to exist. They are more geared towards corporate environments where even the smallest mistake can have serious consequences. The ECC memory plays an important role in this.
In addition, Nvidia optimizes the GPUs for other niche tasks that are not so easy to find in the SME context. Think of very scientific tasks like analyzing seismic data in the energy sector or advanced programs from the banking world. We see a difference in favor of the non-GeForce cards. This also applies, for example, to product development with SolidWorks.
Nvidia’s GeForce cards are perfect for photo and video editing, 3D design, color correction and other tasks in the audiovisual field or analytics and ML training in the data world. This makes devices like our test laptops from MSI an excellent choice for any company.
This editorial was created in collaboration with MSI.
Source: IT Daily
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.
